Doctoral Dissertation Research: A Vision for the Center--Elite Refashioning of American Evangelicalism

本论文旨在探讨美国福音主义的变化轮廓，研究其发展作为一个当代社会运动，并特别注意社会领袖在这一宗教运动的改造中的作用。 福音主义是美国宗教景观的核心部分，它在过去三十年中发生了变化。 虽然一些研究探讨了基层的福音派运动，但很少有学术界关注精英在美国福音派中的作用。 本文假设，一群精英，谁将被称为“领先的福音派”，代表了“隐藏的手”的福音派，并施加了重大的，往往低估的影响，改变运动的方向，范围和战略自1976年以来。这个项目旨在了解一群主要的福音派人士如何将这场运动从一场局限于美国生活中较低的社会经济阶层的运动转变为一场在白宫和其他社会影响力职位上的运动。 通过半结构化的采访领先的福音派线人，福音派组织的文件的内容分析，并在几个福音派聚会参与观察，这个项目将带来承担调查的多种方法来研究这个重要的，不断变化的美国社会的一面。 拟议的研究将解决五个主要问题：1）主要福音派的识别和他们的宗教生活的分析; 2）主要福音派网络的相对凝聚力和两极分化; 3）合法化的运动，以更广泛的公众观众; 4）资助运动，并检查权力，财富和慈善事业的问题之间的紧张关系;和5）社会运动的领导。 这项研究的广泛影响如下：这项研究将有助于研究人员有兴趣了解当代美国福音派，精英的宗教生活，当代宗教运动与更广泛的社会世界互动的方式，特别是在权力和影响力的最高水平，文化偶像之间的关系和一般公众在一个共同的身份矩阵，以及精英及其网络在重塑制度边界和文化剧目中的作用。

This dissertation aims to explore the changing contours of American evangelicalism, examining its development as a contemporary social movement and paying particular attention to the role of societal leaders in the refashioning of this religious movement. Evangelicalism is a central part of the American religious landscape, and it has changed over the last thirty years. While some studies have explored the evangelical movement at the grassroots level, little scholarly attention has been directed to the role of elites within American evangelicalism. This dissertation hypothesizes that a cohort of elites-who will be called "leading evangelicals"-represent the "hidden hand" of evangelicalism and have exerted significant, often understated influence in changing the movement's direction, scope, and strategies since 1976. This project seeks to understand how a cohort of leading evangelicals have transformed the movement from one confined to the lower socio-economic strata of American life to a movement at home in the White House and among other positions of societal influence. Through semi-structured interviews with leading evangelical informants, content analysis of evangelical organizations' documents, and participant-observation at several evangelical gatherings, this project will bring to bear multiple methods of inquiry to examine this important, changing aspect of American society. The proposed research will address five primary issues: 1) identification of leading evangelicals and an analysis of their religious lives; 2) relative cohesion and polarization of leading evangelical networks; 3) legitimating the movement to a wider public audience; 4) financing the movement and examining the tensions among issues of power, wealth, and philanthropy; and 5) social movement leadership. The broader impacts of this research are as follows: This research will be of useful to researchers interested in understanding contemporary U.S. evangelicalism, elites' religious lives, ways in which contemporary religious movements interact with the wider social world, particularly at the highest levels of power and influence, the relationships between cultural icons and the general public within the matrix of a shared identity, and the role of elites and their networks in refashioning institutional boundaries and cultural repertoires.