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Apostles of Reason: The Crisis of Authority in American Evangelicalism
Evangelical Christianity is a paradox. Evangelicals are radically individualist, but devoted to community and family. They believe in the transformative power of a personal relationship with God, but are wary of religious enthusiasm. They are deeply skeptical of secular reason, but eager to find scientific proof that the Bible is true.
In this groundbreaking history of modern American evangelicalism, Molly Worthen argues that these contradictions are the products of a crisis of authority that lies at the heart of the faith. Evangelicals have never had a single authority to guide them through these dilemmas or settle the troublesome question of what the Bible actually means. Worthen chronicles the ideological warfare, institutional conflict, and clashes between modern gurus and maverick disciples that lurk behind the more familiar narrative of the rise of the Christian Right. The result is an ambitious intellectual history that weaves together stories from all corners of the evangelical world to explain the ideas and personalities-the scholarly ambitions and anti-intellectual impulses-that have made evangelicalism a cultural and political force.
In Apostles of Reason, Worthen recasts American evangelicalism as a movement defined not by shared doctrines or politics, but by the problem of reconciling head knowledge and heart religion in an increasingly secular America. She shows that understanding the rise of the Christian Right in purely political terms, as most scholars have done, misses the heart of the story. The culture wars of the late twentieth century emerged not only from the struggle between religious conservatives and secular liberals, but also from the civil war within evangelicalism itself-a battle over how to uphold the commands of both faith and reason, and how ultimately to lead the nation back onto the path of righteousness.
In this groundbreaking history of modern American evangelicalism, Molly Worthen argues that these contradictions are the products of a crisis of authority that lies at the heart of the faith. Evangelicals have never had a single authority to guide them through these dilemmas or settle the troublesome question of what the Bible actually means. Worthen chronicles the ideological warfare, institutional conflict, and clashes between modern gurus and maverick disciples that lurk behind the more familiar narrative of the rise of the Christian Right. The result is an ambitious intellectual history that weaves together stories from all corners of the evangelical world to explain the ideas and personalities-the scholarly ambitions and anti-intellectual impulses-that have made evangelicalism a cultural and political force.
In Apostles of Reason, Worthen recasts American evangelicalism as a movement defined not by shared doctrines or politics, but by the problem of reconciling head knowledge and heart religion in an increasingly secular America. She shows that understanding the rise of the Christian Right in purely political terms, as most scholars have done, misses the heart of the story. The culture wars of the late twentieth century emerged not only from the struggle between religious conservatives and secular liberals, but also from the civil war within evangelicalism itself-a battle over how to uphold the commands of both faith and reason, and how ultimately to lead the nation back onto the path of righteousness.
376 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2013
36 people are currently reading
814 people want to read
About the author
Molly Worthen
11 books24 followersMolly Worthen is an associate professor of history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a freelance journalist. She received her BA and PhD from Yale University. Her research focuses on North American religious and intellectual history.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 69 reviews
September 17, 2013
Reading Apostles of Reason was kind of like reading a family history written by someone outside the family (although I am unaware of Molly Worthen's faith commitments). I consider "evangelicalism" to be the family with which I most closely identify, much as I would take issue with some of the expressions of some of my family members.
On the whole, I thought Worthen gave a balanced and illuminating account of American evangelicalism, spanning the period from after World War II to the present. She charted the tension between the efforts of those like Carl F H Henry to articulate an intellectually rigorous Christianity and evangelicalism's continued commitment to biblical inerrancy. She also elaborates the varieties of expression that develop through the charismatic movement, growing tensions to confront questions of the role of women, questions of justice, and the beginnings of the political engagement of evangelicals in the 80s and 90s. She also does a good job of representing the intellectual renaissance of evangelical scholarship within public universities, one of the most promising trends of evangelical engagement. She concludes by suggesting that the tensions and diverse expressions within the evangelical movement (whatever that means in our present time) may actually be an asset enabling the movement to reach into various segments of society and balance disparate parts of this movement.
Through all this, she helps us both understand what figures and movements are trying to accomplish in their own terms while also showing the tensions, both internal and with the culture these create. The one thing I found myself wrestling with at times was a feeling that the evangelical community was being scrutinized critically while the larger cultural context it was seeking to engage was more or less "given a pass" and at times the larger culture was implied to be intellectually the superior. That may be true in some of the ivy-ed halls of academia at times but what about the banal, consumeristic, violent, and hyper-sexualized mass culture of early 21st century America? Still, to do what I propose may have meant a much longer work and I must say that I found Worthen's portrayal of "my family" fair and well-supported.
On the whole, I thought Worthen gave a balanced and illuminating account of American evangelicalism, spanning the period from after World War II to the present. She charted the tension between the efforts of those like Carl F H Henry to articulate an intellectually rigorous Christianity and evangelicalism's continued commitment to biblical inerrancy. She also elaborates the varieties of expression that develop through the charismatic movement, growing tensions to confront questions of the role of women, questions of justice, and the beginnings of the political engagement of evangelicals in the 80s and 90s. She also does a good job of representing the intellectual renaissance of evangelical scholarship within public universities, one of the most promising trends of evangelical engagement. She concludes by suggesting that the tensions and diverse expressions within the evangelical movement (whatever that means in our present time) may actually be an asset enabling the movement to reach into various segments of society and balance disparate parts of this movement.
Through all this, she helps us both understand what figures and movements are trying to accomplish in their own terms while also showing the tensions, both internal and with the culture these create. The one thing I found myself wrestling with at times was a feeling that the evangelical community was being scrutinized critically while the larger cultural context it was seeking to engage was more or less "given a pass" and at times the larger culture was implied to be intellectually the superior. That may be true in some of the ivy-ed halls of academia at times but what about the banal, consumeristic, violent, and hyper-sexualized mass culture of early 21st century America? Still, to do what I propose may have meant a much longer work and I must say that I found Worthen's portrayal of "my family" fair and well-supported.
Read
May 26, 2021An amazingly great history, easy to read, and throughly gripping. Which is amazing considering it's talking about the history of American Evangelicalism. But I couldn't put this book down. Great stories, excellent research, and the ability to take you into this world even when we got to the modern day, she obviously hated it. Great read!
April 14, 2022
In a market saturated with critical histories of evangelicalism, this book stands alone. She gets us. Worthen understands the energies which propel American evangelicalism the movement, the strategies which accompany that energy, and the crisis which ensures throughout the 20th into the 21st century (authority). Her argument is convincing, her account is fair, and it reads like a novel.
I loved every page.
I loved every page.
January 8, 2018
I first encountered this author through a short piece, perhaps in the NYT. I liked it and heard about this book and so put it in my queue. She is a 2011 Ph.D. in who is listed as an Assistant Prof at UNC. If the timing is as it appears, she should be up for review soon and I hope she gets tenured and promoted. If not, she will not have trouble finding work elsewhere. This is a nice history of American Evangelicals since 1942 (so I guess it is Neo-Evangelicals). The book maps well onto Frances Fitzgerald’s recent book on Evangelicals and there is more than a little overlap. The differences in time frame and perspective are more than enough to make the two books complement each other.
The intent of this analysis appears to be an examination of the reality of evangelical church developments in light of the stereotype of evangelicals as being anti-intellectual in focus and more recently pawns of the Republican Party. It soon becomes clear, however, that the stereotype will not last the book and that the problem of evangelicals is that there are too many separate streams and branches contending under the broad label and far too many voices at work for an easy and believable synthesis to arise. The answer to the authority problem is that individuals must make choices based on their backgrounds, beliefs, and situations and the sum total of this will be a complex moving target to which a facile order will not easily be brought. That is OK with me, I have always thought that the intellectual life among American Protestants is far richer than most commentators are able to acknowledge.
This is a much broader topic than just the domain of enthusiastic religious groups. When all acknowledge the importance of the interior life in religion, it is hard to easily link the state of millions of individuals with the aggregate statistics that come out of church or census data. I grew up in a Catholic tradition where all of these issues and more have been at play for decades - a fact Professor Worthen notes in the book as well. But one can ask similar questions about academia in general, not just for schools of theology and bible study. Who are the movers and shakers in any discipline or intellectual community? What is the role of institutional politics. How does academia affect the broader world beyond the mandarins, such as students or broader communities of employers or political institutions? Authority structures are important there as well, in many of the dimensions raised in the book, and are frequently just as problematic, especially to outsiders.
This is fairly well written for an academic history and Professor Worthen appears to have done her homework well. There are lots of names, groups, and schools to keep track of but it is manageable.
The intent of this analysis appears to be an examination of the reality of evangelical church developments in light of the stereotype of evangelicals as being anti-intellectual in focus and more recently pawns of the Republican Party. It soon becomes clear, however, that the stereotype will not last the book and that the problem of evangelicals is that there are too many separate streams and branches contending under the broad label and far too many voices at work for an easy and believable synthesis to arise. The answer to the authority problem is that individuals must make choices based on their backgrounds, beliefs, and situations and the sum total of this will be a complex moving target to which a facile order will not easily be brought. That is OK with me, I have always thought that the intellectual life among American Protestants is far richer than most commentators are able to acknowledge.
This is a much broader topic than just the domain of enthusiastic religious groups. When all acknowledge the importance of the interior life in religion, it is hard to easily link the state of millions of individuals with the aggregate statistics that come out of church or census data. I grew up in a Catholic tradition where all of these issues and more have been at play for decades - a fact Professor Worthen notes in the book as well. But one can ask similar questions about academia in general, not just for schools of theology and bible study. Who are the movers and shakers in any discipline or intellectual community? What is the role of institutional politics. How does academia affect the broader world beyond the mandarins, such as students or broader communities of employers or political institutions? Authority structures are important there as well, in many of the dimensions raised in the book, and are frequently just as problematic, especially to outsiders.
This is fairly well written for an academic history and Professor Worthen appears to have done her homework well. There are lots of names, groups, and schools to keep track of but it is manageable.
December 11, 2019
Histories of evangelical Christianity are flying fast and furious these days, but I doubt any will be able to top this masterpiece by Molly Worthen.
Worthen eschews the massive overarching historical narrative that makes for attractive doorstop-size books and focuses on a fairly narrow subject – the role of a focus on biblical inerrancy in creating, as the subtitle indicates, a "crisis of authority" that initially seems like a downside but has actually, Worthen argues, allowed evangelicalism to adapt to changing circumstances and widely divergent cultures.
So what is the crisis? Well, as interpretations of the Bible proliferate, its use as the primary authority for belief and practice becomes increasingly untenable, sparking division rather than unity and spurring a siege mentality that leads to the creation of ghettoized institutions designed to protect embattled doctrines rather than pursue academic or scientific inquiry.
One of the important insights Worthen offers is that the rise of the politically powerful Religious Right exploded onto the scene in the late 1970s not necessarily because of its opposition to trends in secular America, although that was a part of it, but because of an ideological conflict within evangelicalism itself, between conservative heirs of the old fundamentalist notions and progressives intent on pushing the movement toward a focus on social justice and away from the old individualist, creationist, literalist emphases.
This interior conflict between conservatives and progressives was not unique to evangelicalism, of course, but its explosion into a militant neo-fundamentalism was – and has produced the flurry of historical studies trying to understand how evangelicals came to wield vast power in such ... seemingly incongruant ways. Worthen's entry is invaluable not just because she has fresh insights to share, but because she shares them in an engaging and relatable way, a rarer accomplishment than it should be given the topic.
An insightful, informative and engaging intellectual history of American evangelicalism; well worth reading to better understand the voters who gave us Donald Trump and the currents of thought that led them here.
Worthen eschews the massive overarching historical narrative that makes for attractive doorstop-size books and focuses on a fairly narrow subject – the role of a focus on biblical inerrancy in creating, as the subtitle indicates, a "crisis of authority" that initially seems like a downside but has actually, Worthen argues, allowed evangelicalism to adapt to changing circumstances and widely divergent cultures.
So what is the crisis? Well, as interpretations of the Bible proliferate, its use as the primary authority for belief and practice becomes increasingly untenable, sparking division rather than unity and spurring a siege mentality that leads to the creation of ghettoized institutions designed to protect embattled doctrines rather than pursue academic or scientific inquiry.
One of the important insights Worthen offers is that the rise of the politically powerful Religious Right exploded onto the scene in the late 1970s not necessarily because of its opposition to trends in secular America, although that was a part of it, but because of an ideological conflict within evangelicalism itself, between conservative heirs of the old fundamentalist notions and progressives intent on pushing the movement toward a focus on social justice and away from the old individualist, creationist, literalist emphases.
This interior conflict between conservatives and progressives was not unique to evangelicalism, of course, but its explosion into a militant neo-fundamentalism was – and has produced the flurry of historical studies trying to understand how evangelicals came to wield vast power in such ... seemingly incongruant ways. Worthen's entry is invaluable not just because she has fresh insights to share, but because she shares them in an engaging and relatable way, a rarer accomplishment than it should be given the topic.
An insightful, informative and engaging intellectual history of American evangelicalism; well worth reading to better understand the voters who gave us Donald Trump and the currents of thought that led them here.
August 13, 2025
History reveals itself most subtlety when we get a chance to look back at a historian as they were presenting what they thought was history. This book was published in 2013 and the angst, fear, confusion, and Evangelical mischief presented by the author tells the present-day reader (2025) as much about that time as the history the author was telling. Edward Gibbon’s “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,” is a great book not so much for the history he tells which he often gets flat out wrong, but because he tells the present-day reader of the foibles, arrogance, and false-superiority of the Englishman of 1776.
The author lets Christianity Today define what evangelicalism purports to be. Evangelicalism never knows itself and at times wins the debate by declaring that the other side aren’t true evangelicals. Christians, Republicans, and evangelicals simply divide by alterity and neuter their opponent by appealing to a purity test that includes them while excluding the other.
The evangelicals redefine themselves while excluding the other. The definition of who they are is not as important as the myth they create about themselves. The author mentioned that Oswald Spengler created his own morphological history while fitting his narrative that defended his Germanic Fascist myth. Worthen debits David Barton, a pseudo-American historian accepted by the rightwing and evangelicals for creating the same kind of non-sense regarding American history and the founding fathers, and Worthen notes that the narrative being falsely spread is more important than the truth since the meaning and purpose is salvation not truth.
The author notes that she focuses on white evangelicals and their worldview(s). They demand a worldview and argue that anyone without their presuppositional Christian starting point can’t possibly be right about anything. Their truth must be the only truth. Evangelicals can also have experiential truths from the Holy Spirit determining their feelings thus negating any refutation from rational, reasonable, or logical perspectives. There was a third set of evangelicals and they are dwindling and they respect reason as a pathway to religion while seeing the world in two magisterial as Stephen Jay Gould did.
The reason this book is so intriguing to me is that it would not have been obvious to me from this book that white evangelicals would have overwhelmingly voted for Donald Trump in 2024. The author missed what was happening as she was writing and that is the theology didn’t matter to them as much as the politics of division. Humans, their wellbeing, and soteriology gets sublimated by the authority of the religiosity pretended by 80% of the white evangelicals. It’s the MAGA they want not the theology.
The divisions the author documents are quaint to read about, the real crisis of authority for white evangelicals comes about through their embrace of dehumanizing those who don’t pass their purity test as it is filtered through their very own Holy Spirit decoder ring. When it comes to dehumanizing the other, American evangelicals are not fiercely independent, they are in sync with their fellow believers as long as they can actualize their hate. There is no paradox with their beliefs and their individuality. As mentioned in this book, the evangelicals started to control their intellectual truths through fiat and provided a compelling make-believe narrative to explain away their history through believing their changing myths while updating them on a as needed basis. The political trumps the theological and the current events of today show where the evangelicals were heading.
The author lets Christianity Today define what evangelicalism purports to be. Evangelicalism never knows itself and at times wins the debate by declaring that the other side aren’t true evangelicals. Christians, Republicans, and evangelicals simply divide by alterity and neuter their opponent by appealing to a purity test that includes them while excluding the other.
The evangelicals redefine themselves while excluding the other. The definition of who they are is not as important as the myth they create about themselves. The author mentioned that Oswald Spengler created his own morphological history while fitting his narrative that defended his Germanic Fascist myth. Worthen debits David Barton, a pseudo-American historian accepted by the rightwing and evangelicals for creating the same kind of non-sense regarding American history and the founding fathers, and Worthen notes that the narrative being falsely spread is more important than the truth since the meaning and purpose is salvation not truth.
The author notes that she focuses on white evangelicals and their worldview(s). They demand a worldview and argue that anyone without their presuppositional Christian starting point can’t possibly be right about anything. Their truth must be the only truth. Evangelicals can also have experiential truths from the Holy Spirit determining their feelings thus negating any refutation from rational, reasonable, or logical perspectives. There was a third set of evangelicals and they are dwindling and they respect reason as a pathway to religion while seeing the world in two magisterial as Stephen Jay Gould did.
The reason this book is so intriguing to me is that it would not have been obvious to me from this book that white evangelicals would have overwhelmingly voted for Donald Trump in 2024. The author missed what was happening as she was writing and that is the theology didn’t matter to them as much as the politics of division. Humans, their wellbeing, and soteriology gets sublimated by the authority of the religiosity pretended by 80% of the white evangelicals. It’s the MAGA they want not the theology.
The divisions the author documents are quaint to read about, the real crisis of authority for white evangelicals comes about through their embrace of dehumanizing those who don’t pass their purity test as it is filtered through their very own Holy Spirit decoder ring. When it comes to dehumanizing the other, American evangelicals are not fiercely independent, they are in sync with their fellow believers as long as they can actualize their hate. There is no paradox with their beliefs and their individuality. As mentioned in this book, the evangelicals started to control their intellectual truths through fiat and provided a compelling make-believe narrative to explain away their history through believing their changing myths while updating them on a as needed basis. The political trumps the theological and the current events of today show where the evangelicals were heading.
August 25, 2015
Molly Worthen has provided us with a first-rate history of (neo)evangelicalism's intellectual trajectory following the Second World War. While some critics have accused evangelicalism of being "anti-intellectual" (Richard Hofstadter), Worthen insists that in fact, evangelicalism IS intellectual. It is driven by ideas about biblical interpretation, philosophy (especially presuppositionalism which is mentioned throughout the book), history and interaction with the culture-at-large. She charts the now well-known saga of how the evangelicals that emerged from their fundamentalist forefathers seeking to engage the American culture but also explains the historical circumstances behind their rise (her delightful line, "they did not first appear crawling out from the primordial muck of the Scopes trial," pg. 7). The desire for cultural engagement led to the creation of "Christianity Today," the flagship evangelical magazine. Figures such as Francis Schaeffer helped to stimulate a new generation of evangelicals (although Worthen points out that Schaeffer tended to overly simplify concepts or misunderstand them and that his own scholarship was not so rigorous, demonstrated by criticism leveled at him by historians such as George Marsden and Mark Noll). Outreach through foreign missions led to evangelicals utilizing the social sciences, such as anthropology, which would later be used to evangelize America itself through Church Growth. Worthen highlights the vital role Geoffrey Bromiley played in tirelessly translating Karl Barth, along with Wolfhart Pannenberg, Jacques Ellul and others into English for North American audiences.
The subtitle alludes to American evangelicalism's ambivalence regarding authority. Most of the evangelicals, especially from the Reformed stream, wrestled with how to properly interpret the Bible and conservative evangelicals and fundamentalists marshaled an array of arguments in favour of biblical inerrancy. Fuller Seminary provided the battleground between inerrantists and infallibilists. Worthen insists that the debates over proper biblical interpretation laid the foundation for the eventual rise of the Religious Right. Worthen demonstrates that conservative evangelicalism's intelligentsia has been dominated by Reformed thinking since evangelicalism first emerged (so it's no surprise that current organizations such as The Gospel Coalition are deeply Calvinist). Worthen brings to light the likes of Wesleyans such as H. Orton Wiley and Mildred Wynkoop (both Nazarenes), Mennonites such as John Howard Yoder and progressive evangelicals such as Jim Wallis who critiqued some of the ideas propagated by Reformed thinkers. Worthen notes that charismatic renewal, particularly popular among the Jesus People, and liturgical renewal arose at roughly the same time as disillusioned Christians desperately searched for authenticity and authority (Worthen mentions the flurry of evangelicals such as Thomas Howard and Scott Hahn who converted to Rome). The charismatic movement DID help facilitate dialogue and collaboration between previously antagonistic Roman Catholics and Protestants. Catholics and Protestants have continued to work together on social issues and Protestants have come to appreciate the natural law arguments that Catholics wield, which tend appeal to people's "common sense" and don't rely on a strict view of the Bible's authority. Lastly, Worthen also critiques the Emergent Church and its eclectic accumulation of ancient-future beliefs and rituals that are ultimately assembled in disarray because they are detached from their original theological contexts.
Worthen's subjects in this book are the elites, the evangelical intelligentsia of the latter half of the 20th century. I believe this is one of the crucial works necessary to understanding evangelicalism today (along with Noll's "Scandal of the Evangelical Mind," Nathan Hatch's "The Democratization of American Christianity" and Todd Brenneman's "Homespun Gospel").
The subtitle alludes to American evangelicalism's ambivalence regarding authority. Most of the evangelicals, especially from the Reformed stream, wrestled with how to properly interpret the Bible and conservative evangelicals and fundamentalists marshaled an array of arguments in favour of biblical inerrancy. Fuller Seminary provided the battleground between inerrantists and infallibilists. Worthen insists that the debates over proper biblical interpretation laid the foundation for the eventual rise of the Religious Right. Worthen demonstrates that conservative evangelicalism's intelligentsia has been dominated by Reformed thinking since evangelicalism first emerged (so it's no surprise that current organizations such as The Gospel Coalition are deeply Calvinist). Worthen brings to light the likes of Wesleyans such as H. Orton Wiley and Mildred Wynkoop (both Nazarenes), Mennonites such as John Howard Yoder and progressive evangelicals such as Jim Wallis who critiqued some of the ideas propagated by Reformed thinkers. Worthen notes that charismatic renewal, particularly popular among the Jesus People, and liturgical renewal arose at roughly the same time as disillusioned Christians desperately searched for authenticity and authority (Worthen mentions the flurry of evangelicals such as Thomas Howard and Scott Hahn who converted to Rome). The charismatic movement DID help facilitate dialogue and collaboration between previously antagonistic Roman Catholics and Protestants. Catholics and Protestants have continued to work together on social issues and Protestants have come to appreciate the natural law arguments that Catholics wield, which tend appeal to people's "common sense" and don't rely on a strict view of the Bible's authority. Lastly, Worthen also critiques the Emergent Church and its eclectic accumulation of ancient-future beliefs and rituals that are ultimately assembled in disarray because they are detached from their original theological contexts.
Worthen's subjects in this book are the elites, the evangelical intelligentsia of the latter half of the 20th century. I believe this is one of the crucial works necessary to understanding evangelicalism today (along with Noll's "Scandal of the Evangelical Mind," Nathan Hatch's "The Democratization of American Christianity" and Todd Brenneman's "Homespun Gospel").
June 15, 2021
Required reading for evangelicals. We don’t understand ourselves—from the most basic of historical developments, to the debates that have formed us. This is an accessible and thorough introduction.
The final chapter alone is worth the cost of admission and offers a sum of the book’s thrust:
"The term evangelical mind conjures images of a creature of many faces sharing one brain, or at least a movement of people who think and act in concert. No metaphor could be further from the truth. This story of shifting and conflicting authorities, evolving alliances and feuds, and debate over the essence of Christian identity means that if we continue to speak of an evangelical mind-if we continue to use the word evangelical at all, and we will-we must allow room for diversity and internal contradiction, for those who love the label and those who hate it. We must recognize that American evangelicalism owes more to its fractures and clashes, its anxieties and doubts, than to any political pronouncement or point of doctrine. It may be wiser to speak instead of an "evangelical imagination.""
― Molly Worthen, Apostles of Reason, p. 264
The final chapter alone is worth the cost of admission and offers a sum of the book’s thrust:
"The term evangelical mind conjures images of a creature of many faces sharing one brain, or at least a movement of people who think and act in concert. No metaphor could be further from the truth. This story of shifting and conflicting authorities, evolving alliances and feuds, and debate over the essence of Christian identity means that if we continue to speak of an evangelical mind-if we continue to use the word evangelical at all, and we will-we must allow room for diversity and internal contradiction, for those who love the label and those who hate it. We must recognize that American evangelicalism owes more to its fractures and clashes, its anxieties and doubts, than to any political pronouncement or point of doctrine. It may be wiser to speak instead of an "evangelical imagination.""
― Molly Worthen, Apostles of Reason, p. 264
October 5, 2013
Over the past few months, I have had the honor of interacting with a number of non-Evangelical writers that have dedicated a large portion of their lives to studying and understanding the Evangelical tradition. As I have engaged their works and talked with them personally, I have found that they have an understanding of Evangelicalism that no Evangelical could ever possibly have, and that their criticisms and critiques as well as praises for our movement must be received and heeded with great respect. Dr. Molly Worthen, a professor at the University of North Carolina- Chapel Hill is one of these insightful non-Evangelical scholars. In her upcoming work Apostles of Reason: The Crisis of Authority in American Evangelicalism, Dr. Worthen highlights some of the biggest challenges that have faced American Evangelicalism throughout the duration of our history and by doing so offers a critique and challenge for the new generation of Evangelicals to come.
This is primarily an academic history text (hence being published by the prestigious Oxford University Press), but it's not at all a dull, dry history book. Dr. Worthens insights and style of writing make this book hard to put down. From delving into the origins of American Evangelical doctrines like Inerrancy to uncovering the foundations of the Religious Right, Dr. Worthen sheds light on the foundations as well as the gaping holes in the Evangelical movement and helps us understanding the truth behind the veil of the image Evangelicals have projected over our short history. The centerpiece of this book is the Dr. Worthens assertion that there is a fundamental crisis of authority in Evangelicalism- that we all appeal to the Bible as the document from which we derive our authority, but in reality, our uniting authority is a small set of disagreements that we are eternally in dialogue around. She reveals the fact that the Bible is not a book of Systematic Theology and therefore our lack of consensus of interpretation proves that the Scriptures do not speak a simple, single meaning and therefore simply cannot be our central authority.
Dr. Worthen also shows that Evangelicalism as a movement is at its core a conversation as opposed to a dogma-centered movement that it is often painted as. She also notes that many Evangelicals have suffered amnesia, forgetting many of the challenges of our past that are incredibly relevant to many of the dilemmas that we are facing today. By offering this book to our movement, she has given us an invaluable resource to help pave a brighter and better future for our movement. Apostles of Reason is a fairly balanced history of Evangelicalism that includes lesser-acknowledged traditions within Evangelicalism such as Pentecostals, Restorationists, and Mennonites and gives careful attention to the various contours and intellectual back story of Evangelicalism in America and uses many of the movements of Evangelicalism to construct a big picture of this unique branch of Protestant Christianity.
Dr. Worthens book is an important read for all Evangelicals to help us be reminded of where we came from and to help better direct where we are going. In a movement that is so often devoid of tradition, it is books like these that can bring us to a place of humble appreciation for the long history we have inherited and help shape the path of our future as we seek to live out our faith in Jesus Christ in the coming decades.
This is primarily an academic history text (hence being published by the prestigious Oxford University Press), but it's not at all a dull, dry history book. Dr. Worthens insights and style of writing make this book hard to put down. From delving into the origins of American Evangelical doctrines like Inerrancy to uncovering the foundations of the Religious Right, Dr. Worthen sheds light on the foundations as well as the gaping holes in the Evangelical movement and helps us understanding the truth behind the veil of the image Evangelicals have projected over our short history. The centerpiece of this book is the Dr. Worthens assertion that there is a fundamental crisis of authority in Evangelicalism- that we all appeal to the Bible as the document from which we derive our authority, but in reality, our uniting authority is a small set of disagreements that we are eternally in dialogue around. She reveals the fact that the Bible is not a book of Systematic Theology and therefore our lack of consensus of interpretation proves that the Scriptures do not speak a simple, single meaning and therefore simply cannot be our central authority.
Dr. Worthen also shows that Evangelicalism as a movement is at its core a conversation as opposed to a dogma-centered movement that it is often painted as. She also notes that many Evangelicals have suffered amnesia, forgetting many of the challenges of our past that are incredibly relevant to many of the dilemmas that we are facing today. By offering this book to our movement, she has given us an invaluable resource to help pave a brighter and better future for our movement. Apostles of Reason is a fairly balanced history of Evangelicalism that includes lesser-acknowledged traditions within Evangelicalism such as Pentecostals, Restorationists, and Mennonites and gives careful attention to the various contours and intellectual back story of Evangelicalism in America and uses many of the movements of Evangelicalism to construct a big picture of this unique branch of Protestant Christianity.
Dr. Worthens book is an important read for all Evangelicals to help us be reminded of where we came from and to help better direct where we are going. In a movement that is so often devoid of tradition, it is books like these that can bring us to a place of humble appreciation for the long history we have inherited and help shape the path of our future as we seek to live out our faith in Jesus Christ in the coming decades.
December 19, 2017
For those interested in Evangelical traditions in the 20th century and today, this is a valuable, if imperfect, study. Worthen is a decidedly left of center academic, but she largely refrains from editorializing and when she does, her conclusions are more sympathetic than hostile. Unlike Catholic or Eastern traditions, Evangelicals have no clear hierarchy and so any attempt to set out a definition risks leaving out an essential subset. Arguably, accepting Christ as one's personal savior is the only sacrament. Biblical inerrancy the only tenet. But even these ideas lack consensus. Is inerrancy limited to the KJV? What happens at the point of accepting Christ? Must one speak in tongues? There are differing opinions. This, from the perspective of the author, is just one example of the crisis of authority that's rooted deeply in the history of Protestantism. Of course the fact that these views are so broad is part of the brilliance of Evangelicalism: it's a big tent. Additionally, in contrast to the stereotypes of Evangelicals as mindless drones, Worthen shows that they take reason very seriously. They also take the bible very seriously. She outlines how Evangelicals endeavored, throughout the 20th century, to gain academic and professional legitimacy while also remaining committed to their fundamental beliefs. For example, Christianity Today, liberally referenced throughout the book, represented a concerted effort to thoughtfully respond to mainstream debates from an Evangelical perspective. Christian institutions of higher education sought out accreditation and highly qualified academics to rival their secular counterparts. C.S. Lewis, a pipe smoking, beer drinking high church Anglican, became an intellectual darling of the critical thinking Evangelicals. Certainly one could challenge the arguments made in CT or advanced by Lewis, and Francis Shaeffer's academic credentials were notoriously suspect, but the desire to have a reasonable account of faith was clearly an impulse within Evangelicalism.
My only criticism would be that Worthen tends to use the actions and beliefs of a few Evangelical leaders as a proxy for the views of Evangelicals themselves. It would have been helpful see some data that speaks to the legitimacy of this correspondence. For all of the time devoted to the likes of Francis Shaeffer, it's unclear how many Evangelicals actually read and were familiar with his work. In fairness, it's difficult to know what the average Evangelical thought in, say, 1962 if the data just isn't there. In a roundabout way, this also underscores Worthen's broader thesis about the eclectic nature of Evangelicals that resists definition.
After finishing this book I feel almost more confused about what constitutes an Evangelical, and perhaps this was Worthen's intention. Certainly there are broad areas of consensus, but worship largely remains divided along smaller sociological, political, and theological lines. For as big as the Evangelical tent is, there are a lot of smaller tents within it. To further torture this metaphor, there is also disagreement about what constitutes the big tent that is Evangelicalism. This observation has reinforced my admiration for communities of worship that bring together people of disparate political views, social class, and even theology.
My only criticism would be that Worthen tends to use the actions and beliefs of a few Evangelical leaders as a proxy for the views of Evangelicals themselves. It would have been helpful see some data that speaks to the legitimacy of this correspondence. For all of the time devoted to the likes of Francis Shaeffer, it's unclear how many Evangelicals actually read and were familiar with his work. In fairness, it's difficult to know what the average Evangelical thought in, say, 1962 if the data just isn't there. In a roundabout way, this also underscores Worthen's broader thesis about the eclectic nature of Evangelicals that resists definition.
After finishing this book I feel almost more confused about what constitutes an Evangelical, and perhaps this was Worthen's intention. Certainly there are broad areas of consensus, but worship largely remains divided along smaller sociological, political, and theological lines. For as big as the Evangelical tent is, there are a lot of smaller tents within it. To further torture this metaphor, there is also disagreement about what constitutes the big tent that is Evangelicalism. This observation has reinforced my admiration for communities of worship that bring together people of disparate political views, social class, and even theology.
November 1, 2014
This is perhaps the best assessment of Evangelicalism I've ever read. Worthen points to a provocative idea; Evangelicalism is not strictly "anti-intellectual" or merely populist in its thinking but has a crisis of authority. The problem and genius of Evangelicalism, says Worthen, is that it is so fluid. Over the past 100 years, Evangelicalism has changed almost as much as many religious traditions have in a thousand years. This is because of a central tension in the Evangelical community; desiring to be taken seriously by the culture around them, desiring to hold true to the fundamentals of the Christian faith and desiring to do all of this as a united body of believers. Various Evangelical movements have succeeded in at least one of these goals, but none of them has succeeded in all three. This enormous drive and ambition among Evangelical leaders and layman has created what Worthen terms the Evangelical imagination. In Hegelian terms, Evangelicals are constantly searching for new synthesis for their age old thesis/antithesis ideals.
Every Evangelical leader needs to read this book, if only to understand the true heart of the Evangelical Church.
Every Evangelical leader needs to read this book, if only to understand the true heart of the Evangelical Church.
May 31, 2019
This is an impressively researched work of history, and very informative, in spite of its somewhat (understandably) limited scope. Worthen traces the history of various strains of American evangelical thought throughout the 20th century, highlighting influential leaders, academic and intellectual trends, and the trajectories of significant organizations and movements within and surrounding evangelicalism. She does a good job of presenting facts and connecting ideas astutely and impartially, without straying into opinion or prognostication.
It should be noted, this is an academic work aimed at scholars of religion and very interested observers. Denominational names, names of historical religious leaders, and jargon like "premillenial dispensationalism" are frequent and sometimes lacking in much explanation; I'm a fairly interested observer, and definitely read some parts with the book in one hand and a Wikipedia page open on my tablet in the other. That's not a criticism — a work of this depth with all the explanation required to lead along an only casually interested layperson would be enormous (and therefore useless) — but it's worth knowing going in.
If I had one major criticism, it's that the thesis here seemed a bit vague or overly broad. The history is thorough, but I definitely found myself wondering "so what?" from time to time. The main point, as expressed in the subtitle, is that American Evangelicalism lacks a source of singular authority, which has led to a great diversity of views labeled "evangelical" (and often great conflict and schism among them), which...would seem a bit obvious? This book certainly adds nuance and dimension to those views and conflicts, but I'm not sure how much it brings to the table in terms of new ideas about them. As a compendium of history on the topic, though, it certainly succeeds.
It should be noted, this is an academic work aimed at scholars of religion and very interested observers. Denominational names, names of historical religious leaders, and jargon like "premillenial dispensationalism" are frequent and sometimes lacking in much explanation; I'm a fairly interested observer, and definitely read some parts with the book in one hand and a Wikipedia page open on my tablet in the other. That's not a criticism — a work of this depth with all the explanation required to lead along an only casually interested layperson would be enormous (and therefore useless) — but it's worth knowing going in.
If I had one major criticism, it's that the thesis here seemed a bit vague or overly broad. The history is thorough, but I definitely found myself wondering "so what?" from time to time. The main point, as expressed in the subtitle, is that American Evangelicalism lacks a source of singular authority, which has led to a great diversity of views labeled "evangelical" (and often great conflict and schism among them), which...would seem a bit obvious? This book certainly adds nuance and dimension to those views and conflicts, but I'm not sure how much it brings to the table in terms of new ideas about them. As a compendium of history on the topic, though, it certainly succeeds.
January 3, 2018
“Truth is no obstacle to a story that people want to believe.” Much is captured in this short but penetrating observation from Apostles of Reason. Molly Worthen's vaguely disheartening but sympathetic portrait of modern American evangelicalism and its struggle with internal authority is a must read (and a must recommend) for anyone who wants to understand the modern American religious landscape. Obviously, there are implications here for politics and culture as a whole. Chances are most people already have an opinion one way or another about this large American religious subgroup (either positive or negative impressions), but it always pays to be more informed. Evangelicalism's influential role in our society makes true understanding (and with it, a conscious rejection of caricature and surface-level impressions) all the more important. If the first people summoned to your mind by the word "evangelical" are Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson, I cannot commend this book enough, as a corrective. Worthen goes out of her way to be as candid as possible while remaining sensitive to nuances. Her attempt to carefully state doctrinal positions and narratives in the way that the groups she is studying would accept is rare and admirable. The fact that many evangelicals lauded this book by a non-evangelical "outsider" historian is an accomplishment in and of itself.
Like a good anthropologist, Worthen identifies the "weltanschauung" of the group in question without judgment or prescriptions for the cure to what ails them. Not since Tanya Luhrmann's excellent study of American evangelical spiritual experiences have I read such an insightful book on this group from an academic. Unlike Luhrmann however, Worthen isn't an anthropologist but a historian. Her mind is fixed on trends, reactions, counterreactions, etc. - all cultural forces which are hooks to be hung along the rack of time. Her narrative had to start somewhere, by necessity, but I did wish she could have widened her historical scope to reach further back, before the 20th Century. (She briefly touches on the 19th century and a little Protestant history review in the beginning, but I'd like to see her return to those time periods in future writing.)
And that writing is anything but dry - Worthen's words are selected in ways which reminded me of a literary author at times. Her analogies are helpful, and as someone who learns via analogy I appreciated them. Worthen doesn't leave the reader dangling for a moment, but pulls them along across a sometimes alien and even perhaps (for non-evangelicals) hostile historical stage.
The personalities, movements, and ideas profiled are abundant. The range is wide, and the scrutiny gets considerably deeper than some political narratives of the rise of the religious right. Just a few examples of movements covered, to show the diversity on display: Old Princeton, the Jesus People, the Holiness Movement, and American Anabaptism. Each stream of ideas and institutions are fed into the larger river of “evangelicalism” - and it doesn’t take long to see how an authority crisis was not just likely, but structurally impossible to avoid. The central issue is evangelical “intellectual leaders” and the evangelical mind's struggle with paradox. The paradox of being against modernity. . . and being defined by it. The paradox of sola scriptura and inerrancy of the Bible as the ultimate authority. . . and the reality of pervasive interpretative pluralism of evangelical church communities. The specter of Mark Noll’s “scandal of the evangelical mind” looms over this history, but the solution to his scandal never seems forthcoming. However, in the closing chapter, Worthen challenges the idea of the evangelical mind altogether, and suggests instead an evangelical imagination: “The evangelical imagination has been both an aid to intellectual life and an agent of anti-intellectual sabotage. Above all, it is a source of energy. . . It offers no clear path past the impasse of biblical authority, no firm disciple for the undecided mind, and no reconciliation with the intelligentsia of secular America. But any crisis of authority is no longer such a crisis if it has become the status quo.” Cold comfort, there: one can imagine evangelicalism as unstable nuclear energy, a latently useful resource but also potentially extremely destructive.
I could write many more paragraphs about the ideas that Worthen raises, leaving the reader to decide what to make of them. And that is one of the great strengths of the book. It’s a bit like a quiet, sober doctor displaying X-rays of her patient’s insides. The insides are a bit of a mess, but the doctor remains calm and neutral. At some point the patient wants her to say something, anything, to verify that apprehensions are warranted. But then, the patient knows - the doctor doesn’t need to say a thing. The X-rays are enough. Many questions remain about the future of evangelicalism, but Worthen has created a landmark map for future scholarship to use in launching similar enterprises.
P.S. The author also touches a little on how "evangelicalism" is an increasingly nebulous snarl identity, but she does a good job defining the parameters of what she's studying early on. D.G. Hart's review of the book accuses Worthen of failing to address those who "doubt evangelicalism's existence." I think she does address this, but for any study to progress she must accept there is a socio-religious phenomenon called evangelicalism with certain hazy but not infinitely elastic dimensions. She does this in a way a meteorologist accepts a cloud as a weather phenomenon in itself, but recognizes the complexity of its molecular composition and dynamism. A cloud is always in flux, yes, but still identifiable. I think it should come as no surprise that evangelicalism is sometimes conveniently disowned by people who would otherwise fit the commonly held definitions of evangelical. We may wonder about the intentions of people eager to debate the semantic existence of clouds. For obfuscating the definition of a cloud doesn’t prevent us from studying them, and their effects in the world. Likewise, careful research of American evangelicalism has consequences, as it allows us all to make our own judgements. Judgements such as which trees have borne good fruit. . . and bad.
Like a good anthropologist, Worthen identifies the "weltanschauung" of the group in question without judgment or prescriptions for the cure to what ails them. Not since Tanya Luhrmann's excellent study of American evangelical spiritual experiences have I read such an insightful book on this group from an academic. Unlike Luhrmann however, Worthen isn't an anthropologist but a historian. Her mind is fixed on trends, reactions, counterreactions, etc. - all cultural forces which are hooks to be hung along the rack of time. Her narrative had to start somewhere, by necessity, but I did wish she could have widened her historical scope to reach further back, before the 20th Century. (She briefly touches on the 19th century and a little Protestant history review in the beginning, but I'd like to see her return to those time periods in future writing.)
And that writing is anything but dry - Worthen's words are selected in ways which reminded me of a literary author at times. Her analogies are helpful, and as someone who learns via analogy I appreciated them. Worthen doesn't leave the reader dangling for a moment, but pulls them along across a sometimes alien and even perhaps (for non-evangelicals) hostile historical stage.
The personalities, movements, and ideas profiled are abundant. The range is wide, and the scrutiny gets considerably deeper than some political narratives of the rise of the religious right. Just a few examples of movements covered, to show the diversity on display: Old Princeton, the Jesus People, the Holiness Movement, and American Anabaptism. Each stream of ideas and institutions are fed into the larger river of “evangelicalism” - and it doesn’t take long to see how an authority crisis was not just likely, but structurally impossible to avoid. The central issue is evangelical “intellectual leaders” and the evangelical mind's struggle with paradox. The paradox of being against modernity. . . and being defined by it. The paradox of sola scriptura and inerrancy of the Bible as the ultimate authority. . . and the reality of pervasive interpretative pluralism of evangelical church communities. The specter of Mark Noll’s “scandal of the evangelical mind” looms over this history, but the solution to his scandal never seems forthcoming. However, in the closing chapter, Worthen challenges the idea of the evangelical mind altogether, and suggests instead an evangelical imagination: “The evangelical imagination has been both an aid to intellectual life and an agent of anti-intellectual sabotage. Above all, it is a source of energy. . . It offers no clear path past the impasse of biblical authority, no firm disciple for the undecided mind, and no reconciliation with the intelligentsia of secular America. But any crisis of authority is no longer such a crisis if it has become the status quo.” Cold comfort, there: one can imagine evangelicalism as unstable nuclear energy, a latently useful resource but also potentially extremely destructive.
I could write many more paragraphs about the ideas that Worthen raises, leaving the reader to decide what to make of them. And that is one of the great strengths of the book. It’s a bit like a quiet, sober doctor displaying X-rays of her patient’s insides. The insides are a bit of a mess, but the doctor remains calm and neutral. At some point the patient wants her to say something, anything, to verify that apprehensions are warranted. But then, the patient knows - the doctor doesn’t need to say a thing. The X-rays are enough. Many questions remain about the future of evangelicalism, but Worthen has created a landmark map for future scholarship to use in launching similar enterprises.
P.S. The author also touches a little on how "evangelicalism" is an increasingly nebulous snarl identity, but she does a good job defining the parameters of what she's studying early on. D.G. Hart's review of the book accuses Worthen of failing to address those who "doubt evangelicalism's existence." I think she does address this, but for any study to progress she must accept there is a socio-religious phenomenon called evangelicalism with certain hazy but not infinitely elastic dimensions. She does this in a way a meteorologist accepts a cloud as a weather phenomenon in itself, but recognizes the complexity of its molecular composition and dynamism. A cloud is always in flux, yes, but still identifiable. I think it should come as no surprise that evangelicalism is sometimes conveniently disowned by people who would otherwise fit the commonly held definitions of evangelical. We may wonder about the intentions of people eager to debate the semantic existence of clouds. For obfuscating the definition of a cloud doesn’t prevent us from studying them, and their effects in the world. Likewise, careful research of American evangelicalism has consequences, as it allows us all to make our own judgements. Judgements such as which trees have borne good fruit. . . and bad.
January 9, 2020
Full review to come, but I was less impressed with this book than I wanted to be. In a nutshell, its treatment is uneven, dipping deeply into particular pockets of evangelicalism while glossing over others too quickly to justify its assertions. Ultimately, I think despite her attempts to narrow the topic, Worthen simply takes on too much, trying to cover evangelical publishing and evangelical history and evangelical social movements and evangelical missions over the span of fifty years. It's a noble effort, but it falls short.
As I've read a lot of histories of evangelicalism, here's a few I would recommend in lieu of Worthen's book:
Francis Fitzgerald, the Evangelicals
Adam Laats, Fundamentalist U
Kevin Kruse, One Nation Under God
As I've read a lot of histories of evangelicalism, here's a few I would recommend in lieu of Worthen's book:
Francis Fitzgerald, the Evangelicals
Adam Laats, Fundamentalist U
Kevin Kruse, One Nation Under God
June 15, 2025
Seven years before Kristin Du Mez wrote her book defining evangelical as white Christians patriarchal nationalism, Worthen defined it as Protestantism looking for a way to organize authority around faith in ways that made sense to the modern world. Both of them are saying evangelical isn’t a theology but Worthen looked at epistemology. I’m very convinced by her description of the challenge for conservative Protestants who wanted to only follow the Bible but who found themselves constantly attracted to modern ways of knowing and trying to be taken seriously by science or find ways to prove their faith. But I think it’s a longer and bigger story of Christianity in Western Europe in general and especially all Christians since modernity. Evangelicals just did it in their own way. But for those who like Du Mez, this is a thicker way of understanding conservative Protestant Christianity in the USA over the last hundred or so years.
November 24, 2017
First-rate, thoroughly researched, critical but scrupulously fair history of American evangelicalism and neo-evangelicalism which takes pains to track issues of authority in the movement through the twentieth century. Worthen handles the archival material responsibly, and carefully qualifies the diversity and paradox within evangelicalism. Well-written and the best kind of book in this genre.
January 29, 2022
incredible work of intellectual history on american evangelicalism. a book that everyone interested in the topic should read. stunned by the end conclusion, which does such important work of furthering how we understand who qualifies as “evangelical” and what imbricates them in such a community.
October 8, 2014
Skimming user reviews, I saw that someone called this book "a little too inside baseball." That's a fair criticism. Ideas like "presuppositional apologetics," and "premillennial dispensationalism" are discussed with little introduction. Institutions like Wheaton College, Jesus People, CCCU, and Focus on the Family are dissected as if the reader already knows why they should care about them. Figures ranging from Jonathan Edwards to D.L. Moody to Reinhold Niebuhr are quoted abruptly, as if their full contributions to the dialogue should already be understood. Having grown up in the Evangelical church and gone to an Evangelical college, I felt that I was very much the target audience of the book. I had no trouble following the minutiae to the larger narrative. But it was similar to reading an incredibly detail-oriented family genealogy. I have a hard time imagining that anyone unrelated would have the patience or interest to sift through such a comprehensive history.
With that caveat, I found Apostles of Reason to be a fascinating page-turner. Worthen writes with all-too-rare objectivity, demonstrating great sympathy and respect for the denomination, portraying it with unusual accuracy and nuance, and refraining from advocating, condemning, or condescending. Every time she started down a path that seemed like it might lead to an unfair mischaracterization, she countered with the rebuttal. Granted, I no longer consider myself Evangelical, so someone currently engaged with the church might feel differently. But, from my perspective, even her most unflinching critiques were balanced and would be difficult to dispute. Here's a good example and also a paragraph that I think nicely sums up the point of the book:
"Roman Catholics obey the Vatican (more or less). Liberal Protestants tend to allow the goddess of reason to rule over the Bible (or to rule, relatively untroubled, in her separate sphere). Evangelicals claim sola scriptura as their guide, but it is no secret that the challenge of determining what the Bible actually means finds its ultimate caricature in their schisming and squabbling. They are the children of estrange parents - Pietism and the Enlightnment - but behave like orphans. This confusion over authority is both their greatest affliction and their most potent source of vitality."
I haven't researched Worthen, but I was unable to ascertain from the book whether she is or is not an Evangelical Christian herself. From my perspective, this is quite an accomplishment and one of the biggest reasons I thought the book was successful.
With that caveat, I found Apostles of Reason to be a fascinating page-turner. Worthen writes with all-too-rare objectivity, demonstrating great sympathy and respect for the denomination, portraying it with unusual accuracy and nuance, and refraining from advocating, condemning, or condescending. Every time she started down a path that seemed like it might lead to an unfair mischaracterization, she countered with the rebuttal. Granted, I no longer consider myself Evangelical, so someone currently engaged with the church might feel differently. But, from my perspective, even her most unflinching critiques were balanced and would be difficult to dispute. Here's a good example and also a paragraph that I think nicely sums up the point of the book:
"Roman Catholics obey the Vatican (more or less). Liberal Protestants tend to allow the goddess of reason to rule over the Bible (or to rule, relatively untroubled, in her separate sphere). Evangelicals claim sola scriptura as their guide, but it is no secret that the challenge of determining what the Bible actually means finds its ultimate caricature in their schisming and squabbling. They are the children of estrange parents - Pietism and the Enlightnment - but behave like orphans. This confusion over authority is both their greatest affliction and their most potent source of vitality."
I haven't researched Worthen, but I was unable to ascertain from the book whether she is or is not an Evangelical Christian herself. From my perspective, this is quite an accomplishment and one of the biggest reasons I thought the book was successful.
February 4, 2016
A very thorough book of context. Although the title betrays the focus of the book on the rise and transitions of evangelical Christianity in America (starting around the Great Depression), Worthen also tells the story of Christianity in general. So much of American religion today is defined, at least in part, by reactions to the evangelical rise, even if that reaction is entrenchment.
Growing up evangelical, I wanted to learn more about where that culture came from and put some facts behind the names I'd heard thrown around for so long. The book certainly does that, but it takes things a bit further. The author makes a conscientious decision to move chronologically, but also between viewpoints. She is at her best evidencing how the major players saw themselves and how they were seen by their peers. The word "evangelical" itself is still a contentious one, so it's extremely exciting to see why some have abandoned it and why other rivals still try to claim that they are its rightful heirs.
Ultimately, it's a lean, well-written history of perspective. Whether one is evangelical, Christian, or anything else, this is a great book for seeing the world through a perspective that drives many Americans and will not be going away any time soon.
Growing up evangelical, I wanted to learn more about where that culture came from and put some facts behind the names I'd heard thrown around for so long. The book certainly does that, but it takes things a bit further. The author makes a conscientious decision to move chronologically, but also between viewpoints. She is at her best evidencing how the major players saw themselves and how they were seen by their peers. The word "evangelical" itself is still a contentious one, so it's extremely exciting to see why some have abandoned it and why other rivals still try to claim that they are its rightful heirs.
Ultimately, it's a lean, well-written history of perspective. Whether one is evangelical, Christian, or anything else, this is a great book for seeing the world through a perspective that drives many Americans and will not be going away any time soon.
January 12, 2016
One of the most thought-provoking books that I have read in recent years. Worthen engages in a very appropriate topic: the issue of authority within Evangelicalism. The claim of "Sola Scriptura" is often misused and abused, and for that matter, often hides many theological agendas. Evangelicals have a temptation to turn to other sources of authority--especially towards the experiential and mystical, or in other directions to the ancient church, as well as a host of other movements from megachurches to the emergent church. This book really made me think especially about the appeal among some Evangelicals to world view, and the challenge of anti-intellectualism, which Worthen argues is the besetting sin of Evangelicalism. It stems, she argues, from the common sense approach that tends to elevate gurus, and then gives specific examples such as Francis Schaefer, that have plagued Evangelicalism. I highly recommend this to my friends interested in American religious history, revelation/inspiration, and even Adventist history because it provides a great deal of context for struggles that Adventism has faced and continues to face over the past century (especially women's ordination).
Read
January 12, 2026“The central source of anti-intellectualism in evangelical life is the antithesis of authoritarianism. It is evangelical’s ongoing crisis of authority—their struggle to reconcile reason with revelation, heart with head, and private piety with the public square—that best explains their anxiety and animosity towards public life. Thinkers in the democratic West celebrate their freedom of thought but practice a certain kind of unwavering obedience—bowing to the Enlightenment before all other gods—that allows modern intellectual life to function. Evangelicals, by contrast, are torn between sovereign powers that each claim supremacy”
October 23, 2014
One of the most insightful books you'll ever read about American Evangelicalism. Eye opening! It is critical, but very fair in its assessment of the problem of "authority" in Evangelicalism. More thoughts here: http://www.brianleport.com/personal-b...
October 30, 2016
Insightful and engaging...
Molly Worthen's exploration of fundamentalist and evangelical subcultures brings to light a number of the intellectual influences and ideological constructions that shape conservative and liberal evangelical thought. This is well worth the effort to understand better the evangelical subcultures.
Molly Worthen's exploration of fundamentalist and evangelical subcultures brings to light a number of the intellectual influences and ideological constructions that shape conservative and liberal evangelical thought. This is well worth the effort to understand better the evangelical subcultures.
February 9, 2015
“The problem with evangelical intellectual life” says Molly Worthen, “is not that its participants obey authority. All rational thought requires the rule of some kind of law based on irreducible assumptions. The problem is that evangelicals attempt to obey multiple authorities at the same time.” This conflicted relationship to authority is the major subject of Worthen’s book, Apostles of Reason. For her, Evangelicalism is defined, not by millennial fervor or political conservatism, not by ideologies or doctrinal statements, but by a set of questions – 1) How do you reconcile faith and reason? How do you maintain one coherent way of knowing? 2) How do you become sure of your salvation? How do you meet Jesus and develop a relationship with him, to use the language that some evangelicals prefer. 3) How do you reconcile your personal faith with an increasingly pluralistic, secular public sphere?
The book is divided into three parts. The first covers questions of authority, the second questions of evangelism, and the third deals with evangelical views of power and influence in culture. The author of the first two sections is superb. Her exploration of intellectual ideas is just that, an exploration. She takes the reader on a journey and invites him to look and see. Her treatment of figures as diverse as Billy Graham and John Howard Yoder is impartial, respectful, and nuanced. The presentation of biblical inerrancy and the philosophical incongruence associated with such a position is presented as lingering unanswered question rather than a farce or a piece of idiocy.
Worthen’s discussion of evangelism in section two is especially welcome since preaching and missions comprise a major characteristic of evangelicalism in almost all of its incarnations, yet they are frequently overlooked or misunderstood by those outside the movement. She reminds the reader that Evangelicals “spent far more money on [foreign] missions than on political activism,” and helps us see the connection between the two. It is in this wider conversation about evangelism that Worthen addresses Evangelical higher education.
She paints a picture of the emergence and maturation of Evangelical universities (Fuller and Wheaton get special attention) and Bible colleges which captures the tensions and triumphs of such institutions with sympathy and grace without ignoring real problems that have plagued them from their beginnings. Worthen also (rightly in my opinion) connects the emerging field of missionary anthropology with the beginnings of Evangelical/Catholic cooperation. She points out that the charismatic and liturgical renewal movements both groups arose in response to similar cultural factors and connected Evangelicals to liturgical traditions in surprising and interesting ways. Section two closes with several pages of illustrations, and then a new author emerges.
The Worthen of parts one and two is a curious explorer, a student, an anthropologist carefully noting the beliefs and practices of an unusal people group. The author of part three is a pundit, an expert, an ideological opponent who knows what is wrong with the Evangelical movement and where that wrongness came from. The transition is startling . . . and somewhat unpleasant.
In part three, Worthen begins to identify good guys and bad guys in her narrative. Some of these are predictable, others less so. But what is most confusing is not who wears a black or white hat. It is who shows up and who is left out. Reading the Worthen of part 3, one could reasonably come to the conclusion that Francis Shaeffer is the most important figure in modern evangelicalism while James Dobson is an insignificant psychologist with a radio show. John Howard Yoder is a major player in Worthen’s intellectual history of evangelicals, but apologetic writers like Josh McDowell, William Lane Craig, and Timothy Keller do not even appear. Most startling though is the absence of the secular left in American culture.
Worthen doesn’t ever acknowledge that the much of what brought conservative Methodists, Pentecostals, Southern Baptists, and Restoration Movement Churches together were the massive theological and cultural changes that took place in Western culture during the 20th century. Like Evangelicalism, secularism is a troublesome movement to define with much precision. But it is fair to say that the emergence of German higher criticism, atheistic communism, and the sexual revolution played as least as much of a role in shaping the evangelical mind as Cornelius Van Til and his followers ever did.
Francis Shaeffer receives harsher condemnation than any other figure in the book perhaps because his shortcomings (which are both real and significant) are primarily historical. That is, he attempts to operate in the realm where Worthen has the most expertise and therefore she has the least patience for his errors. However, Worthen’s exasperation with Shaefer and his L’Abri community may have led her to overestimate his importance. What she fails to recognize is that Shaefer’s mistaken view of history connected with Evangelicals not because they suddenly decided he was right as art and philosophy, but because his story fit their shared experience of a formerly unified Christian culture sliding toward pluralistic hedonism.
Worthen is deeply suspicious of any talk of “worldview.” Early in the book she avoids the word, and in part three she presents it as the brainchild of Shaefer and the other “gurus” of the late twentieth century. Though she acknowledges that the presuppositionalists are correct when they point out that modern university culture is not neutral, she rejects their conclusion that Christian universities (or other educational endeavors) ought to approach their work from a particular ideological framework.
"Some evangelicals protest that a different orthodoxy stifles dissent in mainstream university classrooms: the tyranny of atheistic humanism. They are right, and this is exactly the point. Modern intellectual inquiry is not a free-for-all. It is a rule-bound endeavor that falls to pieces unless all parties accept—without reservation—the authority of secular reason." (257)
Thus, figures like Charles Marsden and Mark Noll are on the side of angels while Alasdair MacIntyre (and implicitly Stanley Hauerwas) are part of the problem. Worthen cites Stanley Fish in support of her conviction that intellectuals working in today’s postmodern milieu must, “look out for their biases and prejudices.” But she goes on to say, “[O]nce we complete the ritual of scourging our assumptions, most of us strive to approach the ideal of perfect disinterest. We can never achieve it, but intellectual progress demands that we try, that we venerate the goddess we can never know.” (258)
Worthen, who writes for Slate.com and the New York Times but also for Christianity Today is not an impartial observer of the modern Evangelical scene regardless of how much she may prostrate herself before the goddess of objectivity. Her purpose in producing this book is not simply to describe the intellectual history of an interesting religious movement. She is trying to shape its future. The direction she hopes it will take is clear. She desires a move away from the dominance of Reformed theology and “worldview” language. Hers is the path of C.S. Lewis and John Howard Yoder, of Fuller Seminary (after the purge), and of the Wesleyan Holiness movement. What we have in Apostles of Reason is not one book but two. The first is an engaging and insightful examination of the intellectual history of Evangelicalism. The second is an impressive piece of rhetoric richly annotated with historical insights and sharp critiques. Though I preferred the first one, both are important books well worth our time.
The book is divided into three parts. The first covers questions of authority, the second questions of evangelism, and the third deals with evangelical views of power and influence in culture. The author of the first two sections is superb. Her exploration of intellectual ideas is just that, an exploration. She takes the reader on a journey and invites him to look and see. Her treatment of figures as diverse as Billy Graham and John Howard Yoder is impartial, respectful, and nuanced. The presentation of biblical inerrancy and the philosophical incongruence associated with such a position is presented as lingering unanswered question rather than a farce or a piece of idiocy.
Worthen’s discussion of evangelism in section two is especially welcome since preaching and missions comprise a major characteristic of evangelicalism in almost all of its incarnations, yet they are frequently overlooked or misunderstood by those outside the movement. She reminds the reader that Evangelicals “spent far more money on [foreign] missions than on political activism,” and helps us see the connection between the two. It is in this wider conversation about evangelism that Worthen addresses Evangelical higher education.
She paints a picture of the emergence and maturation of Evangelical universities (Fuller and Wheaton get special attention) and Bible colleges which captures the tensions and triumphs of such institutions with sympathy and grace without ignoring real problems that have plagued them from their beginnings. Worthen also (rightly in my opinion) connects the emerging field of missionary anthropology with the beginnings of Evangelical/Catholic cooperation. She points out that the charismatic and liturgical renewal movements both groups arose in response to similar cultural factors and connected Evangelicals to liturgical traditions in surprising and interesting ways. Section two closes with several pages of illustrations, and then a new author emerges.
The Worthen of parts one and two is a curious explorer, a student, an anthropologist carefully noting the beliefs and practices of an unusal people group. The author of part three is a pundit, an expert, an ideological opponent who knows what is wrong with the Evangelical movement and where that wrongness came from. The transition is startling . . . and somewhat unpleasant.
In part three, Worthen begins to identify good guys and bad guys in her narrative. Some of these are predictable, others less so. But what is most confusing is not who wears a black or white hat. It is who shows up and who is left out. Reading the Worthen of part 3, one could reasonably come to the conclusion that Francis Shaeffer is the most important figure in modern evangelicalism while James Dobson is an insignificant psychologist with a radio show. John Howard Yoder is a major player in Worthen’s intellectual history of evangelicals, but apologetic writers like Josh McDowell, William Lane Craig, and Timothy Keller do not even appear. Most startling though is the absence of the secular left in American culture.
Worthen doesn’t ever acknowledge that the much of what brought conservative Methodists, Pentecostals, Southern Baptists, and Restoration Movement Churches together were the massive theological and cultural changes that took place in Western culture during the 20th century. Like Evangelicalism, secularism is a troublesome movement to define with much precision. But it is fair to say that the emergence of German higher criticism, atheistic communism, and the sexual revolution played as least as much of a role in shaping the evangelical mind as Cornelius Van Til and his followers ever did.
Francis Shaeffer receives harsher condemnation than any other figure in the book perhaps because his shortcomings (which are both real and significant) are primarily historical. That is, he attempts to operate in the realm where Worthen has the most expertise and therefore she has the least patience for his errors. However, Worthen’s exasperation with Shaefer and his L’Abri community may have led her to overestimate his importance. What she fails to recognize is that Shaefer’s mistaken view of history connected with Evangelicals not because they suddenly decided he was right as art and philosophy, but because his story fit their shared experience of a formerly unified Christian culture sliding toward pluralistic hedonism.
Worthen is deeply suspicious of any talk of “worldview.” Early in the book she avoids the word, and in part three she presents it as the brainchild of Shaefer and the other “gurus” of the late twentieth century. Though she acknowledges that the presuppositionalists are correct when they point out that modern university culture is not neutral, she rejects their conclusion that Christian universities (or other educational endeavors) ought to approach their work from a particular ideological framework.
"Some evangelicals protest that a different orthodoxy stifles dissent in mainstream university classrooms: the tyranny of atheistic humanism. They are right, and this is exactly the point. Modern intellectual inquiry is not a free-for-all. It is a rule-bound endeavor that falls to pieces unless all parties accept—without reservation—the authority of secular reason." (257)
Thus, figures like Charles Marsden and Mark Noll are on the side of angels while Alasdair MacIntyre (and implicitly Stanley Hauerwas) are part of the problem. Worthen cites Stanley Fish in support of her conviction that intellectuals working in today’s postmodern milieu must, “look out for their biases and prejudices.” But she goes on to say, “[O]nce we complete the ritual of scourging our assumptions, most of us strive to approach the ideal of perfect disinterest. We can never achieve it, but intellectual progress demands that we try, that we venerate the goddess we can never know.” (258)
Worthen, who writes for Slate.com and the New York Times but also for Christianity Today is not an impartial observer of the modern Evangelical scene regardless of how much she may prostrate herself before the goddess of objectivity. Her purpose in producing this book is not simply to describe the intellectual history of an interesting religious movement. She is trying to shape its future. The direction she hopes it will take is clear. She desires a move away from the dominance of Reformed theology and “worldview” language. Hers is the path of C.S. Lewis and John Howard Yoder, of Fuller Seminary (after the purge), and of the Wesleyan Holiness movement. What we have in Apostles of Reason is not one book but two. The first is an engaging and insightful examination of the intellectual history of Evangelicalism. The second is an impressive piece of rhetoric richly annotated with historical insights and sharp critiques. Though I preferred the first one, both are important books well worth our time.
Read
October 9, 2021She also does a 36-lecture series on Wondrium titled: The History of Christianity II: From the Reformation to the Modern Megachurch
from amazon: Evangelical Christianity is a paradox. Evangelicals are radically individualist, but devoted to community and family. They believe in the transformative power of a personal relationship with God, but are wary of religious enthusiasm. They are deeply skeptical of secular reason, but eager to find scientific proof that the Bible is true.
In this groundbreaking history of modern American evangelicalism, Molly Worthen argues that these contradictions are the products of a crisis of authority that lies at the heart of the faith. Evangelicals have never had a single authority to guide them through these dilemmas or settle the troublesome question of what the Bible actually means. Worthen chronicles the ideological warfare, institutional conflict, and clashes between modern gurus and maverick disciples that lurk behind the more familiar narrative of the rise of the Christian Right. The result is an ambitious intellectual history that weaves together stories from all corners of the evangelical world to explain the ideas and personalities-the scholarly ambitions and anti-intellectual impulses-that have made evangelicalism a cultural and political force.
In Apostles of Reason, Worthen recasts American evangelicalism as a movement defined not by shared doctrines or politics, but by the problem of reconciling head knowledge and heart religion in an increasingly secular America. She shows that understanding the rise of the Christian Right in purely political terms, as most scholars have done, misses the heart of the story. The culture wars of the late twentieth century emerged not only from the struggle between religious conservatives and secular liberals, but also from the civil war within evangelicalism itself-a battle over how to uphold the commands of both faith and reason, and how ultimately to lead the nation back onto the path of righteousness.
from amazon: Evangelical Christianity is a paradox. Evangelicals are radically individualist, but devoted to community and family. They believe in the transformative power of a personal relationship with God, but are wary of religious enthusiasm. They are deeply skeptical of secular reason, but eager to find scientific proof that the Bible is true.
In this groundbreaking history of modern American evangelicalism, Molly Worthen argues that these contradictions are the products of a crisis of authority that lies at the heart of the faith. Evangelicals have never had a single authority to guide them through these dilemmas or settle the troublesome question of what the Bible actually means. Worthen chronicles the ideological warfare, institutional conflict, and clashes between modern gurus and maverick disciples that lurk behind the more familiar narrative of the rise of the Christian Right. The result is an ambitious intellectual history that weaves together stories from all corners of the evangelical world to explain the ideas and personalities-the scholarly ambitions and anti-intellectual impulses-that have made evangelicalism a cultural and political force.
In Apostles of Reason, Worthen recasts American evangelicalism as a movement defined not by shared doctrines or politics, but by the problem of reconciling head knowledge and heart religion in an increasingly secular America. She shows that understanding the rise of the Christian Right in purely political terms, as most scholars have done, misses the heart of the story. The culture wars of the late twentieth century emerged not only from the struggle between religious conservatives and secular liberals, but also from the civil war within evangelicalism itself-a battle over how to uphold the commands of both faith and reason, and how ultimately to lead the nation back onto the path of righteousness.
May 14, 2018
In theory for evangelicals the Bible is their authority but in practice this creates regular crises because it is a collection of various books that can be interpreted and read in numerous ways. To get over this problem one group, the fundamentalist minded, Calvinistic neo-evangelicals believe their tradition has solved this (that in practice equates an inerrant Bible with an inerrant tradition). In her history Molly Worthen focuses on how this group developed and promoted their approach. In doing so she addresses the issues and solutions of this conservative group of white middle class males (restating in terms for the present what they thought had always been believed), contrasting it with other non-conservative evangelicals.
It is well written with a journalistic panache that has scoured the sources and expects its readers to have an insiders' knowledge of the various sub cultures (something that needs a glossary of its own).
It (just) gets four stars because of its effective and well researched portraits of many of the leading figures and their contributions. But its focus on one section and in that group the leadership and how they grapple with their own anti intellectual obsession with redundant ideas. In so doing misses I think the variety that exists even within the neo-evangelical community. For a contrast read the comic The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest Universityabout student life at Liberty and in a UK settingAliens and Strangers?: The Struggle for Coherence in the Everyday Lives of Evangelicals work on Conservative Evangelical churches.
It is well written with a journalistic panache that has scoured the sources and expects its readers to have an insiders' knowledge of the various sub cultures (something that needs a glossary of its own).
It (just) gets four stars because of its effective and well researched portraits of many of the leading figures and their contributions. But its focus on one section and in that group the leadership and how they grapple with their own anti intellectual obsession with redundant ideas. In so doing misses I think the variety that exists even within the neo-evangelical community. For a contrast read the comic The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest Universityabout student life at Liberty and in a UK settingAliens and Strangers?: The Struggle for Coherence in the Everyday Lives of Evangelicals work on Conservative Evangelical churches.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 16, 2017
Beginning with a network of reformed figures that orbited around Billy Graham, from J. Howard Pew's money to Carl Henry's passion for cultural esteem, Apostles of Reason details the early history of institutions like the magazine Christianity Today, the Evangelical Theological Society, Fuller Theological Seminary, the Lausanne Movement and many other academic and cultural meeting grounds for American protestants who wanted to rehabilitate the intellectual reputation of their traditions and win souls, and the culture, for Christ. (It should probably be noted that Worthen focuses on white protestantism throughout, and makes that clear in her introduction.)
Here's a big piece of the picture as Worthen draws it: With the close of World War II, the nascent Cold War opening, and battles over ideology commanding center stage in the American imaginary, Christian leaders in reformed protestant denominations set out to reverse the isolationist posture of fundamentalism and actively engaged the elements of western culture they opposed. Negotiating the idea of a "Christian Worldview" into a position of cultural power that laid the groundwork for the moral majority, these champions of a new protestant attitude toward the world outside church doors exerted their first influence on their nearest neighbors: fellow protestants in Mennonite, Methodist, and Pentecostal traditions. As the questions that troubled fundamentalist thinkers made inroads in these communities as well, thoughtful leaders from many American protestant communities came to be united by the struggles that were shared across the differences in history, doctrine, and practice that had previously held them apart.
While working on that kind of broad historical scale that encompasses a variety of traditions and beliefs, the narrative also manages to be particular and personal, following particular people through their interactions with these ideas and movements. I loved her attention to the ways that American evangelicals like Clyde Kilby embraced C.S. Lewis and passed along their enthusiasm, the ongoing influence of cultural campaigners like Francis Schaeffer, and the crosscurrents within the loose and shifting boundaries of evangelicalism created by writers like Jim Wallis on the evangelical left. Worthen's writing is journalistic, empathetic, and often moving or funny.
I also loved Worthen's attention to the ways in which the central ideas behind evangelicalism shifted as they were adopted by leaders across protestant faiths. That kind of focus creates a remarkably clear and nuanced view of the variety of white evangelicalisms. It's the kind of history that I've been looking for in my own study of what's going on in this American religious community (with which I am intimately familiar). This is the best thing I've read on it to date.
Closing with internal critiques from scholars like Mark Noll on the ways in which history, tradition, and authority are employed in intradenominational politicking and ongoing efforts to expand the borders of evangelicalism through church growth and culture war, Apostles of Reason presents a marvelously deft and cogent intellectual history of a powerful and dynamic force in American life through the twentieth century and to the present.
A fantastic book.
Here's a big piece of the picture as Worthen draws it: With the close of World War II, the nascent Cold War opening, and battles over ideology commanding center stage in the American imaginary, Christian leaders in reformed protestant denominations set out to reverse the isolationist posture of fundamentalism and actively engaged the elements of western culture they opposed. Negotiating the idea of a "Christian Worldview" into a position of cultural power that laid the groundwork for the moral majority, these champions of a new protestant attitude toward the world outside church doors exerted their first influence on their nearest neighbors: fellow protestants in Mennonite, Methodist, and Pentecostal traditions. As the questions that troubled fundamentalist thinkers made inroads in these communities as well, thoughtful leaders from many American protestant communities came to be united by the struggles that were shared across the differences in history, doctrine, and practice that had previously held them apart.
While working on that kind of broad historical scale that encompasses a variety of traditions and beliefs, the narrative also manages to be particular and personal, following particular people through their interactions with these ideas and movements. I loved her attention to the ways that American evangelicals like Clyde Kilby embraced C.S. Lewis and passed along their enthusiasm, the ongoing influence of cultural campaigners like Francis Schaeffer, and the crosscurrents within the loose and shifting boundaries of evangelicalism created by writers like Jim Wallis on the evangelical left. Worthen's writing is journalistic, empathetic, and often moving or funny.
I also loved Worthen's attention to the ways in which the central ideas behind evangelicalism shifted as they were adopted by leaders across protestant faiths. That kind of focus creates a remarkably clear and nuanced view of the variety of white evangelicalisms. It's the kind of history that I've been looking for in my own study of what's going on in this American religious community (with which I am intimately familiar). This is the best thing I've read on it to date.
Closing with internal critiques from scholars like Mark Noll on the ways in which history, tradition, and authority are employed in intradenominational politicking and ongoing efforts to expand the borders of evangelicalism through church growth and culture war, Apostles of Reason presents a marvelously deft and cogent intellectual history of a powerful and dynamic force in American life through the twentieth century and to the present.
A fantastic book.
July 15, 2025
This is an excellent historical study, and might become one of my preferred examples. Worthen is a great writer, and she deftly guides the reader through decades of material and a long list of characters without the narrative ever getting confusing. From a readability-narrative perspective, this is probably the most enjoyable, single-volume history of American evangelicalism to read.
I also think the core of her argument is extremely important - the idea that the tensions/paradoxes/fragmentation of evangelicalism is a product of a unique collision of American cultural ideals and a lack of central religious authority - but I just wish that argument had been explored or pressed a bit further. She does a fantastic job discussing how certain sects within evangelicalism have grasped onto "biblical inerrancy" to serve as this missing religious authority, and how that inevitable produced further fractures. There is also a really interesting sub-theme regarding the development of evangelical higher education along these lines. Lastly, her discussion of "gurus" like Francis Schaefer and R.J. Rushdoony in the latter 20th century is very on-point, but I would have liked to read more about other figures.
In general, this is a great, great book. Almost 5 stars for me, and because of its readability, will be one of my go-to recommendations on those interested in recent American evangelicalism.
I also think the core of her argument is extremely important - the idea that the tensions/paradoxes/fragmentation of evangelicalism is a product of a unique collision of American cultural ideals and a lack of central religious authority - but I just wish that argument had been explored or pressed a bit further. She does a fantastic job discussing how certain sects within evangelicalism have grasped onto "biblical inerrancy" to serve as this missing religious authority, and how that inevitable produced further fractures. There is also a really interesting sub-theme regarding the development of evangelical higher education along these lines. Lastly, her discussion of "gurus" like Francis Schaefer and R.J. Rushdoony in the latter 20th century is very on-point, but I would have liked to read more about other figures.
In general, this is a great, great book. Almost 5 stars for me, and because of its readability, will be one of my go-to recommendations on those interested in recent American evangelicalism.
January 7, 2025
Apostles of Reason is an intellectual history of American Evangelicalism, primarily from post-World War 2 through the end of the 20th Century. Worthen's primary contention is that Evangelicals have floundered intellectually because they are operating under conflicting sets of authorities. They have not really resolved the tension between faith and reason, the true manner of following Christ, or how to bring their faith to bear in the public square. She plays this theme throughout the disputes that largely have defined evangelicalism for the past decades--inerrancy, cultural transformation, the role of women in leadership, abortion, marriage, and politics.
It is an excellent book, and one worth reading for all serious students of evangelicalism, but it mostly shines by highlighting the tensions within the Christian faith itself. Christianity has struggled with these things, and it will likely continue to do so, beyond both evangelicalism and America.
It is an excellent book, and one worth reading for all serious students of evangelicalism, but it mostly shines by highlighting the tensions within the Christian faith itself. Christianity has struggled with these things, and it will likely continue to do so, beyond both evangelicalism and America.
April 15, 2025
There's definitely a chance that my experience with this book is overshadowed or colored by many of the other histories of evangelicalism that I've read over the last several years. A lot of the history covered here is exciting and the perspective of approaching it all via the lens of biblical literalism/inerrancy and questions of authority is certainly eye-opening in a lot of ways and really quite interesting. At the same time, the general arc of the narrative here felt overly familiar at times and so as much as I liked the fresh insights I got along the way, some of the journey also treaded very familiar waters and made the experience just a tad slow. Still, incredibly valuable text with really solid questions to ask and continue exploring around the culture of authority as it pertains to elements of intellectualism (or anti-) and, especially now, new media influences and environments.
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