and that’s why I have rattled on from day one…

Finished reading: Who Is an Evangelical?: The History of a Movement in Crisis by Thomas S. Kidd 📚

A short, useful overview of the evangelical movement in America. Kidd does an admirable job trying to salvage the term as (fundamentally) a theological designation rather than a marker of partisan politics. For my part, I find the theological emphases of the movement to be rather flimsy and not especially compelling. Kidd suggests three core aspects of evangelical identity: being born again, the primacy of the Bible, and an emphasis on “experiencing” the presence of Jesus and the Holy Spirit. Given the provenance of these teachings and the present crisis of identity within evangelicalism, it certainly forces one to consider what is actually worth conserving about this decidedly American movement.

Thomas S. Kidd, on the tension that has always existed within evangelicalism between the “establishmentarian impulse” and the more activist/reformist impulse:

Evangelicals have been most faithful to their tradition when protesting against manifest injustices like slavery rather than trying to impose a de facto or de jure establishment. Attempts to ban Sunday mail delivery, the sale of alcohol, and the teaching of evolution all reflected that establishmentarian impulse. This impulse has routinely taken evangelicals away from their dissenting roots. Well-meaning (or crassly opportunistic) politicians have often led rank-and-file evangelicals into such establishmentarian efforts. Some of those politicians (such as [William Jennings] Bryan) have been evangelicals, some not. But the establishmentarian crusade of the early 1920s culminated in Bryan’s sensational collapse at the 1925 Scopes “Monkey Trial.” Promoting anti-evolution laws was one of the most misguided evangelical ventures ever because it focused so much energy on mandating a particular Christian view of science in public schools. The Scopes Trial was a major precedent for the crisis of politicization that bedevils evangelical Christians today.

Currently reading: Who Is an Evangelical?: The History of a Movement in Crisis by Thomas S. Kidd 📚

Brad East, with an intriguing comment in the midst of his review of Ryan Burge’s new book:

As for how Christians should respond to this fresh mission field, that is the question of the hour. If any tradition could make serious inroads with working-class young men and two-shift single moms, that mythical American phenomenon—revival—would surely be afoot.

Currently reading: Forgive by Timothy Keller 📚

Currently reading: All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr 📚

This post (via @Jonah) is spot on: Another Bible Study Night Will Fix It… Really???? It’s ludicrous to think that more church programming and structured gatherings will lead to the kind of organic outcomes that many of us are striving for. In discipleship (as in so much of life), the means and the ends are so closely related that it’s nearly impossible—and certainly inadvisable—to try to pull them apart.

Finished reading: The Big Relief by David Zahl 📚

I don’t know if there’s a person writing at the moment who’s better at “popularizing”—meant in the best possible sense—rich theological concepts and making them intellectually and emotionally digestible than David Zahl. Some part of The Big Relief would catch any person up in its net eventually, if they let themselves be caught.