Many today are discarding the evangelical label, and as a lifelong evangelical, Dan Stringer has wrestled with whether to stay or go. In this even-handed guide, he offers a thoughtful appreciation of evangelicalism's history, identity, and strengths, but also lament for its blind spots, showing how we can move forward with hope for our future together.

* Winner of the 2017 National Book Critics Circle Award * National Book Award Finalist * Time magazine Top 10 Nonfiction Book of the Year * New York Times Notable Book * Publishers Weekly Best Books of 2017 This “epic history” (The Boston Globe) from Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Frances FitzGerald is the first to tell the powerful, dramatic story of the Evangelical movement in America—from the Puritan era to the 2016 election. “We have long needed a fair-minded overview of this vitally important religious sensibility, and FitzGerald has now provided it” (The New York Times Book Review). The evangelical movement began in the revivals of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, known in America as the Great Awakenings. A populist rebellion against the established churches, it became the dominant religious force in the country. During the nineteenth century white evangelicals split apart, first North versus South, and then, modernist versus fundamentalist. After World War II, Billy Graham attracted enormous crowds and tried to gather all Protestants under his big tent, but the civil rights movement and the social revolution of the sixties drove them apart again. By the 1980s Jerry Falwell and other southern televangelists, such as Pat Robertson, had formed the Christian right. Protesting abortion and gay rights, they led the South into the Republican Party, and for thirty-five years they were the sole voice of evangelicals to be heard nationally. Eventually a younger generation proposed a broader agenda of issues, such as climate change, gender equality, and immigration reform. Evangelicals now constitute twenty-five percent of the American population, but they are no longer monolithic in their politics. They range from Tea Party supporters to social reformers. Still, with the decline of religious faith generally, FitzGerald suggests that evangelical churches must embrace ethnic minorities if they are to survive. “A well-written, thought-provoking, and deeply researched history that is impressive for its scope and level of detail” (The Wall Street Journal). Her “brilliant book could not have been more timely, more well-researched, more well-written, or more necessary” (The American Scholar).

David Gushee analyzes what went wrong with U.S. white evangelicalism in areas such as evangelical identity, biblical interpretation, church life, sexuality, politics, and race, and offers a new way forward for disillusioned post-evangelicals.

Winner of the Christianity Today Book of the Year Award (1995) “The scandal of the evangelical mind is that there is not much of an evangelical mind.” So begins this award-winning intellectual history and critique of the evangelical movement by one of evangelicalism’s most respected historians. Unsparing in his indictment, Mark Noll asks why the largest single group of religious Americans—who enjoy increasing wealth, status, and political influence—have contributed so little to rigorous intellectual scholarship. While nourishing believers in the simple truths of the gospel, why have so many evangelicals failed to sustain a serious intellectual life and abandoned the universities, the arts, and other realms of “high” culture? Over twenty-five years since its original publication, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind has turned out to be prescient and perennially relevant. In a new preface, Noll lays out his ongoing personal frustrations with this situation, and in a new afterword he assesses the state of the scandal—showing how white evangelicals’ embrace of Trumpism, their deepening distrust of science, and their frequent forays into conspiratorial thinking have coexisted with surprisingly robust scholarship from many with strong evangelical connections.

There is no doubting the legacy of the Protestant Reformers and their successors. Luther, Calvin, and Wesley not only spawned specific denominational traditions, but their writings have been instrumental in forging a broadly embraced evangelical theology as well. In this volume, Ben Witherington wrestles with some of the big ideas of these major traditional theological systems (sin, God's sovereignty, prophecy, grace, and the Holy Spirit), asking tough questions about their biblical foundations. Witherington argues that evangelicalism sometimes wrongly assumes a biblical warrant for some of its more popular beliefs, and, further, he pushes the reader to engage the larger story and plot of the Bible to understand these central elements of belief. --Donald K. McKim, Editor, Encyclopedia of the Reformed Faith

Stanley J. Grenz evaluates the course of evangelical theology and sets out a bold agenda for a new century. He proposes that evangelical theology, to remain vibrant and vital in the postmodern era, should find its central integrative motifs in the reign of God and the community of Christ.

A leading historian of evangelicalism offers a concise history of evangelicals and how they became who they are today Evangelicalism is arguably America’s most controversial religious movement. Nonevangelical people who follow the news may have a variety of impressions about what “evangelical” means. But one certain association they make with evangelicals is white Republicans. Many may recall that 81 percent of self†‘described white evangelicals voted for Donald Trump, and they may well wonder at the seeming hypocrisy of doing so. In this illuminating book, Thomas Kidd draws on his expertise in American religious history to retrace the arc of this spiritual movement, illustrating just how historically peculiar that political and ethnic definition (white Republican) of evangelicals is. He examines distortions in the public understanding of evangelicals, and shows how a group of “Republican insider evangelicals” aided the politicization of the movement. This book will be a must†‘read for those trying to better understand the shifting religious and political landscape of America today.

This books looks at the launch of the church in Ephesus as it became a movement grounded in God's mission and led by those who multiplied generations of disciples. Michael T. Cooper focuses on Paul and John as missiological theologians who successfully connected Jesus's teaching with the cultural context and narrative of the people in Ephesus.

In the evangelical community, a variety of alternative mental health treatments--deliverance/exorcism, biblical counseling, reparative therapy and many others--have been proposed for the treatment of mentally ill, female and LGBT evangelicals. This book traces the history of these methods, focusing on the major proponents of each therapeutic system while also examining mainstream evangelical psychology. The author concludes that in the majority of cases mental disorders are blamed on two main issues--sin and demonic possession/oppression--and that as a result some communities have become a mental health underclass who are ill-served or oppressed by both alternative and mainstream evangelical therapeutic systems. He argues that the only recourse left for mentally ill, female and LGBT evangelicals is to rally for reform and increased accountability for both professional and alternative evangelical practitioners.

A talented teacher unpacks the riches of traditional Christian spirituality for Christians burdened by the guilt and anxiety of introspective, in-my-heart spiritual techniques. Phillip Cary explains that knowing God is a gradual, long-term process that comes through the gospel experienced in Christian community. The first edition has sold over 17,000 copies. The expanded edition includes a new afterword that offers further insights since the first edition was published over ten years ago.