Book Recommendation–The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind by Mark Noll

I just started rereading this excellent book and am glad I did. I first read it on Kindle some time ago and it’s time to read it again. If you spend a lot of time trying, largely to little avail, to maintain rational and thoughtful discussions with others, this book explains a lot of what has led up to where we are at this point in history concerning the ‘evangelical mind’. The Gospel Coalition published a ‘Symposium’ style review of the latest edition that contained the following:

Unsparing in his indictment, Mark Noll asks why the largest single group of religious Americans—who enjoy increasing wealth, status, and political influence—have contributed so little to rigorous intellectual scholarship. While nourishing believers in the simple truths of the gospel, why have so many evangelicals failed to sustain a serious intellectual life and abandoned the universities, the arts, and other realms of “high” culture?

More than 25 years since its original publication, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind has turned out to be prescient and perennially relevant. In a new preface, Noll lays out his ongoing personal frustrations with this situation, and in a new afterword he assesses the state of the scandal—showing how white evangelicals’ embrace of Trumpism, their deepening distrust of science, and their frequent forays into conspiratorial thinking have coexisted with surprisingly robust scholarship from many with strong evangelical connections.

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The TGC article ban be found at: Symposium: ‘Scandal of the Evangelical Mind’ 30 Years Later (thegospelcoalition.org)

Be Blessed!

2 responses to “Book Recommendation–The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind by Mark Noll

    • I’ve downloaded the Kindle version, just need to read it!……….Actually I had already read it, and have just read it again.

      I appreciated his conclusion: “The real scandal of the evangelical mind currently is not that it lacks a mind, but that it lacks any agreed-upon evangel. Until we acknowledge that this is the case—until we can agree on what exactly it is that constitutes the evangel—all talk about evangelicalism as a real, coherent movement is likely to be little more than a chimera, or a trick with smoke and mirrors.”

      Trueman, Carl. The Real Scandal of the Evangelical Mind . Moody Publishers. Kindle Edition.

      BTW, I met Carl Trueman some years ago when he presented a series of teachings about Martin Luther at a local Reformed church.

      As a P.S., this morning I came across a YouTube video that pointed to a church in Elizabeth City, NC. I visited their Web page and found no doctrinal statement whatsoever, not even on the “About” page. Also, I couldn’t a single reference to any passage of scripture on any of their pages. I did find a video containint the testimony of a man who talked about having been a Marine, his Dad’s death, and his return to God when he found a “Home” at the church. Nothing in the testimony concerning repentance and trusting in Christ for salvation. Truly sad…………

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