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| Subjects: Religion, Anthropology |
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The Emerging Church movement developed in the mid-1990s among primarily white, urban, middle-class pastors and laity who were disenchanted with America’s conservative Evangelical sub-culture. It is a response to the increasing divide between conservative Evangelicals and concerned critics who strongly oppose what they consider overly slick, corporate, and consumerist versions of faith. A core feature of their response is a challenge to traditional congregational models, often focusing on new church plants and creating networks of related house churches.
Drawing on three years of ethnographic fieldwork, James S. Bielo explores the impact of the Emerging Church movement on American Evangelicals. He combines ethnographic analysis with discussions of the movement’s history, discursive contours, defining practices, cultural logics, and contentious interactions with conservative Evangelical critics to rethink the boundaries of “Evangelical” as a category. Ultimately, Bielo makes a novel contribution to our understanding of the important changes at work among American Protestants, and illuminates how Emerging Evangelicals interact with the cultural conditions of modernity, late modernity, and visions of “postmodern” Christianity. |
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James S. Bielo is Visiting Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Miami University and editor of The Social Life of Scriptures: Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Biblicism. View all books by James Bielo |
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| | "Emerging Evangelicals is a welcome addition to the steadily-growing body of scholarly literature on contemporary American Evangelicals." | | -Charlie McCrary, Religion in American History |
| | "The book is useful for both graduate and upper level seminary students and anthropology major students. It will make a good collection for both seminary and university libraries." | | -Ning Zhang, Religious Studies Review |
| | "From [Bielo's] empathetic description...[it's clear] the growth of introspective evangelicals serves as a caution to scholars and commentators not to assume a homogenous evangelical experience. Recommended." | | -CHOICE |
| | "This enlightening study of postmodern evangelicals illustrates the adaptive capacity and phenomenal resilience of religion in contemporary society, debunking any simple secularist or fundamentalist understanding of religion and modernity." | | -Anthropology Review |
| | "Bielo's depiction of ‘emerging’ evangelicals shows what can be achieved through the best kind of ethnography. This is a deeply engaging and revealing portrait of Christians' whose lives and religious convictions are shown to be complex and subtle, even as they are often pitched against conservative forms of the faith." | | -Simon Coleman, Chancellor Jackman Chaired Professor, University of Toronto |
| “Provides a vivid portrait of new-style Christianity that is challenging and revitalizing the pursuit of the Kingdom of God in the 21st century. Bielo brings an astute anthropological sensitivity to this multifaceted movement and provides a clear-eyed perspective on the variety, motivation, and utter sincerity of the people driving it.” | | -Gerardo Marti, author of A Mosaic of Believers: Diversity and Innovation in a Multiethnic Church |
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