by Wendy Murray Zoba

See this item in the bookstore...

review by Riley Case

THIRTY-FIVE percent of Americans today are evangelical Christians (some say 38 percent). At least that is the conclusion of one study. One might ask: “Which 35 percent is it?” Do “born again” Roman Catholics qualify? Or the Amish? Or Missouri Synod Lutherans? Or perhaps my neighbor who doesn't even go to church but assures me that he believes the Bible and would defend the idea that Jesus was born of a virgin? And, if one reads a statistic, such as 69 percent of the evangelicals favor the Republican Party, how is it determined who is on the “evangelical list” to be surveyed?

In the very complex world of American religion we have Southern Baptists who do not wish to be identified as “evangelical” but liberal Methodists who do. We have people who see the essence of evangelical faith in a born-again experience, and “born-again” can mean anything from a walk down the aisle at a Billy Graham meeting to a warm fuzzy feeling in the presence of a beautiful sunset. Others link “evangelical” with conservative politics. Still others argue that inerrancy is the issue dividing evangelicals from nonevangelicals.

Wendy Murray Zoba has undertaken a monumental task. She has attempted to sort out the evangelical world, complete with Calvinists, Arminians, Pentecostals, Anabaptists, Pietists, parachurch groups, big church preachers, and gospel music. She has described the big tent under which the 35 percent have gathered, and sought to explain how people within the tent are different from people outside the tent.

For starters we get a working definition of evangelical. Evangelicals are those who:

1. Believe they have had a “born-again” experience.
2. Emphasize a personal relationship with Jesus.
3. Believe the Bible is reliable.
4. Feel obligated to share their faith with others to save them from eternal damnation.

From this definition we are ready to chart our path through the evangelical world, dealing with the common day-to-day convictions of evangelicals.

We deal with the outline of the Bible, tracing creation, the plan of God, the birth and death and resurrection of Jesus, the great commission and the Holy Spirit, and whether the Bible stories are true (can't spend too much time here; there is too much more to come and we need to do the whole book in 121 pages). We also get an explanation of what it means to be “born-again” and why people should be saved.

At this point it is probably helpful to understand that this book is the project of Beliefnet. Beliefnet is not associated with the Billy Graham organization, nor with Campus Crusade, nor with any organization usually associated with the evangelical world. Beliefnet is a “multi-faith e-community designed to help persons meet their spiritual needs in an interesting, captivating and engaging way.” Please understand that “multi-faith” is not a reference to Baptists and Methodists, but to Christians, Buddhists, Muslims, Hindus, and anybody else wanting religious help. Beliefnet is not into the business of preparing Sunday school material for local churches. It is more into exploring the zillions of religious options, presumably for the kind of people who get a lot of their information and inspiration from the Internet.

This is not meant as a criticism of the book. But it does help explain why the author feels a need to explain the numbers in the Bible (they are chapters and verses), the difference between the Old Testament and the New Testament, and ask questions such as “Were the Puritans teetotalers?” (no). In other words, this is a book directed primarily not to insiders but to the Beliefnet types (and possibly to the writers of the New York Times!). This, then, helps to explain the glossary, and why in the glossary we have entries for such words and phrases as intelligent design theory, postmillennialism, the holiness movement, modernism, saved, six-day creationism, antichrist, baptism, and charismatic. In other words, the glossary helps us understand the words and phrases the daily newspaper and popular culture associate with “evangelical.”

We jump into the big issues as early as page 30, with the question “Who Will Get Left Behind?” In a sort of Walk-Through-the-Bible whirlwind tour in 12 pages we sort out Hal Lindsey, Tim LaHay, St. Augustine, William Miller, Martin Luther, the rapture, the blood of Christ, postmillennialism, C. I. Scofield, and Mark Noll. As a bonus, we get answers to the question, “Does God Send Good People to Hell?”

Since any study of evangelicalism needs historical perspective, we then do the history section in 18 pages (it probably deserves at least six more pages than the Second Coming). This takes us through Nero, Constantine, Augustine, Luther, Calvin, the Pietists, the Anabaptists, the Puritans, John Wesley, Jonathan Edwards, the Church of England, Charles Finney, William Wilberforce, Fanny Crosby, and Amy Carmichael. If for no other reason preachers should read this book to learn how to condense a one-hour sermon into five minutes!

One should be impressed by this time that Wendy Murray Zoba has a good grasp of the evangelical world and can write about it with insight (and do it briefly). One should give Beliefnet credit that they picked someone to do this book who is an insider, who can write (she is a journalist), and who is not a preacher or seminary professor (in which case by page 50 we would still be analyzing the meaning of “born again”). The language is good Reader's Digest seventh-grade-level reading, which suggests that even tough topics can be presented in understandable language.

No study on evangelicalism would be complete without a section on the fundamentalist-modernist split, and what then followed, the evangelical-fundamentalist split. This is where discussions of the Scopes Trial come in, and evolution and biblical inerrancy. The author treats each of these potentially explosive areas with sensitivity and understanding. We learn here that it was Homer Simpson who asked whether Jesus could microwave a burrito so hot that even he couldn't eat it.

What else do we need to know about evangelicals? A number of items are discussed in the section on evangelicals and culture: Youth for Christ, the Jesus People, Jimmy Carter, Chuck Colson, Ronald Reagan, Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell (do these guys speak for all evangelicals? …again, let's hope some New York Times writers check this book out), homosexuals, abortion, women in the church, the Christian Coalition, Promise Keepers, Willow Creek, and, of course, Billy Graham. The topics and people covered are ones recognizable in the popular media.

For people who want to check all of this out at an evangelical church, here is some insider's advice: Bring a Bible, learn “Shine, Jesus, Shine” before you show up, get ready to shake hands, be prepared for people to wave their hands in the air, have a few prayer requests on hand, and, if you are attending a Bible study, be prepared to sign up for food. The book includes a trivia quiz on Billy Graham.

This is really a pretty good read and worth it even for those who have been insiders all their lives and know all this already. The author can't cover everything of course but Quakers will wonder why they don't rate at least a few pages. Phil Yancey's introduction is worth the price of the book (which is a reasonable $9.95). Yancey contributes the idea that people need to get over their stereotyped prejudice of evangelicals as up-tight right-wingers.

The Beliefnet Guide to Evangelical Christianity lets us know that the evangelical world is much more interesting, much more complex, and much more fun than the common stereotypes.

Have you read this book? Add your comments below.