June 01, 1986 by Ralph D. Winter

When the Statue of Liberty was first erected back in 1886, millions of immigrants had already come to this country, just as many, in fact, as would come in the massive immigration of the next 30 years. But there would be a new startling factor!

In 1860, immigrants from southern and eastern Europe made up only 1 per cent of the foreign¬born population. By 1910 their percentage had become an astounding 38 percent! The earlier arrivals were predominantly Protestant. The new element was mostly Catholic, Greek Orthodox, or Jewish. These new people would be remarkably more difficult to assimilate into the Evangelical Consensus.

This great shift in immigration would not immediately damage the Concensus. For the next 30 years, that reigning cultural tradition would allow unprecedented collaboration in missions and many other things.

The End of Concensus

However, the first world war, then the excesses of the 20's (when mission giving dropped even more than in the following Great Depression), then the hardships of the depression, then the Second World War, the collapse of the colonial empires and the resulting hopelessness of Western Man as to any further control over world events, then the counter cultural chaos of the 60's Bo what happened?

Yes, WASP (White Anglo SaxonProtestant) control was gradually lost all throughout civil life, in the universities, in media, in public life, even as evangelical control slipped from the majority in the mainline denominations.

The New Concensus

Structural leadership may have been lost, but there was still the irresistible power of the Spirit of God springing up in many new, "unofficial" ways   many new denominations, thousands of new congregations, and 358 new mission agencies since 1950 alone.Youth For Christ appeared out of nowhere, and generated a whole new generation of leaders ranging from Torrey Johnson to Billy Graham.

Inter Varsity, Campus Crusade, Navigators took up the slack on the college campuses. New publishing houses like Gospel Light/Regal, Zondervan, Scripture Press, became immense enterprises.

New seminaries, like Dallas, Fuller, Talbot, Trinity, Gordon Conwell came into being as many older seminaries dwindled in enrollment. One of the most impressive evidences of irresistible mission vision has been the series of Inter-Varsity Student Mission Conferences at Urbana. In this century there has not been anything like the sweeping revivals of the 1858 1859 Awakening, but after a time of uncertainty, nationwide church membership has climbed higher than ever in our history, and a new powerful consensus is here again.

Yes, the fireworks in 1986 can be profoundly significant: back then they hoped to evangelize the world by 1900; today with far greater reason we are looking for the year 2000. Can it be? Can we look back on a 100 years and believe that the most massive 'digestion" of immigrants has been largely successful? Can we believe that we are now on a new, final threshold leading to the End of History in the year 2000?

**Two things may help you think this through. I gave an address at the meeting in Wheaton recently, of the Institute for the Study of American Evangelicals. It is a more minute analysis of this theme. See the order blank on the next to last page

**Also, in this issue don't miss the special supplement on pages 19 22. For that there is a 60 minute audiotape commentary. This is also on the order blank.