American evangelicalism’s core traits trace to three eighteenth-century religious streams

Evidence

In North America, evangelicalism emerged from the confluence of what I call the three Ps in the middle decades of the eighteenth century: the vestiges of New England Puritanism, Scots-Irish Presbyterianism, and Continental Pietism. These strands ignited into a huge conflagration of religious enthusiasm known to historians as the Great Awakening. To this day, evangelicalism in America bears the marks of those initial influences—the obsessive introspection of the Puritans, the doctrinal precision of the Presbyterians, and the emphasis on a warmhearted, affective spirituality from Pietism. — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith, 28

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines evangelicalism’s American character by its three genealogical sources — a usable framework, not just a label.
• SEED: Angle: how much of ‘Religious Right’ DNA is actually Pietist emotionalism versus Puritan introspection — a genealogy-of-politics essay.
• XREF: connects to: The Religious Right includes more than fundamentalists — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith: Race and the Rise of the…, 36; American evangelicalism was politically reformist long before it aligned with the right — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith: Race and the Rise of the…, 41