America’s Bible culture began with the colonists’ prevalent usage of the KJV Bible. With an increasing Protestant identity in the colonies and the conviction that God’s favor was upon the land, two Great Awakenings surfaced in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The first Awakening, led by a KJV Bible inspired Methodist, George Whitefield, emphasized the personal conversion experience. The movement along with the KJV Bible spread throughout the south paving the way for the second Great Awakening, which was in part formed out of resistance to American deism. Stressing a morally reformed Christian nation, the second Great Awakening brought about a form of evangelical Christianity. Both of these Awakenings highlighted the millenarian …show more content…
Fundamentalists strictly opposed modernism and science (especially Darwinian evolution). Following World War I, a new group known as New Evangelicals began to branch off from the fundamentalists. This new group of evangelicals along with their conservative views began to participate in politics giving rise to the Moral Majority, the Christian Coalition, and finally the Religious or Christian Right. The election of George W. Bush epitomized the influence of the Religious Right in the White House. This is not to say, however, that Christians in the Democratic Party had no influence because in appealing to Christian sentiments and naming himself a Christian, Barack Obama mobilized Democratic evangelical Christians to vote for him. As the author points out, the KJV Bible is not exclusive to the white religious right; Martin Luther King’s KJV diction in his speeches alludes to this fact. Similarly, and earlier in history, President Lincoln alludes to the Scriptures in his Gettysburg Address, pointing out the arguments the North and the South could make from the Bible concerning slavery. Furthermore, the prevalence of the KJV Bible is evident at the inauguration of presidents. President Bush and President Obama, along with previous presidents, chose to be sworn by KJV Bible namely the Washington Bible and the Lincoln Bible (used by Barack