By: Daren Jaime on October 17, 2024
Journeying through ministry I am mindful of some of my ministerial mentors and those who taught me polity and liturgy. One such professor was Dr. Odinga Maddox. Dr. Maddox was a respected pastor, leader, and critical thinker. During one of his lectures, he reminded this novice group of emerging leaders to form ecumenical bonds. When…
By: Christy Liner on October 17, 2024
Consumerism has taken the west by storm. In 2020, Relevant Magazine published that “Nearly half the world’s toys are in America. Despite making up just over 3 percent of the global population of children, American kids consume 40 percent of the world’s toys.”[1] Consumerist culture runs deep in the west with the temptation to shop…
By: Kari on October 17, 2024
Titles. Labels. Boxes. These categories help us organize thoughts, ideas, things, and even people. “Evangelical” is a name by which one can classify a type of Christianity. I have always considered myself an evangelical, but I have rarely used that word to label myself—that is, until I moved to France to study French. I enjoyed…
By: Elysse Burns on October 17, 2024
Evangelicalism has experienced many changes since its emergence in the 1730s, making it often hard to define.[1] D.W. Bebbington’s Evangelism in Modern Britain: A History from the 1730s to the 1980s outlines the basis of Evangelicalism and further analyzes and explains the movement’s changes. Bebbington writes concerning Evangelicalism’s quadrilateral of priorities, “There are four qualities…
By: Ryan Thorson on October 17, 2024
“You best start believing in ghost stories, Miss Turner…you’re in one!” This famous line from one of my favorite movies, Pirates of the Caribbean, echoed in my ears as I read through the history of evangelicalism. Elizabeth Turner longed for adventure but when she was taken hostage by cursed pirates she didn’t believe what she’d…
By: Russell Chun on October 17, 2024
Príliš neskoro pre moje deti – Too Late for my children Part 1. Introduction Part 2. What others are saying Part 3. What I learned from Haidt Part 4. Epilogue: What is the way forward Part 1. Introduction Príliš neskoro pre moje deti, príliš skoro pre moje vnúčatá.” Too Late for my children, Too…
By: Adam Cheney on October 17, 2024
I have struggled with which direction I want to go with this blog on Bebbington’s book for a couple of reasons. First, the book was slow to read, written like a history book by a scholarly historian. Secondly, the book ended too soon. Since the book’s print date, Evangelicalism has continued to change distinctly. His…
By: Graham English on October 16, 2024
I grew up with a nominal Anglican faith. It was church at Christmas and Easter and perhaps a few Sundays sprinkled in. I decided that I would leave the church as a teenager because it held little relevance to my life. I was a theist and there was a moral component to my life but…
By: Shela Sullivan on October 16, 2024
“Evangelicalism in Modern Britain: A History from the 1730s to the 1980s” by David Bebbington is comprehensive historical study of the evangelical movement in Britain from the 18th century to late 20th century.[1] This book explores how evangelicalism has influenced and been shaped by British society over time. Furthermore, Bebbington examines key periods and events such as the impact of the evangelical movement in the 19th century its resurgence after…
By: Diane Tuttle on October 15, 2024
When I was growing up, my only exposure to, what I told was, evangelicalism, was seeing someone standing on a milk crate at the country fair with a mega-phone shouting to repent and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ or face eternal damnation. As a young teen who wanted to ride rides or win a…
By: Debbie Owen on October 15, 2024
“You know it when you see it.” This phrase is often used as a definition for “pornography” but it can have many other applications as well. In his classic book, Evangelicalism in Modern Britain, D.W. Bebbington uses a similar quote for evangelicalism: “Who was an Evangelical? Sometimes adherents of the movement were in doubt themselves.…
By: Jennifer Eckert on October 15, 2024
An optimist’s view of evangelicalism and capitalism might resemble a dance that ebbs and flows together in rhythms that rise and fall in an exchange of faith and fortune. Conversely, a pessimist’s view of these two critical forces could look more like tossing yesterday’s forgotten leftovers into a jumbled cauldron of hash, destined to become…
By: Glyn Barrett on October 15, 2024
Evangelicalism in Modern Britain: A History from the 1730s to the 1980s[1] by David W. Bebbington explores the development and transformation of Evangelical Christianity in Britain over a 250-year period. As a British-based Pastor, many of the names, locations and events are so ingrained in the storytelling narrative of the British church that it was…
By: Scott Dickie on October 14, 2024
(Spoiler Alert: my blog doesn’t have anything to do with the title…I just like irony) So many thoughts, so few words. That is my first response as I sit down to write a blog on Jonathan Haidt’s book, The Anxious Generation, which asserts that, “overprotection in the real world and underprotection in the virtual world—are…
By: Jeff Styer on October 14, 2024
“’Jesus Is My Savior, Trump Is My President’” was a sign carried by those on January 6, 2021 outside the U.S. Capitol. Matthew Sutton describes what was seen that day and leading up to January 6th in an article titled “The Capitol Riot Revealed the Darkest Nightmares of White Evangelical America.”[1] Evangelical, a term that…
By: Jennifer Vernam on October 14, 2024
When reading Jonathan Haidt’s The Anxious Generation[1], and his assessment of the impact of smart phones and social media on children, there were two parts of my personal story that influenced my perspective. First, I am a champion worrier. I do not use the word ‘champion’ lightly here. If there were awards given to those…
By: Tim Clark on October 14, 2024
The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness by Jonathan Haidt is an extremely hard book for me to read. I say “is” because I’m still in the middle of it (actually, towards the beginning of it). I can only take small sections at a time. It’s…
By: Kally Elliott on October 14, 2024
I first heard of Johnathan Haidt’s book, The Anxious Generation, when a friend from church suggested I read it. Instead, my husband, daughter and I listened to a very long podcast about it on a car trip from northern California back to Bend, Oregon. I feel the need to clarify that as my twelve-year-old daughter…
By: Pam Lau on October 14, 2024
In March 2018, I opened up FaceBook one morning only to fall into utter shock and dismay as I peered at the photo in front of me. Hanging from a parachute in the clear, blue sky was my 20-year-old daughter, a college sophomore. I didn’t find out about her jumping from an airplane from a…
By: Travis Vaughn on October 14, 2024
In The Anxious Generation, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt writes something that made me think of a Black Mirror episode from the mid-2010s. Referring to the challenges of navigating a contemporary social context that thrives on likes and retweets, Haidt writes, “Succeeding socially in that universe required them to devote a large part of their consciousness–perpetually–to…
