American evangelicalism has been the subject of scores of books and articles since the 1970s. Most of these studies focus on doctrinal or theological standards, and denominational and ecclesiastical variations, with some attention to the public resurgence of evangelicalism, developing trends in growth and expansion, and the evolving definitional and identity crisis. Barry Hankins's American Evangelicals breaks in some ways with this pattern, offering instead a more historical approach to evangelical Christianity in the United States. Hankins, a professor of history and church-state studies at Baylor University, reminds us that evangelicalism in contemporary America is incomprehensible apart from a serious study of the historical, cultural, and political forces and realities that gave rise to and shaped it over the last three centuries.

Hankins takes a structural approach in explaining how evangelical positions on a range of hotly contested issues, such as science, race, gender, and politics, began and evolved up to the present time. He actually advances a threefold thesis. First, “there is much more complexity and diversity among evangelicals” (ix) than we have been led to believe. Second, evangelicals have always been “quite at home in the culture” (ix), despite being in tension at times with the culture. Finally, “evangelicals are not fundamentally different from other Americans, at least when it comes to a highly individualistic view of life” (x), a contention that is clearly open to debate. In any case, Hankins supports his claims quite well by drawing on evangelical biographies, regional studies, and numerous secondary works in the field of American evangelicalism. However, the book could have benefited from a greater reliance on primary source materials.

Chapter 1 begins, quite appropriately, with some attention to the First and Second Great Awakenings and how they inspired the beginnings of evangelicalism in America. The chapter flows well and is easy to read, in part because Hankins identifies the essentials of evangelicalism, making special mention of Biblicism, crucicentrism, conversionism, and activism. But the effort is slightly marred by a lack of serious analytical depth. The content of the chapter, with endnotes, is only eighteen pages in length, and this is most certainly problematic given the sheer magnitude of the subject matter. Also, Hankins should have included a piece on Puritanism as his first chapter, while turning to the Awakenings as the focus of a second chapter. As so much of the scholarship shows, the Puritan awakening, as it unfolded in England and subsequently in the American colonies, gave birth to the kind of revivalistic spirit and fervor that made the First and Second Great Awakenings possible.

The second chapter traces the rise of theological modernism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, with some attention to the emergence of fundamentalism and neo-evangelicalism as well. Hankins offers a clear and compelling definition of theological liberalism, defining it as “the adjusting of religious ideas to modern ways of thinking, the idea that God is immanent and is revealed in cultural development, and the belief that civilization was progressing toward the kingdom of God” (19). Fundamentalism's emphasis on the inerrancy and authority of scripture, the virgin birth, Christ's substitutionary atonement, the bodily resurrection, and the authenticity of the miracles of Jesus also are highlighted, and so is the rise of neo-evangelicalism as a reaction against the extremes of fundamentalism. Hankins argues that developments in this period constituted the origins of the “culture wars” (19) or faith conflicts. Clearly, he rejects the view, put forth in James D. Hunter's Culture Wars: The Struggle to Define America (New York: BasicBooks, 1991), that the culture-war divide originated in the context of religious pluralism in the colonial period, a position that appears more defensible.

Chapters 3 through 6 treat a number of highly contested issues that support Hankins's claims about the continuing trend toward “culture wars” since the early years of the twentieth century. The battle over science as it has advanced from the anti-evolution controversies of the 1920s to the current debates about intelligent design is covered, and so are the conflicts over end-times prophecy, racial justice, gender equality, gay rights, and the proper role of religion and religious symbolism in the public or political arena. Hankins is correct in saying that evangelicals today are often angry about the teaching of evolution in public schools, abortion rights, gay marriage, and the removal of religious symbols from public spaces, but his claims at many points seem to undermine a significant component of his thesis, that evangelicals are fundamentally the same as other Americans.

The seventh and final chapter was obviously inspired by a reading of Mark A. Noll's The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1994). Hankins affords rich insights into the diversity and complexity within the evangelical subculture as a whole, giving some attention to the ways in which fundamentalists and evangelicals critique each other. In Hankins's estimation, the levels of diversity and complexity, which are too often ignored or trivialized, reveal a lack of consensus in the larger American culture.

Hankins writes well and apparently has a strong grasp of the many issues and problems as they have unfolded in the history of American evangelicalism, but the topics he explores deserve more than the kind of superficial treatment he provides. Even so, the book has something to offer those who have little knowledge of evangelical Christianity, and it is most suitable for undergraduate courses on the subject and for ordinary persons in churches. It serves quite well as an introduction to the history of American evangelicalism.