Abstract: As a major traditional religion of the United States, evangelism mainly developed in the nineteenth century. In early 20th century, the radical fundamentalism gradually separated from evangelism with the conflict between fundamentalism and modernism. Meanwhile, new evangelism, as a branch of new tradition, opened a new stage of contemporary evangelism. Since the 1970s, new Christian rightwing has become the main embodiment of evangelist tradition in recent times, with the Moral Majority and Christian Coalition as the two most influential organizations. Evangelism is widely involved in American political issues like homosexuality, abortion, and school prayer. It even directly intervenes in American presidential election and its foreign policy. The coalition between evangelism and Republican Party, in particular, presents a feature of theocracy. However, compared with Islamic fundamentalism, evangelism has transformed from extreme fundamentalism to broader religious conservatives, whose political behavior is more participation than violence. The reasons are mainly twofold: American religious individualism tradition is one, but the fundamental difference between the United States and the Islamic world is the most important.

Key words: American politics, Islamic fundamentalism, evangelism, fundamentalism