The Evangelical Experience: Understanding One of America's Largest Religious Movements from the Inside Kindle Edition
by Anthony Coleman (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
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"Believers are light. Unbelievers are darkness. Real, complex, unique people, often people that the believer cares about deeply, have to be put into one of these two categories. Clearly, due to the fact that there are genuinely kind souls of other faiths or non-faith, the believer is eventually going to run into individuals who strain these categories of thought. Often these relationships can be the first 'crack' in the Evangelical framework of faith."
In The Evangelical Experience, Anthony Coleman gives the reader an inside look at the Evangelical movement in America. Having been a part of the faith during his formative and early adult years, Coleman shares his personal journey into, and out of, Evangelicalism, as well as observations on how accepting the Church's doctrine affects the believer in diverse ways. Coleman concludes by wondering aloud what life and faith look like after leaving conservative Christianity, and shares his thoughts on a tentative way forward.
Evangelicals will find much they relate to, non-Evangelicals will gain a better understanding of the movement, and former Evangelicals will find a companion on their journey.
Anthony Coleman holds a B.A. in Biblical Studies and an M.A. in Theological Studies from separate Evangelical institutions. He can be contacted at anthony@thecontemplativelife.org.
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"A debut book offers a concise introduction to Evangelicalism from an informed insider...The book is bifurcated into two parts: a scholarly account of the theology and history of Evangelicalism and a memoir recounting the author's grappling with his own doubts about his faith. The first part is as lucid a précis as is available; Coleman patiently describes a widely misunderstood religious sect in accessible prose. What emerges is not only an unambiguous account of what it means to be Evangelical, but also a picture of a church much less monolithic than is commonly thought. Despite some basic theological commitments, Evangelicals are engaged in their own share of intramural disputes about scriptural exegesis, salvation, homosexuality and gay marriage, and a number of other significant topics. In the autobiographical portion of the book, Coleman candidly discusses the crisis of faith he experienced as he discovered differences between his view of the Bible and most Evangelicals', and this interpretive dissonance ultimately birthed a philosophical skepticism that nearly destroyed his faith. He found his way back to God, though no longer as an Evangelical, and counsels that its members rethink their relations to non-Christians...The book concludes with an actual entry from the author's journal that affectingly conveys the anguish he suffered from his trial of doubt. Coleman writes under a nom de guerre, apparently so as not to challenge the faith of Evangelicals he knows, though it's not entirely clear why writing anonymously will diminish the volume's power to potentially nurture doubts. Nevertheless, this is a moving and educational book that will resonate with all those in search of an authentically religious life. A superb account of an increasingly important religious movement." - Kirkus Reviews
Product details
ASIN : B018IIM4RW
Publication date : November 24, 2015
Language : English
#1,081 in Religious Studies - Sociology
Customer Reviews: 4.2 out of 5 stars 39 ratings
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Anthony Coleman
Anthony Coleman writes about contemplative spiritual practice and comparative religion at www.thecontemplativelife.org.
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Guitarist
5.0 out of 5 stars If you want to understand evangelicalism, read this book
Reviewed in the United States on November 8, 2017
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I really appreciated this book, not only because it mirrors so closely my own experience of being very deep within and then journeying away from conservative/evangelical Christianity, but also because it was just a really good read. I actually devoured it in a single sitting. It is written so clearly, carefully and honestly that it is a great book not just for anyone wanting to learn about evangelicalism, but also -- and especially -- for those who find themselves, like the author, "de-converted" . This is the term the author uses, and it's an apt one, conversion being such an important element of evangelicalism. The author is a better person than myself, however, for he clearly harbors no ill-will toward evangelicalism per se or toward those who are still in it. (For myself, all I need is the reminder that 80% of evangelicals voted for Donald Trump, and I'm disgusted with the entire program and the whole culture.) Interestingly, his goal is not to encourage others to get out of it. In fact, he worries about evangelicals reading his book and being lead into the same gut-wrenching experiences he went through in his own deconversion. Rather, his goal is to convey his own experience of evangelical religion, not, he says, to speak for evangelicals as a whole.....but in the process we are given a detailed, fair and emotionally nuanced picture of evangelical life. For this reason the book is highly recommended for the outsider. He puts his finger on the 2 really critical points about the culture, first its belief in the inerrant (or infallible) Bible -- to hearing God (having a personal relationship with Jesus) by believing and obeying the book -- and second its us/them mentality, the construction of the entire world of humankind into those who are saved and those who are lost. Along with that are numerous details that are very helpful for understanding them -- such as their obsession with sexual ethics. But he does an especially good job putting his finger on the most critical (and, in my opinion, toxic) features of evangelicalism, in a way only a former insider could do. And, perhaps unintentionally, he offers the most withering critique of evangelicalism, which is that if you follow it to the end, you will find yourself actually lead not into faith but away from it. There is a touching description in the book of the loss of meaning he experienced when he found himself -- really against his will -- actually going so far as this. He found out that the deeper thing people find in evangelicalism is not Jesus but a tremendous infusion of meaningfulness into their lives. The result is that if you leave it you end up in an existential crisis -- with terrible withdrawal symptoms after pulling away from its wonderful infusions of meaning. (I appreciated the author sharing this experience of meaninglessness, because I went through the same misery.) One other thing I should mention, I also appreciated the author pointing out the failed eschatology of (probably) Jesus and (certainly) the early Church. This realization had a big impact on me as well. As he points out, once you see it, it's obvious, and impossible to un-see. It's a problem that evangelicalism needs to grapple with, but cannot. It is too safely and happily ensconced behind the walls of its infallible "word of God" book, inside the borders of its sense of being saved. That's fine for them, but for the rest of us who have really read the Bible closely, it doesn't help much. At the end of the book, he grapples with the question of "what next?" also in a very careful and moving way. Recommended!
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NMRN
3.0 out of 5 stars Insights and confusions
Reviewed in the United States on July 2, 2018
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Coleman's book is part personal narrative and part accounting of the core beliefs and cultural norms of Evangelical Christianity. His "conversion" from a low-key UCC upbringing, by way of "on fire" Pentecostalism, is a great illustration of the intensity of feeling that I have seen described by other Evangelicals. His crisis of faith in discovering that people do not fit so neatly into "light" (born-again Christian) and "dark" (unbelievers) boxes, and in discovering that his "inerrant" and "authoritative" Bible was filled with paradox and contradiction - this, too, is authentic to the pain I have sometimes seen expressed by Evangelicals and former Evangelicals.
I have carefully placed in quote marks above some of the key cultural and theological factors that seem to most clearly define Evangelicalism. Coleman provides a list of the hallmarks of Evangelical Christianity. Of these, only two strike me to be truly distinguishing, compared to other branches of Protestantism: (1) the importance of the "conversion" experience, and (2) the priority placed on evangelism. Coleman's narrative is effective in showcasing how these go hand-in-hand. A non-obvious insight about Evangelicals is the special emphasis they place on the books of John and Romans.
The rest of the book is a bit of a muddle. For example, Coleman states that the ecumenical creeds are important to Evangelical churches. This is a curious assertion, because it contradicts the primacy and self-evidence of Scripture that is otherwise stated to be a core principle of Evangelicalism. (The ecumenical councils were convened to settle points of doctrine that could not be neatly wrapped up by Scripture, and so the Creeds are by definition "Tradition".) Evangelicals can be said to unwittingly embrace Tradition (the doctrines of hypostatic union and the Trinity, for example, are undisputed) even as they rail against it. The Magisterium of the Roman Catholic Church and the Confessional statements of the Reformation seem to be especially offensive to Evangelical sensibilities. (Some Fundamentalists even go so far as to reject sermons and devotionals as too much "of man, not of God" and insist that only direct personal communion with Scripture and the Holy Spirit is the true way of a Christian). Adherence to the ecumenical Creeds is even more defining of Catholic, Orthodox and Mainline Protestant Christianity -- all of which articulate the Creeds directly in their worship liturgies -- so why suggest that it is a characteristic of Evangelicals at all?
Another curiosity is the chapter on Evangelical Leadership, which purports to provide a list of "Evangelical celebrities." Among the influential "Evangelical" writers on Coleman's list are NT Wright and CS Lewis (Anglicans), GK Chesterton (Catholic), and Rachel Held Evans (who wrote about leaving the Evangelical church to become an Episcopalian). If these are all Evangelical thinkers, then the term loses all meaning.
By the end of the book, it was clear that what is most distinctive about Evangelicalism is not theology, but rather ethics and praxis. Evangelicalism is not a belief system, but rather a culture, and perhaps one that measures God's presence mostly in terms of the intensity of each individual's feelings and actions. (Why else would the author have felt the need to be baptized three or four times, just to make sure he really "got it right"? Can we not trust that God knew what He was doing the first time around?) I don't know if this was the author's intended message.
I hesitate to critique the author's personal journey, which is described with pain and authenticity. But I do have a suggestion to make for other Evangelicals who may find themselves on such a path. For reasons that are left vague, Coleman attended a Lutheran seminary for his Master's degree. There he was frustrated by his professors' unwillingness to provide tidy and authoritative answers to his questions, which ultimately furthered the death spiral of his Christian belief. But Lutherans are (in)famous for their willingness to hold paradoxes in an unresolved state, and to accept that some questions will remain in the realm of "mystery" to us. So my advice to others who may find their Evangelical beliefs untenable is to embrace the possibility that God asks us find our spiritual life more in the questions, than in the answers. As in Romans 11, who knows the mind of our God? How unsearchable are His judgements? How untraceable are His paths? Thanks be to God.
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