A MEGA-EVANGELICAL

We've had three installments of Catholic: parishioner, clerical and deCath. Now we proceed to that other result of the Reformation, Evangelicals. Religion historian, Mark Noll is the emphasis of our interview this week from the book Life of Meaning. His expression is the study of Evangelical Christianity in America. When interviewed he was on the faculty of Wheaton College. He joined Notre Dame in 2006. Evangelicalism, fundametalism, pietism, sin, television, films, megachurches, culture wars, and personal experience are all a part of the fare for comment. Below are some selections for discussion.

"To evangelicals themselves, they're wonderful people that make everything nice when people listen to them. Often to those who don't appreciate evangelicals, they're seen as rednecks, crypto-fundamentalists, as people without education, as people without a brain."

"There is a very strong pietist tradition in evangelical Christianity."

"Probably most evangelicals would not want to be called fundamentalists."

Influencing patterns on the public emphasis on Evangelicals:
"Jimmy Carter as President...debate over abortion...culture wars"


"Television and movies...not particularly a religious medium in the US."

While mainline Protestants have decreased in number in US...
"number of Evangelicals (however defined) has increased quite drastically."

Outreach to urban areas through "Megachurches where people are treated as if they are entering a shopping mall." As well as an emphasis on Small Groups.

Adaptation to 'modern musical forms." "Hymns as a form of "sacramental expression" and a "way of teaching."

"Preaching customarily accentuated the notion of human sinfulness...In the modern world, we are more diffident about sin."

"faith that calls people...toward God...and offers something from God."

"The emphasis on personal experience has been a main feature of evangelical Christianity since the mid-eighteenth century...however, when you stress personal experience, the risk is...that you rather than God will become the center of religion. 

 Walter Morton for Terra Incognita