{"id":128,"date":"2012-05-10T15:41:53","date_gmt":"2012-05-10T15:41:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/anxiousbench\/?p=128"},"modified":"2012-05-10T15:45:28","modified_gmt":"2012-05-10T15:45:28","slug":"how-to-teach-about-american-evangelicalism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/anxiousbench\/2012\/05\/how-to-teach-about-american-evangelicalism\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Teach about American Evangelicalism"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

This coming fall, I\u2019m teaching a dedicated course on evangelicalism in the United States for the first time. I\u2019ve spent a large portion of my career researching and writing about evangelical Christianity, so this should be an easy task. But I\u2019m having a great deal of difficulty deciding how to structure the course and choose readings. Plus, I\u2019m a bit out of touch with the \u201cpulse\u201d of American evangelicalism, having spent the last several years mostly thinking about the history of Mormonism<\/a> in the nineteenth-century United States. Thus, I\u2019m looking for advice. My basic model of teaching in upper-level courses is to try to assign good books, which then serve as the basis for class discussions and essays.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also going to be my first semester teaching in a Religious Studies department, so I\u2019m debating the extent to which the course should focus on the history<\/em> of evangelicalism as opposed to its contemporary (or recent) manifestations within American\u00a0culture. I presume that I will have some evangelical students in the class, and I also presume that most non-evangelical students will have negative preconceptions<\/a> about evangelicalism. One of my goals is to help all students come to understand that American evangelicalism is and has always been more complex and diverse than they imagine.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll probably begin with the very thorny definition of how to define evangelicalism, taking David Bebbington\u2019s \u201cquadrilateral\u201d as a starting point (conversionism, activism, biblicism, and crucicentrism). This is also a good time to raise other sorts of foundational questions. Does \u201cevangelical\u201d in the United\u00a0 States mean \u201cwhite evangelical,\u201d or can we look across racial boundaries to shared theologies and missions?<\/p>\n

I\u2019m considering using either Randall Balmer\u2019s brief The Making of Evangelicalism<\/em><\/a> or Barry Hankins\u2019s American Evangelicals<\/em><\/a> a<\/em>s a textbook for the course.<\/p>\n

Then I\u2019ll get to pick perhaps four books, and with them, four topics for the semester. If I\u2019m going to include any historical topic as a focus, I think it will be the awakenings of the mid-eighteenth century. I\u2019m a great admirer of our Thomas Kidd\u2019s The Great Awakening<\/em><\/a>, primarily because it would quickly inform students that none of the diverse group of evangelicals in his book closely resemble American evangelicals today. As an alternative starting point, I like Jon Sensbach\u2019s Rebecca\u2019s Revival<\/em><\/a>. Its context is the Dutch Caribbean and Continental Europe, which is a bit of a problem given the geographic presumptions of the course. However, the racial diversity and tensions within Moravian pietism\/evangelicalism Sensbach explores correlate rather well to the experiences of white and black evangelicalism in what became the United\u00a0 States.<\/p>\n

Beyond one of those as a starting point, I\u2019ve been very indecisive. Some of the books under consideration (there are many, many books on American evangelicalism that I admire and have enjoyed reading that I\u2019m not considering for reasons of length, complexity, etc.):<\/p>\n

\u2013 James Ault, Spirit and Flesh<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2013\u00a0Edward Larson, Summer for the Gods<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2013 Matthew Sutton, Aimee Semple McPherson<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2013 Jon Shields, The Democratic Virtues of the Christian Right<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2013 Anthea Butler, Women in the Church of God in Christ<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2013 T.M. Luhrmann, When God Talks Back<\/em><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve also considered using novels, such as Shirley Nelson\u2019s The Last Year of the War<\/em> (loved it when I read it in graduate school).\u00a0I wouldn\u2019t mind assigning an evangelical bestseller such as Rick Warren\u2019s The Purpose-Driven Life<\/em>, but I\u2019m not exactly certain how to adapt it for classroom use.<\/p>\n

Finally, I want to think about other ways for students to \u201cexperience\u201d American evangelicalism. They should listen to some Larry Norman (being an extremely unhip professor, I just discovered Norman by way of Darren Dochuk\u2019s From Bible Belt to Sunbelt<\/em>), which is also a good way to introduce evangelical apocalypticism. If I could identify a good venue for it in northern Virginia, I\u2019d like to have the class attend an evangelical worship service, with perhaps a heavy dose of Joel Osteen for those disinclined to attend in person.<\/p>\n

I would be grateful for any suggestions. What books on evangelicalism do you think would be helpful for my students? Any creative pedagogical ideas? What do you think students should come away knowing about American evangelicalism?<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This coming fall, I\u2019m teaching a dedicated course on evangelicalism in the United States for the first time. I\u2019ve spent a large portion of my career researching and writing about evangelical Christianity, so this should be an easy task. But I\u2019m having a great deal of difficulty deciding how to structure the course and choose […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1008,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,31],"tags":[34,13,33,32],"class_list":["post-128","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-john-turner","category-teaching","tag-books","tag-evangelicals","tag-teaching-2","tag-turners-posts"],"yoast_head":"\nHow to Teach about American Evangelicalism<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"This coming fall, I'm teaching a dedicated course on evangelicalism in the United States for the first time. 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