The State of the Evangelical Mind: Reflections on the Past, Prospects for the Future

Griffis, Rachel B.

doi:10.1177/20569971211015891

Cited by 1 publication

(1 citation statement)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…8 But anti‐intellectualism is also a ‘scandal’ (Noll 1994) of their own. Against the Fundamentalist Movement's deliberate antagonism of and estrangement from mainstream society, many evangelicals have been grappling with how to reimagine their influence on the society's ‘first‐order’ intellectual discourse (Noll 1994; see also Ream, Pattengale & Devers 2018). By focusing on moral epistemology, we might see that being ‘intellectual’ or ‘anti‐intellectual’ is not really about intellect per se – it is very much about epistemic virtue.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Proselytizing is not evangelism: epistemic virtue and religious suasion at a post‐fundamentalist church in Nashville

Victor

2024

Royal Anthropological Inst

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This essay proposes a moral epistemological explanation for many US evangelicals’ growing unease about proselytizing. Drawing on extensive fieldwork at a church in Nashville, Tennessee, it highlights how a particular kind of epistemological certainty became a driving value of evangelical biblicism when early nineteenth‐century evangelicals attempted to apply the precepts of inductive science to textual interpretation. Members of the church I studied routinely express regret about this historical entanglement, which they blame for their denomination's dogmatic and ultimately unsuccessful fixation on persuading other people to believe the exact same things as they do. Against ‘proselytizing’ driven by ‘the desire to be right’, my interlocutors are trying to develop a practical social ethics whose explicitly biblical inspiration, they hope, will motivate others to want to become Christians. I show that as an analytic, religious suasion makes concepts like ‘proselytizing’ and ‘evangelism’ ethnographic again by sending them back to the field where our interlocutors themselves define and critique them. Doing this allows us to better grasp nuances in evangelicals’ own evolving ideologies and practices for making their religion intelligible to themselves and others.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Proselytizing is not evangelism: epistemic virtue and religious suasion at a post‐fundamentalist church in Nashville

Victor

2024

Royal Anthropological Inst

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

The State of the Evangelical Mind: Reflections on the Past, Prospects for the Future

Cited by 1 publication

References 0 publications

Proselytizing is not evangelism: epistemic virtue and religious suasion at a post‐fundamentalist church in Nashville

Proselytizing is not evangelism: epistemic virtue and religious suasion at a post‐fundamentalist church in Nashville

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About