Five Great Books on Evangelical Christianity

Last updated on: July 14, 2014 at 6:51 pm By Thomas Kidd

My recent post “‘Evangelicals’ Who Are Not Evangelicals” generated quite a discussion about who’s in, and who’s out of the evangelical camp. The study of evangelicalism has seen an amazing renaissance in the past fifty years, so here’s a list of five excellent books on evangelicals and their history. The usual disclaimers: I’m not including my own books! And these are by academic scholars – mostly historians – writing books that are accessible to a general audience. David Bebbington, Evangelicalism in... Read more

THE BREAKING OF IMAGES

Last updated on: July 15, 2014 at 11:01 am By Philip Jenkins

In a recent Times Literary Supplement, David Motadel reviewed James Noyes’s 2013 book The Politics of Iconoclasm: Religion, Violence and the Culture of Image-Breaking in Christianity and Islam. The review, and the associated scholarship, raises important questions about how we conceive of the Reformation, how we teach it, and, significantly, how we will commemorate the 500th anniversary of the event in 2017. Motadel writes that, “The prototype of all modern forms of iconoclasm [Noyes] found in Calvin’s Geneva and Ibn... Read more

THE FLIGHT OF THE DINGBATS

Last updated on: July 13, 2014 at 5:04 am By Philip Jenkins

Robert Spencer just published an extraordinarily inaccurate piece about my work. I would not normally dignify Spencer with a reply, but his piece appeared at jihadwatch, which has among its followers a significant number of folks who feel the need to send hate-filled screeds against those who meet their displeasure. While such dingbat mail is often amusing, it is disquieting to see the depth of pathological hatred that such readers feel about any reference to Islam that seeks to be... Read more

BUCHAN’S POWER HOUSE

Last updated on: July 4, 2014 at 7:31 am By Philip Jenkins

I have been posting on some books that appeared during the First World War – books by Wells, Moore, and Machen – but one contribution from that time was one of the most daring and, we might even say, prophetic. Amazingly in light of his later reputation, the author in question was John Buchan. His strange and truly unsettling novella, The Power-House, can still force you to rethink the nature of the world you inhabit. It includes what has been... Read more

Spirits Eat Ripe Papaya

Last updated on: July 9, 2014 at 12:22 am By David Swartz

It’s beach-reading season—and I have a can’t-miss recommendation. Spirits Eat Ripe Papaya, the debut novel of St. Mary’s College (Ind.) history professor Bill Svelmoe, is a hysterical account of the foibles of good-hearted, but sometimes naïve missionaries. I recommend the book for several reasons. First, it offers texture and empathy. I grew up in the cornfields of Ohio, but I could just about imagine what it must be like to live as part of a religious colony in an utterly... Read more

The “Evangelicals” Who Are Not Evangelicals

Last updated on: July 7, 2014 at 4:01 pm By Thomas Kidd

At the Wall Street Journal, Barton Swaim recently reviewed Steven Miller’s excellent book The Age of Evangelicalism, which I also reviewed at The Gospel Coalition. In my review, I suggested that evangelicals’ necessary engagement in politics has defined evangelicals by their politics and politicians, such as George W. Bush and Sarah Palin. Swaim helpfully raises the problem of the use of the term “evangelical” in the media: For the past 20 or 30 years, [“evangelical”] has designated nearly any Christian believer, Protestant... Read more

Penn Prof: Religious Colleges Should Not Be Accredited

Last updated on: July 6, 2014 at 8:13 am By Thomas Kidd

University of Pennsylvania professor Peter Conn says at the Chronicle of Higher Education that religious colleges (presumably meaning only conservative Christian colleges) should not receive accreditation. Conn: Providing accreditation to colleges like Wheaton makes a mockery of whatever academic and intellectual standards the process of accreditation is supposed to uphold. If accrediting agencies are playing by the rules in this continuing fiasco, then the rules have to be changed—or interpreted more aggressively, so that “respect” for “belief systems” does not... Read more

FREEMASONRY AND BLACK HISTORY

Last updated on: July 4, 2014 at 3:27 pm By Philip Jenkins

I have been posting a lot recently on the very diverse impact of Freemasonry on all sots of unsuspected aspects of culture. The British GUARDIAN just did a terrific piece on the relationship between Freemasonry and jazz – particularly Black Masonry of the Prince Hall tradition. I quote: “Start digging into the history of freemasonry and you discover that [Duke] Ellington was just one of many renowned African-American musicians to be inducted into its mysterious world. He was joined by... Read more

THE GHOSTS OF WARS TO COME

Last updated on: July 4, 2014 at 7:16 am By Philip Jenkins

As we commemorate the First World War in coming months, we are going to hear a great many myths and mis-statements. Although it certainly is not the most pernicious, let me just correct one of the more persistent. Recently, the Weekly Standard presented an interesting review by J. Harvie Wilkinson III, who began, “Back then, it was not known as World War I, for the obvious reason that the Second World War still lay in the future. It was simply... Read more

Redeemer: The Life of Jimmy Carter, Part 2

Last updated on: January 17, 2015 at 4:52 pm By Miles Mullin

Beginning in the 1970s, evangelical voters significantly influenced electoral outcomes. Throughout the 1980s, they emerged as an increasingly- reliable Republican voting block. By the time the 1990s dawned, significant evangelical involvement in the political process meant that effectively, the Republican nomination could not be secured without their support. And, in the closely-contested general election of 2004, Karl Rove’s strategy of turning out more “values voters,” succeeded in returning George W. Bush to the White House for a second term, as more... Read more