Still Evangelical?
Insiders Reconsider Political, Social, and Theological Meaning
Insiders Reconsider Political, Social, and Theological Meaning
Evangelicalism in America has cracked, split on the shoals of the 2016 presidential election and its aftermath, leaving many wondering if they want to be in or out of the evangelical tribe. The contentiousness brought to the fore surrounds what it means to affirm and demonstrate evangelical Christian faith amidst the messy and polarized realities gripping our country and world. Who or what is defining the evangelical social and political vision? Is it the gospel or is it culture? For a movement that has been about the primacy of Christian faith, this is a crisis. This collection of essays was gathered by Mark Labberton, president of Fuller Theological Seminary, who provides an introduction to the volume. What follows is a diverse and provocative set of perspectives and reflections from evangelical insiders who wrestle with their responses to the question of what it means to be evangelical in light of their convictions. --
Reviews with the most likes.
Short Review: Still Evangelical is worth reading. Part of why it is worth reading is that it is well balanced and actually has as many women and minority authors as White males. And for this discussion that matters. I mentioned each of the chapters in my full review, but the best chapters is Allen Yeh's chapter, which while about more than just this, is about the importance of retaining the orthodoxy we have while adopting a greater focus on orthopraxy. Mark Galli's chapter was most frustrating for me, but I think that it was also a necessary chapter as being the most standard critique of the state of Evangelicalism (not paying enough attention to the non-elites and roughly parallel argument for economic and cultural anxiety as the reasons people voted for Trump).
There were many other chapters that were also quite good. Roughly the line of argument throughout the book is that Evangelicalism as a group matters, that it is a worldwide movement and that the critique of the term in the US doesn't listen enough to those outside the US, or the term's history. But that there is a reason for the critique inside the US.
I really was not incredibly interested in this discussion and was planning on skipping the book. But I picked it up mostly because of Karen Swallow Prior talking about it positively. I gave it a chance and it was much better and more helpful than I expected it to be.
My full review is on my blog (about 1500 words) at http://bookwi.se/still-evangelical/
