This summer, I'm reading —and blogging about —several books that reflect academic understandings of American evangelicals. The first of these is James S. Bielo's Words Upon the Word: An Ethnography of Evangelical Group Bible Study. Previously, I wrote about Bielo's discussion of Bible study as a social institution and how he decided to answer questions of identity about being a Christian and an academic.This week, I'm going to look at the actual act of reading the Bible in a small group Bible study. At the beginning … [Read more...] about Bielo: How Do Evangelicals Read the Bible?
the Evangelical Mind
Can Intellectuals Also Be Activists? (John Stott Remembered)
Last week, John Stott went to be with the Lord. As an author, theologian, and working pastor, few people have had as large an influence on evangelical Christianity around the world over the past 100 years. Fittingly, his death came during the IFES World Assembly, a global gathering of evangelical university ministries, symbolic of Rev. Stott's lifelong passions for the Gospel, the university, and global Christianity. FYI: I've listed a collection of obituaries and remembrances of John Stott's life at the bottom of … [Read more...] about Can Intellectuals Also Be Activists? (John Stott Remembered)
Week in Review: Future of Evangelicals Edition
What are you reading, watching, thinking about this week? As usual, here's a few which have been on our mind. Let us know your thoughts on any/all of them. If you have items you'd like us to consider for the top five, add them in the comments or send them to Tom or Mike. 1. The Future of Evangelicals in Academia. Who else to address this question than Mark Noll, historian and author of The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind. Lots of good material in this interview, including some of his impressions of James … [Read more...] about Week in Review: Future of Evangelicals Edition
Evangelicalism’s First Rate Scholars
The glowing Chronicle of Higher Education review of Mark Noll's God and Race in American Politics: A Short History, see Martin E. Marty's God-Talk: Good, Bad, and Ugly, A new book on religion and race in politics should give us pause, places the recent Princeton University Press release on my American Religious Tradition shelf. I hope it does the same for you ;-) In his review, Martin E. Marty briefly comments on evangelical scholars: When I first began to write about religious history 50 years ago, … [Read more...] about Evangelicalism’s First Rate Scholars