4.9 Noll (1994)
Noll, Mark A. (1994) The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind. Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company & Leicester, England: Inter-Varsity Press
Quick Look
Author Mark Noll, Francis A. McAnaney Professor of History at the University of Notre Dame, was named by Time Magazine as one of the twenty-five most influential evangelicals in America in 2005. He received his Ph.D. in the History of Christianity from Vanderbilt University, and was on the faculty at Wheaton College for twenty-seven years as McManis Professor of Christian Thought. He is the author of many books. |
This Resource’s Key Interpretations and Insights Related to the Purposes of This Website
This indictment of the poor state of evangelical thinking by one of their own best historians was revolutionary at
the time and spurred a center-right turn in evangelical Christian theology that is still growing today.
1. Noll laments that many times for over the last two decades (back from 1996) he felt it might be impossible to be both evangelical and intellectual. He wrote this book hoping to help change that scandalous situation. He attempts to show that "fidelity to Jesus Christ demands from evangelicals a more responsible intellectual existence than we have practiced throughout much of our history." (27)
2. He devises a very creative way to eviscerate claims of orthodoxy by anti-intellectual evangelicals. He argues that, on the contrary, they are akin to early heresies--Manichaeism, Gnosticism and Docetism.
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Additional Important Interpretations and Insights
5.
This indictment of the poor state of evangelical thinking by one of their own best historians was revolutionary at
the time and spurred a center-right turn in evangelical Christian theology that is still growing today.
1. Noll laments that many times for over the last two decades (back from 1996) he felt it might be impossible to be both evangelical and intellectual. He wrote this book hoping to help change that scandalous situation. He attempts to show that "fidelity to Jesus Christ demands from evangelicals a more responsible intellectual existence than we have practiced throughout much of our history." (27)
2. He devises a very creative way to eviscerate claims of orthodoxy by anti-intellectual evangelicals. He argues that, on the contrary, they are akin to early heresies--Manichaeism, Gnosticism and Docetism.
3.
4.
Additional Important Interpretations and Insights
5.
Quotes from Text
"The scandal of the evangelical mind is that there is not much of an evangelical mind." (3)
"...much of what is distinctive about American evangelicalism is not essential to Christianity. To the extent that the distinctives of evangelicalism are subordinated to the essentials of Christianity, to that extent the chances are greater for the development of Christian intellectual life...To confuse the distinctive with the essential is to compromise the life-transforming character of Christian faith." (243-44)
"The scandal of the evangelical mind is that there is not much of an evangelical mind." (3)
"...much of what is distinctive about American evangelicalism is not essential to Christianity. To the extent that the distinctives of evangelicalism are subordinated to the essentials of Christianity, to that extent the chances are greater for the development of Christian intellectual life...To confuse the distinctive with the essential is to compromise the life-transforming character of Christian faith." (243-44)
Endorsements
"Mark Noll has written a major indictment of American evangelicalism. Reading this book, one wonders if the evangelical movement has pandered so much to American culture, tried so hard to be popular, and perpetuated such a do-it-yourself, feel-good faith that it has lost not only its mind but its soul as well. Clergy, seminary faculty, and laypeople need to take the message of this book to heart. The pews may be packed, but the churches are in deep trouble. Unless they retrieve the intellectual rigor of historic Christianiyt, their role in the future will only diminish." ~Robert Wuthnow, author of Christianity in the 21st Century
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"Passionate polemic and first-rate intellectual history, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind explores the erosion and near-collapse of evangelicalism's great intellectual heritage. Unsparing in his judgments of contemporary evangelical Christianity yet deeply engaged with its fate, Noll finds hope that it can once again play a role in the life of the mind in America. This 'epistle from a wounded lover' is itself a significant step in that direction." ~Paul Boyer, University of Wisconsin-Madison
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