Antebellum evangelicals pursued education, prison reform, women’s rights, and even gun control

Evidence

The program of social reform unleashed by Finney and other evangelicals early in the nineteenth century stands in marked contrast to the agenda of the Religious Right. For antebellum evangelicals, benevolence took many forms, including education, prison reform, and advocacy for the poor and for the rights of women. Many evangelicals, seeking to obey the commands of Jesus to love their enemies and turn the other cheek, enlisted in efforts to oppose violence and war; I’ve even discovered a reference to an evangelical campaign for gun control. — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith, 46

Categorization

• CANDY: The image of an evangelical campaign for gun control two centuries before today’s Christian-right gun politics is a striking conversational nugget.
• SEED: Could ground an essay contrasting nineteenth-century evangelical social reform with the modern Religious Right’s agenda.
• XREF: connects to: Early evangelicals championed women’s rights until reactionary fundamentalism displaced egalitarianism — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne: How White…, 64; Northern evangelicals led abolition and common-school movements for poor and immigrant children — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith: Race and the Rise of the…, 47; Antebellum evangelicals campaigned for causes the modern Religious Right opposes — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith: Race and the Rise of the…, 47 (+1 more)

Related

• Antebellum evangelicals campaigned for causes the modern Religious Right opposes (similarity 0.95)
• Northern evangelicals of the era backed antislavery and immigrant public schooling (similarity 0.86)
• Northern evangelicals led abolition and common-school movements for poor and immigrant children (similarity 0.82)
• American evangelicalism was politically reformist long before it aligned with the right (similarity 0.81)
• Early evangelicals championed women’s rights until reactionary fundamentalism displaced egalitarianism (similarity 0.80)
• The Second Awakening drove determined evangelical mobilization toward equality despite imperfect methods (similarity 0.80)
• Evangelicals abandoned social reform for individual conversion as proto-liberals embraced it (similarity 0.79)
• Early evangelical responses to civil rights were divided along left and fundamentalist lines (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Northern evangelicals led abolition and common-school movements for poor and immigrant children #expands (0.80) — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith, 47
• Early evangelicals championed women’s rights until reactionary fundamentalism displaced egalitarianism #corroborates (0.75) — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne, 64