'Invading Vacationland for Christ': the Construction of Evangelical Identity Through Summer Camps in the Postwar
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
“’INVADING VACATIONLAND FOR CHRIST’: THE CONSTRUCTION OF EVANGELICAL IDENTITY THROUGH SUMMER CAMPS IN THE POSTWAR ERA” By Rebecca A. Koerselman A DISSERTATION Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of History – Doctor of Philosophy 2013 ABSTRACT “’INVADING VACATIONLAND FOR CHRIST’: THE CONSTRUCTION OF EVANGELICAL IDENTITY THROUGH SUMMER CAMPS IN THE POSTWAR ERA” By Rebecca A. Koerselman Evangelical summer camps blossomed in the post-World War II years, more than tripling their numbers from 1945 to 1960. But scholars have yet to explain the phenomenon at this critical juncture in American history. Summer camps provide a lens for how evangelicals saw themselves in an increasingly secular postwar world. Many believed the influence of evangelicals was on the decline, and scholars have indicated the overall waning of the influence of mainline Protestant denominations throughout the twentieth century. But an examination of summer camps reveals that evangelicals desired to engage in mainstream culture through reaching American postwar youth. They consciously worked to influence America’s youth in unprecedented ways, appealing to them through the combination of faith and fun, working to attract the growing teenage subculture in order to create and sustain the next generation of evangelical leadership. Summer camps, an innovative approach to reaching America’s youth, aided evangelicals as they sought to reassert both a Christian and American identity in the postwar milieu of anxiety and change. The establishment of evangelical summer camps in the 1940s and 1950s demonstrated a clear resurgence of evangelical power. This evangelical power, building on the organizational foundation of the 1940s and 1950s, continued its trajectory into the national spotlight and cultural significance in the late twentieth and early twenty first century. The examination of the diversity of evangelical summer camps through broader historical lenses provides a variety of different ways to unearth how evangelicals went from a sheltered group that supposedly disappeared in the 1920s to their visibility and influence of today. An exploration of the continuing influence of denominational institutions as well as the growing evidence of non- denominational camps revealed the extent to which postwar evangelicals struggled to neatly identify as liberal, modern, or more conservative. An investigation of the construction of gender-based identities explains how evangelicals sometimes fit with existing gender norms, but also the ways they pushed against traditional gender roles by encouraging girls to pursue evangelical careers. A consideration of the issues of race and environmentalism indicates the immense diversity within evangelicalism during the postwar era. Finally, the exploration of the voices of evangelical youth exposes a language of political activism. Evangelical youth believed they were the solution to the world’s problems and that missionizing, political involvement, establishing more Christian institutions, and pursuing world peace were what evangelicals should care about. Copyright by REBECCA A. KOERSELMAN 2013 TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................... 1 CHAPTER ONE: “A Concentrated Opportunity to Place God back in the Thoughts of Youth”: The Efforts of Postwar Youth Movements and Evangelical Summer Camps ...................................................... 18 CHAPTER TWO: The Continuing Influence of Denominations and the Rise of Non-denominational Summer Camps ............................................................................................................................................ 47 The Continuing Influence of Denominations through Summer Camps ........................... 49 Denominational Support through Fundraising and Programming ................................... 53 Discipleship ....................................................................................................................... 59 Non-denominational Camps, Conversion, and the Rise of Fundamentalism ................... 71 Beginnings, Fundraising Efforts and the Value of Volunteers .......................................... 76 Fundamentalist Leanings .................................................................................................. 83 Conclusion ......................................................................................................................... 96 CHAPTER THREE: Gender Goes Camping: A “Clarion Call” for Evangelical Identities of Masculinity and Femininity in Evangelical Summer Camps ...................................................................................................... 98 Camp Ridgecrest for Boys and Camp Crestridge for Girls .............................................. 103 The Purpose of Camp Ridgecrest and Camp Crestridge ................................................. 106 Activities at Camp ........................................................................................................... 111 The Use of Indian Lore .................................................................................................... 112 Evangelical Teaching and Training .................................................................................. 116 Pioneer Girls .................................................................................................................... 119 Conclusion: The Nature of Boys and the Nature of Girls at Summer Camp ................... 126 CHAPTER FOUR: A Spectrum of Evangelicals: The Examples of Race and Environmentalism .............................. 128 Nature, Environmentalism and Stewardship at Summer Camps ................................... 129 Ideas about Race and Racial Reconciliation.................................................................... 141 CHAPTER FIVE: “In the Face of Evil’s Prevailing Threat to our Cherished Way of Life”: Evangelical Youth Identity in a Cold War Context ................................................................................................................. 157 American Exceptionalism: A History of Political Activism .............................................. 164 The Threat of Communism and the Need for Missions .................................................. 170 Internal Moral Decay and the Need for More Christian Institutions ............................. 186 Nuclear Threats in the Atomic Age and the Need for Peace Activism ........................... 196 v CONCLUSION: The Legacy of Formative Summer Camp Experiences ................................................................ 204 BIBLIOGRAPHY…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..…..212 vi INTRODUCTION American culture has long been both Christian and plural, both secular and religious, and much of the dynamism of U.S. religious history derives from that paradox. Any story that fails to take 1 seriously both Christians and non-Christians is bound to obscure as much as it illuminates. Evangelical summer camps blossomed in the post-World War II years, more than tripling 2 their numbers from 1945 to 1960. But scholars have yet to explain the phenomenon at this critical juncture in American history. According to the American Camping Association directory, individual Christian churches and Christian denominations established over one hundred forty new summer camps during the years from 1945 to 1960, close to quadrupling the total number 3 of Christian camps in the United States. Summer camps provide a lens for how evangelicals saw themselves in an increasingly secular postwar world. Many believed the influence of evangelicals and mainline Protestants was on the decline, and scholars have indicated the overall waning of the influence of mainline 4 Protestant denominations throughout the twentieth century. An examination of summer 1 Stephen Prothero, American Jesus: How the Son of God Became a National Icon, (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003), 7. 2 In contrast, private and secular camps numbered around 100 before World War II and continued a steady growth rate after World War II, doubling to 200 by 1960. These camps include YMCA, Boys Scouts and Girl Scouts, and 4-H camps. American Camping Association directory, 2000; Appendix, Abigail A.Van Slyck, A Manufactured Wilderness: Summer Camps and the Shaping of American Youth, 1890-1960 (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2006), 227-252. 3 Van Slyck, A Manufactured Wilderness, 227-252. 4 Jason Lantzer, Mainline Christianity: The Past and Future of America’s Majority Faith, (New York: New York University Press, 2012), introduction, Kindle Edition. 1 camps reveals that evangelicals desired to engage in mainstream culture through reaching American postwar youth. They consciously worked to influence America’s youth in unprecedented ways, appealing to them through the combination of faith and fun, working to attract the growing teenage subculture in order to create and sustain the next generation of evangelical leadership. Summer camps, an innovative approach to reaching America’s youth, aided evangelicals as they sought to reassert both a Christian and American identity in the postwar milieu of anxiety and change. Summer camps offer a nuanced portrait of postwar evangelical identity. Unlike the current divisions of evangelicals along conservative and liberal identifications, postwar evangelicals were full of diversity