This thesis contends that youth from age twelve to twenty-five played a pivotal role in the revivals of the Second Great Awakening in New York and New England. Rather than merely being passive onlookers in these religious renewals, the youth were active participants, influencing the frequency, spread, and intensity of the Christian revivals. Relying heavily upon personal accounts written by youth and revival records from various denominations, this work examines adolescent religious experiences during the first half of the nineteenth century. Chapter 1 explores the impact parents had on youth religiosity, showing how the teaching and examples they saw in their homes built the religious foundation for young people. The next chapter discusses how the youth continued to build upon what they were taught in their homes by seeking for personal conversion experiences. This chapter contends that conversion experiences were the crucial spiritual turning point in the lives of young people, and explores how they were prepared for and reacted to these experiences. Chapter 3 outlines personal worship among the youth and describes the specific tactics that churches implemented in helping convert and strengthen the young. As churches used revival meetings and clergy-youth relationships to fortify these converts, young people implemented the same practices in helping their peers. Finally, chapter 4 utilizes revival records and Methodist church data to provide quantitative evidence of the widespread and crucial role that young people had in influencing revivals. Understanding the widespread impact of these youth on nineteenth-century revivals provides new insight into the ways in which young people impacted the greater social, religious, and culture changes sweeping across America at the time.

The purposes of this study were to discover the current status of church administration of the Evangelical Churches of West Africa (ECWA) and to offer recommendations. In order to achieve these purposes, an extensive review of the professional literature dealing with church administration and management was conducted, and a questionnaire was constructed and categorized into the following broad areas of church administration: (1) church government, (2) educational leadership (3) evangelism and missions, (4) financial management, and (5) general administration. The following conclusions were drawn: 1. Management of church affaris under the four administrative church councils appears to be less than effective. 2. Professional local church leadership appears to be weak. 3. Strategies regarding recruitment of missionaries and mission finances appear weak. 4. The ECWA appears to lack both an acceptable criteria and specified groups for evaluation of theological programs. 5. Better financial management is one of ECWA's major areas of need. 6. Written personel guidelines and job descriptions are a critical need in ECWA church administration. 7. The need for effective communication may be one of the major problems facing ECWA.

[pt] Depois do crescimento de movimentos de extrema direita na política nos últimos anos, algumas expressões religiosas vinculadas a esses movimentos foram categorizadas como fundamentalistas. Este conceito, contudo, não é tão claro quanto a recorrência do seu uso sugere, e, evidentemente, sem um bom conceito que auxilie na identificação do que seja fundamentalismo, pouco se avança no seu enfrentamento. Portanto, este trabalho se propõe, primeiramente, a oferecer um conceito para fundamentalismo — extraído da sua origem evangélica estadunidense [1900-1925] —, e, a partir dele, deseja apontar alguns caminhos alternativos de superação. Na construção deste conceito, chama-se atenção para a interação entre sua estrutura hermenêutica e o uso fundamentalista da Bíblia, mostrando como esta dinâmica gera uma postura política violenta. E, no apontamento desta superação, mostra-se a necessidade de uma nova concepção sobre a Bíblia e a importância da apreciação da condição do intérprete. / [en] After the rise of far-right movements in politics in recent years, some religious expressions linked to these movements have been categorized as fundamentalist. This concept, however, is not as clear as the recurrence of its use suggests, and, evidently, without a good concept that helps in identifying what fundamentalism is, little progress is made in overcoming it. Therefore, this work proposes, first, to offer a concept for fundamentalism — extracted from its American evangelical origin [1900-1925] —, and, from it, it wishes to point out some alternative ways of overcoming it. In the construction of this concept, attention is drawn to the interaction between its hermeneutic structure and the fundamentalist use of the Bible, showing how this dynamic generates a violent political posture. And, in pointing out this overcoming, the need for a new conception of the Bible and the importance of assessing the condition of the interpreter are shown.

This thesis analyzes the impact of the Evangelical movement on politics in Latin America, through case studies on of revolutionary leftist Hugo Chávez in Venezuela and far right Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil. Both the Chávez and Bolsonaro political machineries reached out to the Evangelical movement and aligned themselves with new social and political actors associated with this movement. Though these two leaders promised very different programs, they both successfully sought the support of leaders and members of the Evangelical movement. The contradictory context of these two cases in terms of political platforms, their shared association with the Evangelical church, generates a puzzle of similar religious organizations supporting vastly dissimilar political movements. This thesis uses a process tracing methodology to address this puzzling alignment of conservative religious organizations with both ultra conservative and revolutionary leftist political parties in the two countries.

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