Evangelical Groups Research Articles

Words upon the Word: An Ethnography of Evangelical Group Bible Study by J. S. Bielo

American AnthropologistVolume 112, Issue 2 p. 323-323 Words upon the Word: An Ethnography of Evangelical Group Bible Study by J. S. Bielo Brian Malley, Brian Malley University of MichiganSearch for more papers by this author Brian Malley, Brian Malley University of MichiganSearch for more papers by this author First published: 19 May 2010 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1548-1433.2010.01239_3.x Single Reviews Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Volume112, Issue2June 2010Pages 323-323 RelatedInformation

A cultural psychological approach to evangelical faith healing groups

From the perspective of Belzen, a cultural approach for the psychology of religion is necessary to cope with the multiplicity of the religious phenomenon. He presents research of specific–very closed–religious groups to illustrate this point. A cultural approach is not limited to these specific groups, like the Dutch bevindelijken, but is also very useful to study groups that are publically discussed, like the evangelical faith healing groups.

Evangelicalism, Sexual Morality, and Sexual Addiction: Opposing Views and Continued Conflicts

While much of the Christian evangelical movement fosters judgmental attitudes surrounding sexuality, disapproving of other individuals who exhibit behaviors deemed morally reprehensible, other evangelical denominations embrace different viewpoints about human sexuality. In spite of the existence of ecumenical evangelical groups, the majority defines sexual morality through a narrow and prescriptive outlook and pathologizes certain sexual behaviors. Solutions to identified sexual problems are often provided through restrictive viewpoints despite the existence of largely opposing positions within this movement. Reaction formation and authoritarian personality theory are theorized as the primary explanations for individuals failing to conform to stringent religious sexual expectations.

How Do Religious Groups Respond to Class and Inequality?

Using a county-level population analysis, the author examines whether the interaction between religious groups and class and inequality predict voter turnout and voter preference for George W. Bush in the 2000 presidential election. Results indicate that for counties with high densities of mainline Protestants, lower income, and lower education meant depressed voter turnout and higher Bush support; with high densities of Jewish adherents, lower income yielded elevated voter turnout, while lower income along with less education equated with less Bush support; with high densities of Catholics, lower income meant higher voter turnout; with high densities of Evangelicals, lower income yielded depressed voter turnout; however, lower income and less education correlated with less Bush support. These patterns held for county income inequality when median income was controlled. The results challenge the perception that Evangelical groups in lower-SES regions persuaded members and their acquaintances to vote against their economic interests. Rather, the results imply that mainline Protestant groups in lower-SES regions successfully shifted votes to Bush. The findings suggest that outreach by labor and other progressives to Evangelicals, especially those in poorer regions, can lead to political collaboration.

Words upon the Word: an ethnography of evangelical group Bible study

Evangelical Bible study groups are the most prolific type of small group in American society, with more than 30 million Protestants gathering every week for this distinct purpose, meeting in homes, churches, coffee shops, restaurants, and other public and private venues across the US. What happens in these groups? How do they help shape the contours of American Evangelical life? While more public forms of political activism have captured popular and scholarly imaginations, it is in group Bible study that Evangelicals reflect on the details of their faith. Here they become self-conscious religious subjects, sharing the intimate details of life, interrogating beliefs and practices, and articulating their version of Christian identity and culture. In Words upon the Word, James S. Bielo draws on over nineteen months of ethnographic work with five congregations to better understand why group Bible study matters so much to Evangelicals and for Evangelical culture. Through a close analysis of participants' discourse, Bielo examines the defining themes of group life - from textual interpretation to spiritual intimacy and the rehearsal of witnessing. Bielo's approach allows these Evangelical groups to speak for themselves, illustrating Bible study's uniqueness in Evangelical life as a site of open and critical dialog. Ultimately, Bielo's ethnography sheds much needed light on the power of group Bible study for the ever-evolving shape of American Evangelicalism.

Words Upon the Word: An Ethnography of Evangelical Group Bible Study (review)

Reviewed by: Words Upon the Word: An Ethnography of Evangelical Group Bible Study Omri Elisha James Bielo. Words Upon the Word: An Ethnography of Evangelical Group Bible Study. New York, NY: New York University Press, 2009. 208 pp. The rise in interest in American evangelicalism on the part of scholars, journalists, and public intellectuals in recent years has been staggering. Although much new light has been shed on this vibrant religious subculture as a result, all too often the attention remains focused on its most public characteristics, including the political affinities and aspirations of evangelical elites, evangelical media production and consumption, and spectacles of corporate worship. The striking irony in all this is that the sites of social intimacy, where evangelical rituals of socialization and indoctrination are most potent, remain hidden from critical inquiry. James Bielo’s Words Upon the Word, a richly detailed comparative ethnography of group Bible study, offers a welcome corrective to this surprising gap in the burgeoning literature on evangelicalism. Having observed an impressive total of 324 Bible study meetings in six demographically varied but predominantly evangelical congregations in Lansing, Michigan, Bielo uses a smaller sample to support his analysis [End Page 1077] while still being able to posit broad conclusions about these weekly gatherings attended by some 30 million Protestants nationwide. Words Upon the Word is an “ethnography of reading” that highlights the social dynamics and hermeneutic possibilities that emerge when like-minded people come together to engage with sacred texts (i.e., the Bible) and other devotional, historical, and instructional writings that are seen as conducive to one’s spiritual edification. Drawing data and theory together in a fluid and persuasive manner, Bielo describes the interactive frames, interpretive dilemmas, textual ideologies and practices, and discursive subtexts that make possible “processes of collective reading and intersubjective dialogue” (10) in religious settings where seemingly contradictory values of scriptural absolutism and reflexive, lay-driven intellectualism are enacted and negotiated. Among the noteworthy contributions of Bielo’s ethnography is his prominent emphasis on group Bible study as a social institution in its own right. Rather than treat group Bible study as merely a corollary feature of congregational life, or confine it to a mixed bag of pop-culture trends such as book clubs and internet chat rooms (the relevance of which does not go unrecognized), Bielo stresses the uniqueness and deep historical roots of group Bible study among churchgoing evangelicals. His ethnography portrays Bible study as a form of ritual practice but also, and more significantly, as a site of knowledge production where the ideological and epistemological priorities of theologically conservative “Bible-believing” Protestants are continually encountered in contexts of carefully moderated face-to-face deliberation. For cynical non-evangelical readers inclined to dismiss Bible study as little more than the reification of blind faith, Bielo’s account—including lengthy transcripts of group discussions— reveals that the work of consensus-building, even among staunch biblical literalists, requires no small degree of intellectual effort, self-consciousness, and social diplomacy. At the same time it is equally apparent from his descriptions that consensus rather than dissonance is the desired outcome of evangelical Bible study, and that the ideal consensus is one that is neatly aligned with the authoritative fundamentalist doctrines of conservative Protestantism. The heuristic tools of symbolic interactionism and discourse analysis provide much of the theoretical framework for this ethnography, helping to underscore the essentially interactive (or, as believers say, “relational”) aspects of evangelical Bible study. Notwithstanding the individualistic [End Page 1078] overtones of conservative Protestant soteriology and core tenets such as “the priesthood of the believer,” the cultivation of religious subjectivity among American evangelicals is pursued through the medium of social relationships. While this includes relationships with non-believers as well as believers, the context of group Bible study provides the ideal setting for “intimate relational spirituality” (92), a key paradigm from which prevalent symbolic and linguistic cues are derived. In the process, the contours of evangelical identity take shape through performances of relational piety and the mobilization of gradated distinctions between self and other(s). This has clear implications for how participants carry themselves as actors in the world, influencing their methods of “witnessing” on behalf of...

Murder on the Trail

Murder on the Trail Donald L. Parman (bio) Ronald W. Walker, Richard E. Turley, Jr., and Glen M. Leonard . Massacre at Mountain Meadows: An American Tragedy. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008. xvi + 430 pp. Illustrations, maps, appendixes, notes, and index. 29.95. The three authors have written a fascinating study about one of the most controversial events of western history. It involved the 1857 deaths of some 120 adults and older children who were traveling on a wagon train through southwestern Utah. The murders were committed by members of the Mormon militia and their Paiute Indian allies. The emotional impact was intensified by the fact that the emigrants were slaughtered while being escorted by the militia under a flag of truce. Except for massacres of Indians by the U.S. Army, the tragedy at Mountain Meadows was unparalleled in western history. The authors note that previous writings on Mountain Meadows can be divided into three schools. One group of authors has depicted the perpetrators as good individuals and the victims as evil people who committed outrages against Mormons while traveling from Salt Lake City to Mountain Meadows. The second school has portrayed the emigrants as innocent people and the killers as misguided zealots. The third approach has embodied "a common sense recognition that both victims and perpetrators were decent but imperfect people whose paths crossed in a moment of history that resulted in a terrible tragedy" (p. xiii). Juanita Brooks's classic study, The Mountain Meadows Massacre (1950), provided a model of objectivity which the authors, themselves Mormons, sought to follow. In addition, they have uncovered previously unused church and militia records, and, more importantly, the field notes of Andrew Jensen, a Mormon church historian, who interviewed Mormon insiders in 1892. The authors begin their narrative with the Mormons' expulsion from western Missouri. The Missouri militia in 1838, for example, attacked Mormon settlers at Haun's Mill and killed seventeen men and boys and wounded fourteen. Mormon founder Joseph Smith was jailed, and some 8,000 followers fled to Nauvoo, Illinois, where they prospered for a few years. Again gentile (non-Mormon) opponents initiated persecution similar to that in Missouri. Smith turned [End Page 230] himself in to gentile authorities and was incarcerated at Carthage, Illinois. A mob broke into the jail and murdered Joseph and his brother Hyrum. The authors interpret the Mormon troubles in Missouri and Illinois as local gentiles' fears of Mormons' growing political and economic power. In addition, the authors suggest American society had a long tradition of rioting and violence, especially against unpopular minorities. While these ideas are valid, an additional cause was that Mormon teachings clashed with existing Protestant doctrines. Frontier evangelical groups such as the Methodists, Baptists, and Campbellites saw the Mormons as competitors whose religion was false and perhaps dangerous to established society. It would have been useful, especially for unversed readers, to have added a chapter on key Mor-mon beliefs, especially those related to polygamy. After Smith's assassination, Brigham Young assumed leadership of the church, and in 1847 he led the first of some 6,000 Mormons to Utah. The authors note that initially the federal government met the Mormons halfway. Young served as territorial governor and Indian superintendent, and other official territorial positions were divided between Mormons and outside gentiles. The latter, however, usually left after a short stay in Salt Lake City and later strongly denounced the Mormons' lack of cooperation. The authors argue plausibly that the clashes were due to cultural differences. Mormons wanted to establish a religious commonwealth in which righteousness prevailed. The American territorial system, however, worked slowly through a series of steps of increasing self-rule leading to eventual statehood. In other territories, local leaders bitterly denounced federal officials' dictatorial rule. By 1857, however, the James Buchanan administration declared that Utah was in "substantial rebellion" and dispatched the U.S. Army to Utah, naming an official to replace Brigham Young as governor. The authors point to several other causes of stress in Utah at this time. These included bad weather, poor harvests, insect plagues, and a spiritual decline that was countered by a zealous religious revival in 1856–57. The latter resulted...

Missionaries and Tonic Sol-fa music pedagogy in 19th-century China

In the 19th century, Christian missionaries in China, as elsewhere, used the Tonic Sol-fa method of music instruction to aid their evangelizing. This system was designed to improve congregational singing in churches, Sunday schools and missions. The London Missionary Society and other evangelical groups employed the method. These missionaries took their message and their music throughout the world. The missionaries were generally convinced of the superiority and efficacy of their religion, their teaching methods and their music. Songs designed as didactic tools were and continue to be employed to impart moral and religious messages. Words sung were often deemed to have more effect than mere words. Music was implicit in missionary teaching and practices — no service was complete without a hymn. For this reason, finding an effective way to teach hymns became a priority. Music continues to be employed to carry messages considered significant and music educators are often expected to support such endeavours.

The Diffusion of New Age Practices and Beliefs among Australian Church Attenders

Analysing the results of a 2001 survey of a random sample of churchgoers in Australia, this article discovers that if all churchgoers are analysed as one single category, Australian churchgoers do not have much affinity with the New Age, a result which fits with the current literature. However, when looking more closely at the sample, it is discovered that Catholics do have the highest affinity with the New Age among all Christian groups, and evangelical groups have the least affinity. It is also found that churchgoers in their teens are more inclined to these alternative ideas.

“Bog off Dog Breath! You’re Talking Pants!” Swearing as Witness Evangelism in Student Evangelical Groups

It has been widely noted that formerly taboo sexual swearing is an increasing part of contemporary popular culture, especially among the young. It has equally been observed that evangelical Christians (or at least evangelical Christian students) tend to swear in an idiosyncratic way (e.g., Bramadat 2000), though this has not been looked at in depth. This article will examine the ways in which two evangelical student groups use swearing as part of their “witness evangelism.” Drawing upon fieldwork, as well as research by Douglas (1966), McEnery (2006), Reiss (2000) and Stark (1996), it will argue that the groups” use of swearing leads to successful evangelism because it gives the group a sense of status in broader society—but also clear boundaries in relation to that society— while maintaining the cultural heritage of those that the groups are attempting to evangelise. Moreover, it will suggest that it helps to create social bonds, within certain parameters, and provides a means of talking about and expressing Christianity and thus “witnessing.”

Initiatives: New Voice for the Environment

Intelligent design or Darwinian evolution? Life created in seven days or evolving over billions of years? Religion and science have traditionally been at loggerheads over issues like these, but in January 2007 a group of scientists and evangelicals put aside their differences to battle environmental woes such as climate change and species extinction. Under the auspices of the Harvard Medical School Center for Health and the Global Environment and the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), scientists including biologist E.O. Wilson, climate researcher James Hansen, and botanist Peter Raven have joined forces with evangelical leaders to form a new group to educate law makers and the public about global environmental threats. The coalition grew out of a lunchtime conversation between Eric Chivian, director of the Harvard center, and Richard Cizik, vice president for governmental affairs of the NAE, in which they realized that scientists and evangelicals shared a deep concern about the planet’s future and felt a moral obligation to act. “Whether you believe life was created in a millisecond or over three and a half billion years—that wasn’t the issue,” says Chivian. “The issue was that life on Earth is imperiled, and that we had to do something about it together.” The result was a retreat for 28 leading scientists and evangelicals in late November 2006, out of which the coalition was born. Cizik says the NAE represents more than 45,000 U.S. churches with more than 30 million members who will now be further encouraged to work on environmental issues. Members of the coalition have already begun meeting with congressional representatives. The churches themselves are organizing various education efforts to mobilize their congregations. For example, a group of pastors are working on a packet that will be distributed to NAE member churches, which will include information such as ten things anyone can do to take care of the environment. The coalition “makes perfect sense,” says Ben Campbell, project director for the Conservation International Faith-Based Initiative, which works cooperatively with religious groups to achieve conservation goals in countries including Columbia, Tibet, and Indonesia: “[Harvard] provides the background science and research, and [the evangelicals] present it in a context that makes sense from a religious standpoint.” As Cizik puts it, “We cannot love our neighbor if we allow the consequences of climate change, pollution, habitat destruction, species extinction, and the spread of human infection diseases to go unabated.” The evangelical group’s decision to battle climate change has met with some internal opposition from two dozen of the movement’s more conservative Christian leaders, who wrote the NAE in early March that environmental issues would take away from the group’s other work on core moral issues, such as abortion. But at a meeting later in the month the NAE board of directors reaffirmed the group’s stance on environmental issues.

The Rise of Evangelicalism: The Age of Edwards, Whitefield and the Wesleys (review)

Reviewed by Jennifer Petrafesa McLaughlin Sacred Heart University The Rise of Evangelicalism: The Age of Edwards, Whitefield and the Wesleys. By Mark A. Noll. [A History of Evangelicalism: People, Movements and Ideas in the English-Speaking World, Volume 1.] (Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press. 2003. Pp. 320. $23.00.) The first in a five-volume series on the 300-year global history of evangelicalism, Mark A. Noll's informative The Rise of Evangelicalism presents the world and work of early evangelicals in Britain and North America from 1734 to 1795. His book provides both a synthesis of scholarship in the religious history of Protestantism in the English-speaking world and an introduction to the most significant primary sources written or read by evangelicals during the era of revivals and awakenings on both sides of the Atlantic in the 1700's. Evangelicalism arose during an era when men and women sought to revitalize religion, to encourage godliness in a world expanding under the pressure of industrial and economic growth. Early evangelicals were reformers who set out primarily to better themselves spiritually. The consequence of conversion, however, was often the betterment of the wider society. And sometimes, as in the case of African Americans and slavery, evangelicals played an important role in altering the ways people thought about this world, not just the next. Noll introduces both the series and his own work by defining evangelicalism, associating the term first with the Protestant Reformation. Theological emphases introduced in the sixteenth century, such as justification by faith rather than works and salvation through Christ's sacrifice on the cross rather [End Page 638] than ecclesiastical mediation or the sacrifice of the Mass, were also associated with the early evangelical movement in Britain and America. However, Noll stresses that there was no one unified evangelical code of beliefs or practices. Yet, while conflicts sometimes flared between different evangelical groups (most notably Calvinists and Arminians), what was more amazing was the ecumenism that generally existed among the various evangelicals at this time. The goal was not to encourage competition among evangelicals, but to inspire spiritual conversion among all believers. The book begins with the physical and mental geography of evangelicalism, linking Britain and her North American colonies through their common history and religious traditions. These links are central; Noll never loses sight of the intimate connection between evangelicalism on the British Isles and in the American colonies. Noll also uncovers the international influence on the development of evangelicalism through Puritanism, continental pietism (especially the Moravians) and High-Church Anglicanism. Four central chapters cover the years 1734 to 1795. They include an examination of the transatlantic nature of British revivals and the American Great Awakening; the expanding role of the laity; the central figures of the revivals including Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield, and Charles and John Wesley; the growing "theological differentiation" among evangelicals; the development of evangelization and voluntary societies; hymnody; the role of women; and the movement of evangelicalism beyond both established churches and the borders of the British Isles and North America. Along with tracing the development of evangelicalism, Noll also considers why the movement began in the first place. Early evangelical preachers "created evangelicalism" (p. 142) by recognizing first their own spiritual needs and then addressing the needs of others within and outside their own communities in England, Scotland, Ireland, and the colonies. Emphasizing once again the diversity of the evangelical experience, Noll outlines the political, social, economic, and religious circumstances that "awakened" men and women on both sides of the Atlantic to revitalize religion in their own lives. Evangelical leaders were men willing to look outside the box, whether as preachers, theologians, publicists, or publishers. These innovators, such as Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield, recognized a society in flux as the Enlightenment, the growth of empire, and early industrialization changed their world and the lives of ordinary men and women who longed for something more. Noll divides evangelicals "in the world...

Ulster Says Maybe: The Restructuring of Evangelical Politics in Northern Ireland

The recent electoral triumphs of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) have stimulated debate about the role of fundamentalist or ‘traditional evangelical’ Protestantism within the party and in Northern Irish politics. This paper argues that a significant restructuring of evangelical politics is taking place, one that is interest group‐centred rather than DUP‐centred. This process has been facilitated by changes in the structure of civil society. Traditional evangelical interest groups are ‘reframing’ their political projects in surprising new ways: abandoning Calvinist conceptions of church and state, using discourses of marginalisation and discrimination, and focusing on ‘moral’ issues. These subtle shifts in rhetoric constitute an acceptance of the post‐Belfast Agreement order. Rather than the tired, ‘Ulster Says No’ politics of the past, evangelicals are speaking out with a pragmatic ‘maybe’. This move parallels and reinforces the DUP’s ideological shifts, and provides an extra‐party platform for evangelicals to impact politics.

Women's Political Discourse: A 21st Century Perspective

Women's Political Discourse: A 21st Century Perspective. By Molly Mayhead and Brenda Devoe Marshall. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield. 2005. 304 pp. 26.00 paper.Political discourse has proven a worthy source of material for scholarly investigation into power, politics, and policymaking. Policy scholars have frequently used discourse to explore issue framing, media content, and policy decisions (e.g., Frank Baumgartner and Bryan Jones, Agendas and Instability in American Politics, 1993; Roger W. Cobb and Charles D. Elder, Participation in American Politics: The Dynamics of Agenda Building, 1983; Deborah Stone, Policy Paradox, 1997; Nayda Terkildsen, Frauke I. Schnell, and Cristina Ling, “Interest Groups, the Media, and Policy Debate Formation: An Analysis of Message Structure, Rhetoric, and Source Cues,” Political Communication 15 [1998]: 45–61). As a tool for investigating abortion debates (e.g., Myra Marx Ferree, William Anthony Gamson, Jurgen Gerhards, and Dieter Rucht, Shaping Abortion Discourse: Democracy and the Public Sphere in Germany and the U.S., 2002) or sex education (e.g., Janice M. Irvine, Talk about Sex: The Battles over Sex Education in the U.S., 2002), discourse also reveals the gendered dimensions of contemporary American politics. At the same time, this insight is not lost on advocates and opinion leaders: “Words are … bullets” in the culture wars, says James Dobson, founder of the conservative evangelical group Focus on the Family (quoted in Irvine 2002, 73).

The North Korean Human Rights Act of 2004

IntroductionOn October i8, 2004, President George W. Bush signed into law H.R. 40ii, the North Korean Human Rights Act of 2004. Act is intended to help promote human rights and freedom in the Democratic People's Republic of according to the Office of the Press Secretary of the White House. Controversies surrounding the Act began before it was officially enacted and continue to cloud efforts of many who are deeply concerned about human rights violations in North Korea. This paper is intended to clarify selected issues of controversy that surround key provisions of the Act that may hurt more than help the very people that the Act is intended to help. At this time, main concerns relate to human rights violations continuing inside North Korea and North Korean refugee problems in China.Human Rights Violations in North KoreaHuman rights violations in North Korea have been well documented in numerous publications. a special edition of the U.S. News & World Report, Omestad states that Today, at least 200,000 political prisoners are held in six giant camps, according to South Korean and U.S. officials, and the number may be growing as North Korea's leaders tighten their grip on a hungry and desperate population. The camps are nothing short of human black holes, into which purported enemies of the regime disappear and rarely exit. (Omestad, 2003, p. i2) Further, In the past three decades, some 400,000 North Koreans are believed to have perished in the gulag. Yet relatively little is known about the camps, which are sealed off from international scrutiny. U.S. News tracked down five former prisoners and who managed to defect to South Korea, and they describe a world of routine horror: beatings, crippling torture, hunger, slave-style labor, and executions. Fetuses are said to be aborted by salt water injected into women's wombs; if that fails, babies are strangled upon delivery. Guards practice tae kwon do on prisoners, who obediently line up to take their punches and kicks. (Omestad, 2003, p. i4) Lee, a female, who was fortunate to survive, said that guards force-fed her water by pushing the spout of a canister into her mouth. They laid a wooden plank across her abdomen-and pressed down, forcing water out through her mouth, nose, and bladder. (Omestad, 2003, p. i8)Jang relates other horror stories by former refugees from North Korea: saw stepping on infants' necks and tossing their bodies into buckets while their mothers screamed, said a North Korean defector. She also spoke of a woman being tied to a wooden post and then shot i8 times for begging to be allowed to feed her small children. I moved rocks for i8 hours every day but was given no more than 22 kernels of corn to eat, another defector testified. The other prisoners and I got a break once when someone was caught trying to escape. We were all forced to attend the execution. We had to throw stones at the escapee. Our loyalty to the regime was measured by the size of the stone we threw. (Jang, 2004, p. 40)A more official assessment on human rights violations in North Korea has been issued annually by the U.S. Department of State. A recent report concludes that North Korea's human rights record remains extremely poor, citing defectors who have reported that In some cases, notably at the height of the famine in the i990s, executions reportedly were carried out at public meetings attended by workers, students, school children, and before assembled inmates at places of detention; that government officials prohibit live births in prison. Forced abortion and the killing of newborn babies reportedly were standard prison practices; and that members of underground churches have been killed because of their religious beliefs and suspected contacts with overseas evangelical groups operating across the Chinese border. (U.S. Department of State, 2005, p. 2)Reports on human rights violations in North Korea are virtually endless and continue to be repeated by many defectors, humanitarian workers, and writers familiar with these cases. …

Trading in Souls

In the years since 9/11, a group of prominent Evangelical Christian ministers has sought to capture the Islamic faithful and convert them to Christianity. Incendiary comments about Islam from religious leaders like Franklyn Graham, Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and Jerry Vines have drawn rebukes from Muslims and Christian groups alike, but many in the grass roots of Evangelical Christianity have absorbed their leaders’ antipathy for Islam. In Evangelical churches and seminaries across country, lectures, and books criticizing Islam and promoting strategies for Muslim conversions are gaining currency. Many of these groups view the US military and its wars in the Muslim world as the perfect vehicles for missionary work in the difficult ‘10/40 Window’, Evangelical speak for the portion of the Middle East that is oil-rich and waiting for conversion to Christianity. The same Evangelical political groups have dedicated themselves to financial support of ultra-orthodox Jewish settlements in the Occupied Territories while advocating US government support of imperialist Israel. Chosen–ness is being crafted as a political term, smacking of imperialism, while the chosen people are the ones on our side.

Crop-tops, Hipsters and Liminality: Fashion and Differentiation in Two Evangelical Student Groups

This article will examine the use of contemporary fashions as a means by which evangelical students express a sense of differentiation from other students. It will draw upon detailed participant observation. It will use this data to criticise Turner’s understanding of liminality. The article will demonstrate that university is a liminal phase and that Oxford University is more liminal than Leiden University. It will argue that, drawing upon the groups assessed, liminality is better defined as a loosening of structure on one level and a reassertion of structure on another. In looking at fashions among evangelical students, it will argue that the more liminal a university is, the more structured and differentiated its main evangelical group appears to be. Moreover, the article aims to provide useful research into fashion among evangelical students.

Tolerant Evangelism. A Student Evangelical Group in a ‘Tolerant’ Culture

This paper examines the nature of evangelism amongst an evangelical group at a Dutch university and compares it to a similar group at a British university. In assessing the differences the paper submits that, to a great extent, an explanation can be found in the centrality of ‘Tolerance’ to Dutch cultural life which it suggests leads to an emphasis on Witness Evangelism. The paper examines the history and beliefs of both groups as well as explaining the fieldwork method employed. It explores tolerance in Holland, drawing upon the views of various cultural commentators as well as the views of Dutch evangelical students on this issue. It then examines differences between the two groups with regard to group activity, evangelical activity and the expression of religious and ethical opinions. It is suggested that the desire to be perceived as being tolerant in Holland, and its consequences, are significant in explaining the differences found.

Affective reactions to auditory hallucinations in psychotic, evangelical and control groups.

Building on recent work on the similarities and differences in delusional ideation between psychotic and religious populations (Peters, Day, McKenna, & Orbach, 1999), the experiences of auditory hallucinations in psychotic, evangelical and control groups were examined in this study. The incidence and subjective experiences of hearing voices were assessed using questionnaire methods in psychotic out-patients, evangelical Christians and controls (non-psychotic, non-evangelical). Incidence of auditory hallucinations differed significantly across the three groups with psychotics showing the highest levels and controls the lowest levels. The experiences of the evangelical group were significantly more positive than those of the control group, which in turn were significantly more positive than those of the psychotic group. The most recent experience of hearing voices was rated more positively than the first experience by the psychotic and religious groups but not by the control group. These findings were much stronger for affective reactions to the experiences than for perceptions of the voices. These results provide only partial support for the findings of Peters et al. (1999) on differences in delusional ideation and possible reasons for this are discussed. The findings for religious and psychotic individuals are discussed further in terms of interpretational and coping mechanisms.

Religious and Secular Reform in America: Ideas, Beliefs, and Social Change

Religious and Secular Reform in America: Ideas, Beliefs, and Social Change. Edited by David K. Adams and Cornelis A. Van Minnen. (New York: New York University Press, 1999. Pp. xiv, 273. Cloth, $55.00; paper, $20.00.) Historians looking for fresh insights into reform tradition in America should enjoy Religious and Secular Reform in America. This collection of essays ranges in time from colonial period to present and in topic from accounts of specific regional religious and reform movements to analyses of intellectual underpinnings of various eras. The authors are of varying nationalities, which may account for some of novelty of perspectives they offer. As title suggests, these essays reflect comfort of their authors in diagnosing between religious and secular ideals and movements. Two of essays offer new insights into familiar nineteenth-century reform movements: Sabbatarianism and temperance. The movement toward legal recognition of Sunday as a set-apart day began as a response to 1810 Act of Congress legislating Sunday mail delivery. Alexis McCrossen notes, however, that rationalizations for observance of changed over time, from strictly biblical admonition to honor Sabbath to secular call for a day of rest for laborers. McCrossen concludes that Sabbatarians lost battles but won war because today the state does not treat Sunday like other days of week (150). While granting logic of this argument, I would ask whether, in truth, a deprived of all religious meaning fulfills true objectives of Sabbatarians. Valeria Gennaro Lerda studies Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) movement in South. She convincingly argues that WCTU helped to energize post-Civil War South by offering southern women a socially acceptable way to learn to organize and speak out publicly. Three of essays deal with development of specific religious traditions. In his piece on eighteenth-century churches in middle colonies, Mark Haberlein's conclusion, that the struggles over religious reform and authority in ... religiously and ethnically diverse... middle colonies ... led to a heightened sense of denominational identity (20) is not in itself striking. What makes his essay so interesting and useful is wealth of evidence he has amassed on four of emerging ethnically based Protestant denominations in middle colonies: Dutch Reformed, Presbyterian, German Lutheran, and German Reformed. Likewise, Louis Billington presents solid evidence for emergence of upstart radical evangelical groups in New England and traces their eventual embourgeoisement in American society. Especially appreciated are his attempts to locate women who composed majority of many congregations, although, as he notes, they are difficult to trace through standard sources such as probate and tax lists. Moving forward in time, Howell John Harris examines modern American Quakerism, beginning by noting that despite its contemporary aura of liberal social activism, it has had a problematic relationship with American liberalism during this (179). World War I, however, brought a renewed commitment to social activism. This, given distinctive (although not unique within American Protestantism) Quaker commitment to pacifism, helped unify and revitalize denomination, resulting in current perception of a bond between modern Quakerism and liberal social activism. Anthony Mann's essay on development of four voluntary associations in Boston in late eighteenth century and Robert Lewis's essay on recreation in antebellum America both deal with issues of social control and moral virtue. …