Last week, in my discussion of what evangelicals can learn about themselves from T.M. Luhrmann's When God Talks Back, I mentioned our approach to suffering. Originally, I wasn't going to write another post on the book, but I wanted to come back to this important topic. Luhrmann discusses suffering in a chapter titled, "Darkness," along with the related issue of feeling distant from God. Early in the chapter, Luhrmann describes the Vineyard's approach in this way: Churches like the Vineyard handle the problem of … [Read more...] about Evangelicals and Suffering (When God Talks Back)
When God Talks Back
Talking Amongst Ourselves (When God Talks Back)
Last week, I shared a few lessons on talking with non-evangelicals that I had taken away from T.M. Luhrmann's When God Talks Back. This week, I'm going in the opposite direction. What are some things that evangelicals need to do better? Accept our creatureliness. When describing Luhrmann's work to evangelical friends, one of the main questions is, "Doesn't this explain God away?" That is, if our ability to pray and to hear from God in prayer is related to certain psychological traits, then doesn't that mean that God … [Read more...] about Talking Amongst Ourselves (When God Talks Back)
Talking with Non-Evangelicals (When God Talks Back)
A couple of weeks ago, I finished reading T.M. Luhrmann's When God Talks Back: Understanding the American Evangelical Relationship with God. As I mentioned then, please read Mark Noll's review, which is much better than what I could have written. This week, I'd like to share a few things that I learned from Luhrmann about engaging and talking with non-evangelicals. Next week, I'll have a few thoughts about how we evangelicals can talk amongst ourselves. 1. Encourage good scholars and thinkers, whatever their beliefs. … [Read more...] about Talking with Non-Evangelicals (When God Talks Back)
When God Talks Back by T.M. Luhrmann
For the past several weeks, I've been reading T.M. Luhrmann's When God Talks Back: Understanding the American Evangelical Relationship with God. The book addresses a simple, but profound, question from the perspective of a nonbeliever: how can seemingly rational, otherwise normal people claim to discern God's will, to hear God's voice, and, sometimes, to even see or feel spiritual beings? Luhrmann asks this with genuine curiosity, both personal and professional. A psychological anthropologist who has written previous … [Read more...] about When God Talks Back by T.M. Luhrmann
What Do Academics Think of Evangelicals?
During the past few weeks, one of the darlings of the book review circuit has been T. M. Luhrmann's When God Talks Back: Understanding the American Evangelical Relationship with God. Luhrmann, an anthropologist at Stanford, spent several years attending Vineyard Churches around the country —not out of spiritual interest, but as an anthropological study. Here she is on NPR, describing a key part of her thesis: that evangelicals train themselves to perceive God: They learn to experience some of their thoughts as not … [Read more...] about What Do Academics Think of Evangelicals?