Project Outline

For this ISP, I want to conduct a brief historical survey of the role and development of the concepts of hell in American Evangelicalism. I have decided to break my research into four chronological topics, one for each week of the study period: the first week will focus on pre and early Christian ideas of hell that have been influential in later developments; the second week will cover the birth of Evangelicalism in Europe and its transition to America; the third week will look at 19th and 20th century developments; and the fourth week will discuss contemporary thoughts.

I have two books I will be reading throughout the research period to provide a contextual background: American Evangelical Christianity (Part I) [7] by Mark A. Noll and American Evangelical Story by Douglas A. Sweeney. I then have three books, some of which I may not use, that look specifically at the history of hell: History of Hell [8] by Alice K. Turner, The Formation of Hell by Alan E. Bernstein, and The Decline of Hell by D.P. Walker.

I would also like with each topic to read one or two representative primary sources to provide a real and direct example of how Evangelicals were thinking in each time period. For the first topic, pre and early Christian influences, I will be reading (possibly only parts of) "The Myth of Er" from chapter 10 of Plato's Republic, and "The Inferno" from Dante's Divine Comedy [3], both of which I believe have heavily shaped modern visions of hell.

While I am still deciding on primary texts for the following weeks, some authors I am looking at are Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield, and Billy Graham.