On Memorial Day weekend in 1944 an adventurous group of evangelical Protestants filled the rented Orchestra Hall to launch "Chicagoland Youth for Christ."
The preacher for that day was an unknown greenhorn from a modest suburban church, the Rev. Billy Graham by name. Soon Youth For Christ was staging rallies every week at the Michigan Avenue musical shrine, with Graham as its first full-time evangelist. On Memorial Day weekend 1945, an even more audacious breakthrough event drew 60,000 or more to Soldier Field.
What was the origin of America's oft-rambunctious, complex and remarkably successful evangelical Protestant movement as we have come to know it?
Some will cite the 1942 formation of the National Association of Evangelicals by conservatives — including many in mainline Protestant churches — fleeing the old "fundamentalist" brand. But The Guy contends it was those Chicago spectacles leading into a nationwide "parachurch" organization with Graham as its charismatic leader.
The media and their audiences tend to see evangelicalism in terms of star preachers, megachurches, media, music, missions and more recently immersion in Republican political wars. Oh, yes, and scandals.
But the movement cannot possibly be understood apart from its beliefs as propounded by thinkers at graduate-level divinity schools and the students they trained. Their impact has been profound, and global in scope.
Three multi-denominational seminaries led the way, and their current woes — part of negative trends in theological education as a whole — are worth substantive journalistic analysis.
* Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California was the pioneer, founded in 1947, with Graham as a long-time backer and board member.
