Reading Evangelicals: How Christian Fiction Shaped a Culture and a Faith
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $19.95
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Trevor Thompson
-
By:
-
Daniel Silliman
About this listen
The story of five best-selling novels beloved by evangelicals, the book industry they built, and the collective imagination they shaped.
Who are evangelicals? And what is evangelicalism? Those attempting to answer these questions usually speak in terms of political and theological stances. But those stances emerge from an evangelical world with its own institutions - institutions that shape imagination as much as they shape ideology. In this unique exploration of evangelical subculture, Daniel Silliman shows listeners how Christian fiction, and the empire of Christian publishing and bookselling it helped build, is key to understanding the formation of evangelical identity. With a close look at five best-selling novels - Love Comes Softly, This Present Darkness, Left Behind, The Shunning, and The Shack - Silliman considers what it was in these books that held such appeal and what effect their widespread popularity had on the evangelical imagination. Reading Evangelicals ultimately makes the case that the worlds created in these novels reflected and shaped the world evangelicals saw themselves living in - one in which romantic love intertwines with divine love, humans play an active role in the cosmic contest between angels and demons, and the material world is infused with the literal workings of God and Satan. Silliman tells the story of how the Christian publishing industry marketed these ideas as much as they marketed books, and how, during the era of the Christian bookstore, this - every bit as much as politics or theology - became a locus of evangelical identity.
©2021 Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. (P)2021 Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.Listeners also enjoyed...
-
The Evangelical Imagination
- How Stories, Images, and Metaphors Created a Culture in Crisis
- By: Karen Swallow Prior
- Narrated by: Susan Hanfield
- Length: 10 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Acclaimed author Karen Swallow Prior examines evangelical history, both good and bad. By analyzing the literature, art, and popular culture that has surrounded evangelicalism, she unpacks some of the movement's most deeply held concepts, ideas, values, and practices to consider what is Christian rather than merely cultural. The result is a clearer path forward for evangelicals amid their current identity crisis—and insight for others who want a deeper understanding of what the term "evangelical" means today.
-
-
Fantastic Content, Unfortunate Narration
- By Matthew Carson on 09-02-23
-
Tell Her Story
- How Women Led, Taught, and Ministered in the Early Church
- By: Nijay K. Gupta, Beth Allison Barr - foreword
- Narrated by: Nijay K. Gupta
- Length: 7 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Women were there. For centuries, discussions of early Christianity have focused on male leaders in the church. But there is ample evidence right in the New Testament that women were actively involved in ministry, at the frontier of the gospel mission, and as respected leaders. Nijay Gupta calls us to bring these women out of the shadows by shining light on their many inspiring contributions to the planting, growth, and health of the first Christian churches.
-
-
Biblical exploration of women’s role in the Bible
- By Adam Shields on 08-18-23
By: Nijay K. Gupta, and others
-
Light Perpetual
- A Novel
- By: Francis Spufford
- Narrated by: Imogen Church
- Length: 12 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Lunchtime on a Saturday, 1944: The Woolworths on Bexford High Street in South London receives a delivery of aluminum saucepans. A crowd gathers to see the first new metal in ages - after all, everything’s been melted down for the war effort. An instant later, the crowd is gone; incinerated. Among the shoppers were five young children.
-
-
Outstanding... breathtaking
- By klstickel on 06-05-21
By: Francis Spufford
-
Revelation for the Rest of Us
- A Prophetic Call to Follow Jesus as a Dissident Disciple
- By: Scot McKnight, Cody Matchett
- Narrated by: Wayne Campbell
- Length: 9 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Revelation for the Rest of Us, world renowned New Testament scholar and author Scot McKnight explores the timeless message of Revelation and how it disciples readers into dissidents of the ways of the world and empire, calling them to the courageous challenge of faithful, or allegiant, witness.
-
-
85% is really solid
- By G Brandon Cunningham on 04-20-23
By: Scot McKnight, and others
-
Out of the Embers
- Faith After the Great Deconstruction
- By: Bradley Jersak
- Narrated by: Boyd Barrett
- Length: 13 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Out of the Embers, Bradley Jersak explores the necessity, perils, and possibilities of the Great Deconstruction—how it has the potential to either sabotage our communion with God or infuse it with the breath of life, the light and life of Christ himself.
-
-
Trigger warning
- By Emily T. Stickney on 12-31-23
By: Bradley Jersak
-
All My Knotted-Up Life
- A Memoir
- By: Beth Moore
- Narrated by: Beth Moore
- Length: 8 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
All My Knotted-Up Life is a beautifully crafted portrait of resilience and survival, a poignant reminder of God’s enduring faithfulness, and proof positive that if we ever truly took the time to hear people’s full stories . . . we’d all walk around slack-jawed.
-
-
Finished in one day
- By nedmac mama on 02-22-23
By: Beth Moore
-
The Evangelical Imagination
- How Stories, Images, and Metaphors Created a Culture in Crisis
- By: Karen Swallow Prior
- Narrated by: Susan Hanfield
- Length: 10 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Acclaimed author Karen Swallow Prior examines evangelical history, both good and bad. By analyzing the literature, art, and popular culture that has surrounded evangelicalism, she unpacks some of the movement's most deeply held concepts, ideas, values, and practices to consider what is Christian rather than merely cultural. The result is a clearer path forward for evangelicals amid their current identity crisis—and insight for others who want a deeper understanding of what the term "evangelical" means today.
-
-
Fantastic Content, Unfortunate Narration
- By Matthew Carson on 09-02-23
-
Tell Her Story
- How Women Led, Taught, and Ministered in the Early Church
- By: Nijay K. Gupta, Beth Allison Barr - foreword
- Narrated by: Nijay K. Gupta
- Length: 7 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Women were there. For centuries, discussions of early Christianity have focused on male leaders in the church. But there is ample evidence right in the New Testament that women were actively involved in ministry, at the frontier of the gospel mission, and as respected leaders. Nijay Gupta calls us to bring these women out of the shadows by shining light on their many inspiring contributions to the planting, growth, and health of the first Christian churches.
-
-
Biblical exploration of women’s role in the Bible
- By Adam Shields on 08-18-23
By: Nijay K. Gupta, and others
-
Light Perpetual
- A Novel
- By: Francis Spufford
- Narrated by: Imogen Church
- Length: 12 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Lunchtime on a Saturday, 1944: The Woolworths on Bexford High Street in South London receives a delivery of aluminum saucepans. A crowd gathers to see the first new metal in ages - after all, everything’s been melted down for the war effort. An instant later, the crowd is gone; incinerated. Among the shoppers were five young children.
-
-
Outstanding... breathtaking
- By klstickel on 06-05-21
By: Francis Spufford
-
Revelation for the Rest of Us
- A Prophetic Call to Follow Jesus as a Dissident Disciple
- By: Scot McKnight, Cody Matchett
- Narrated by: Wayne Campbell
- Length: 9 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Revelation for the Rest of Us, world renowned New Testament scholar and author Scot McKnight explores the timeless message of Revelation and how it disciples readers into dissidents of the ways of the world and empire, calling them to the courageous challenge of faithful, or allegiant, witness.
-
-
85% is really solid
- By G Brandon Cunningham on 04-20-23
By: Scot McKnight, and others
-
Out of the Embers
- Faith After the Great Deconstruction
- By: Bradley Jersak
- Narrated by: Boyd Barrett
- Length: 13 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Out of the Embers, Bradley Jersak explores the necessity, perils, and possibilities of the Great Deconstruction—how it has the potential to either sabotage our communion with God or infuse it with the breath of life, the light and life of Christ himself.
-
-
Trigger warning
- By Emily T. Stickney on 12-31-23
By: Bradley Jersak
-
All My Knotted-Up Life
- A Memoir
- By: Beth Moore
- Narrated by: Beth Moore
- Length: 8 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
All My Knotted-Up Life is a beautifully crafted portrait of resilience and survival, a poignant reminder of God’s enduring faithfulness, and proof positive that if we ever truly took the time to hear people’s full stories . . . we’d all walk around slack-jawed.
-
-
Finished in one day
- By nedmac mama on 02-22-23
By: Beth Moore
-
Jesus and John Wayne
- How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation
- By: Kristin Kobes du Mez
- Narrated by: Suzie Althens
- Length: 12 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
How did a libertine who lacks even the most basic knowledge of the Christian faith win 81 percent of the white evangelical vote in 2016? And why have white evangelicals become a presidential reprobate's staunchest supporters? Jesus and John Wayne is a sweeping account of the last 75 years of white evangelicalism, showing how American evangelicals have worked for decades to replace the Jesus of the Gospels with an idol of rugged masculinity and Christian nationalism.
-
-
Like reading a history of my evangelical life
- By Renee on 10-15-20
-
A Church Called Tov
- Forming a Goodness Culture That Resists Abuses of Power and Promotes Healing
- By: Scot McKnight, Laura Barringer
- Narrated by: Michael Beck
- Length: 7 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What is the way forward for the church? Tragically, in recent years, Christians have gotten used to revelations of abuses of many kinds in our most respected churches―from Willow Creek to Harvest, from Southern Baptist pastors to Sovereign Grace churches. Respected author and theologian Scot McKnight and former Willow Creek member Laura Barringer wrote this book to paint a pathway forward for the church.
-
-
Mostly good, but has a major issue
- By T.J. on 11-30-21
By: Scot McKnight, and others
-
Unfollow
- A Memoir of Loving and Leaving the Westboro Baptist Church
- By: Megan Phelps-Roper
- Narrated by: Megan Phelps-Roper
- Length: 10 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At the age of five, Megan Phelps-Roper began protesting homosexuality and other alleged vices alongside fellow members of the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas. Founded by her grandfather and consisting almost entirely of her extended family, the tiny group would gain worldwide notoriety for its pickets at military funerals and celebrations of death and tragedy.
-
-
Insightful, honest and engaging
- By C.B.E. on 11-28-19
-
This Present Darkness
- By: Frank Peretti
- Narrated by: Jack Sondericker
- Length: 17 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A small town newspaper editor and a local minister uncover a web of conspiracy while an unseen battle between the angels of good and evil takes place in the town of Ashton.
-
-
The one that started Peretti
- By Kimberly on 07-08-08
By: Frank Peretti
-
One Soul at a Time
- The Story of Billy Graham
- By: Grant Wacker
- Narrated by: Trevor Thompson
- Length: 12 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For more than five decades, Billy Graham (1918 to 2018) ranked as one of the most influential voices in the Christian world. Nearly 215 million people around the world heard him preach in person or through live electronic media, almost certainly more than any other person. For millions, Graham was less a preacher than a Protestant saint. While remaining orthodox at the core, over time, his approach on many issues became more irenic and progressive. And his preaching continued to resonate, propelled by his powerful promise of a second chance.
-
-
Interesting biography
- By Susan Patterson on 03-20-20
By: Grant Wacker
-
River of the Gods
- Genius, Courage, and Betrayal in the Search for the Source of the Nile
- By: Candice Millard
- Narrated by: Paul Michael
- Length: 10 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
For millennia the location of the Nile River’s headwaters was shrouded in mystery. In the 19th century, there was a frenzy of interest in ancient Egypt. At the same time, European powers sent off waves of explorations intended to map the unknown corners of the globe—and extend their colonial empires.
-
-
Good book by Millard, narrator ruined it
- By Tally D Lykins on 05-25-22
By: Candice Millard
-
Bad Faith: Race and the Rise of the Religious Right
- By: Randall Balmer
- Narrated by: Trevor Thompson
- Length: 1 hr and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
There is a commonly accepted story about the rise of the Religious Right in the United States. It goes like this: With righteous fury, American evangelicals entered the political arena as a unified front to fight the legality of abortion after the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. The problem is this story simply isn’t true.
-
-
Needs more nuance, but basic thesis is right
- By Adam Shields on 08-10-21
By: Randall Balmer
-
Timothy Keller
- His Spiritual and Intellectual Formation
- By: Collin Hansen
- Narrated by: Collin Hansen, Timothy Keller, full cast
- Length: 14 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Millions have read books and listened to sermons by Timothy Keller. But who impacted his own thinking, and what shaped his spiritual growth and ministry priorities? With full access to Keller's personal notes and sermons—as well as exclusive interviews with family members and longtime friends—Collin Hansen takes listeners behind the scenes of one of the 21st century's most influential church leaders.
-
-
The Fuller Story of Tim Keller
- By Chris & Rachael Davis on 08-23-23
By: Collin Hansen
-
In the Shadow of the Sword
- The Birth of Islam and the Rise of the Global Arab Empire
- By: Tom Holland
- Narrated by: Steven Crossley
- Length: 18 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The evolution of the Arab empire is one of the supreme narratives of ancient history, a story dazzlingly rich in drama, character, and achievement. In this exciting and sweeping history - the third in his trilogy of books on the ancient world - Tom Holland describes how the Arabs emerged to carve out a stupefyingly vast dominion in a matter of decades, overcoming seemingly insuperable odds to create an imperial civilization.
-
-
Misleading title
- By Edd Huetteman on 04-08-16
By: Tom Holland
-
Love Comes Softly
- By: Janette Oke
- Narrated by: Ruth Ann Phimister
- Length: 7 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When it was first published in 1979, this novel introduced inspirational fiction to people hungry for well-told stories based on Christian values. Since then, over a million copies have been sold, and it has been made into a popular Hallmark movie. Janette Oke has won the Christy Award, the Gold Medallion, and scores of other awards.
-
-
wonderful book
- By Lori on 07-12-07
By: Janette Oke
-
Another Gospel?
- A Lifelong Christian Seeks Truth in Response to Progressive Christianity
- By: Alisa Childers
- Narrated by: Alisa Childers
- Length: 7 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Alisa Childers never thought she would question her Christian faith. She was raised in a Christian home, where she had seen her mom and dad feed the hungry, clothe the homeless, and love the outcast. She had witnessed God at work and then had dedicated her own life to leading worship as part of the popular Christian band ZOEgirl. All that was deeply challenged when she met a progressive pastor who called himself a hopeful agnostic. Another Gospel? describes the intellectual journey Alisa took over several years as she wrestled with a series of questions.
-
-
A must listen! Bring your doubts!
- By J. Withers on 10-08-20
By: Alisa Childers
-
Love Is the Way
- Holding on to Hope in Troubling Times
- By: Bishop Michael Curry, Sara Grace
- Narrated by: Bishop Michael Curry
- Length: 7 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Much of the world met Bishop Curry when he delivered his sermon on the redemptive power of love at the royal wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle at Windsor Castle. Here, he expands on his message of hope in an inspirational road map for living the way of love, illuminated with moving lessons from his own life. Through the prism of his faith, ancestry, and personal journey, Love Is the Way shows us how America came this far and, more important, how to go a whole lot further.
-
-
Hopeful and grateful
- By Amazon Customer on 10-11-20
By: Bishop Michael Curry, and others
Related to this topic
-
To Light a Fire on the Earth
- Proclaiming the Gospel in a Secular Age
- By: Bishop Robert Barron, John L. Allen Jr. - contributor
- Narrated by: Adam Verner
- Length: 8 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this compelling new book - drawn from conversations with and narrated by award-winning Vatican journalist John L. Allen Jr. - Barron, founder of Word on Fire Catholic Ministries, proclaims in vivid language the goodness and truth of the Catholic tradition. Through Barron's smart, practical, artistic, and theological observations - as well as through personal anecdotes about everything from engaging atheists on YouTube to his days as a young die-hard baseball fan from Chicago - To Light a Fire on the Earth covers prodigious ground.
-
-
Not by Bishop Barron
- By M. Waters on 05-22-18
By: Bishop Robert Barron, and others
-
Another Gospel?
- A Lifelong Christian Seeks Truth in Response to Progressive Christianity
- By: Alisa Childers
- Narrated by: Alisa Childers
- Length: 7 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Alisa Childers never thought she would question her Christian faith. She was raised in a Christian home, where she had seen her mom and dad feed the hungry, clothe the homeless, and love the outcast. She had witnessed God at work and then had dedicated her own life to leading worship as part of the popular Christian band ZOEgirl. All that was deeply challenged when she met a progressive pastor who called himself a hopeful agnostic. Another Gospel? describes the intellectual journey Alisa took over several years as she wrestled with a series of questions.
-
-
A must listen! Bring your doubts!
- By J. Withers on 10-08-20
By: Alisa Childers
-
Patience with God
- Faith for People Who Don't Like Religion (or Atheism)
- By: Frank Schaeffer
- Narrated by: Frank Schaeffer
- Length: 7 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Frank Schaeffer has a problem with Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris, Dennett, and the rest of the New Atheists—the self-anointed “Brights.” He also has a problem with the Rick Warrens and Tim LaHayes of the world—the religious fundamentalists. The problem is that he doesn’t see much of a difference between the two camps. As Schaeffer puts it, they “often share the same fallacy: truth claims that reek of false certainties.
-
-
A Very Personal Book
- By Thomas on 09-24-10
By: Frank Schaeffer
-
Does Jesus Really Love Me?
- A Gay Christian's Pilgrimage in Search of God in America
- By: Jeff Chu
- Narrated by: Jeff Chu
- Length: 13 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Does Jesus Really Love Me?: A Gay Christian's Pilgrimage in Search of God in America is part memoir and part investigative analysis that explores the explosive and confusing intersection of faith, politics, and sexuality in Christian America. The quest to find an answer is at the heart of Does Jesus Really Love Me? - a personal journey of belief, an investigation, and a portrait of a faith and a nation at odds by award-winning reporter Jeff Chu.
-
-
This Is Where I Found Hope in '20/'21
- By Josh on 01-24-21
By: Jeff Chu
-
Death to Deconstruction
- Reclaiming Faithfulness as an Act of Rebellion
- By: Joshua S Porter, John Mark Comer - contributor
- Narrated by: Joshua S Porter
- Length: 7 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This book is more than Porter's own story. It also invites those who may be in the deconstruction process themselves to consider the perspective of someone who was tempted to leave his faith—yet stayed. And it provides theological insight and pastoral support to those who worry that everyone is bailing out on the church.
-
-
Beautiful
- By Anonymous User on 05-10-23
By: Joshua S Porter, and others
-
Good Without God
- What a Billion Nonreligious People Do Believe
- By: Greg Epstein
- Narrated by: David Marantz
- Length: 10 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A provocative and positive response to Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, and other New Atheists, Good Without God makes a bold claim for what nonbelievers do share and believe. Epstein's Good Without God provides a constructive, challenging response to these manifestos by getting to the heart of Humanism and its positive belief in tolerance, community, morality, and good without having to rely on the guidance of a higher being.
-
-
Speaker sounds too robotic
- By Lisa S. on 08-27-21
By: Greg Epstein
-
To Light a Fire on the Earth
- Proclaiming the Gospel in a Secular Age
- By: Bishop Robert Barron, John L. Allen Jr. - contributor
- Narrated by: Adam Verner
- Length: 8 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this compelling new book - drawn from conversations with and narrated by award-winning Vatican journalist John L. Allen Jr. - Barron, founder of Word on Fire Catholic Ministries, proclaims in vivid language the goodness and truth of the Catholic tradition. Through Barron's smart, practical, artistic, and theological observations - as well as through personal anecdotes about everything from engaging atheists on YouTube to his days as a young die-hard baseball fan from Chicago - To Light a Fire on the Earth covers prodigious ground.
-
-
Not by Bishop Barron
- By M. Waters on 05-22-18
By: Bishop Robert Barron, and others
-
Another Gospel?
- A Lifelong Christian Seeks Truth in Response to Progressive Christianity
- By: Alisa Childers
- Narrated by: Alisa Childers
- Length: 7 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Alisa Childers never thought she would question her Christian faith. She was raised in a Christian home, where she had seen her mom and dad feed the hungry, clothe the homeless, and love the outcast. She had witnessed God at work and then had dedicated her own life to leading worship as part of the popular Christian band ZOEgirl. All that was deeply challenged when she met a progressive pastor who called himself a hopeful agnostic. Another Gospel? describes the intellectual journey Alisa took over several years as she wrestled with a series of questions.
-
-
A must listen! Bring your doubts!
- By J. Withers on 10-08-20
By: Alisa Childers
-
Patience with God
- Faith for People Who Don't Like Religion (or Atheism)
- By: Frank Schaeffer
- Narrated by: Frank Schaeffer
- Length: 7 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Frank Schaeffer has a problem with Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris, Dennett, and the rest of the New Atheists—the self-anointed “Brights.” He also has a problem with the Rick Warrens and Tim LaHayes of the world—the religious fundamentalists. The problem is that he doesn’t see much of a difference between the two camps. As Schaeffer puts it, they “often share the same fallacy: truth claims that reek of false certainties.
-
-
A Very Personal Book
- By Thomas on 09-24-10
By: Frank Schaeffer
-
Does Jesus Really Love Me?
- A Gay Christian's Pilgrimage in Search of God in America
- By: Jeff Chu
- Narrated by: Jeff Chu
- Length: 13 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Does Jesus Really Love Me?: A Gay Christian's Pilgrimage in Search of God in America is part memoir and part investigative analysis that explores the explosive and confusing intersection of faith, politics, and sexuality in Christian America. The quest to find an answer is at the heart of Does Jesus Really Love Me? - a personal journey of belief, an investigation, and a portrait of a faith and a nation at odds by award-winning reporter Jeff Chu.
-
-
This Is Where I Found Hope in '20/'21
- By Josh on 01-24-21
By: Jeff Chu
-
Death to Deconstruction
- Reclaiming Faithfulness as an Act of Rebellion
- By: Joshua S Porter, John Mark Comer - contributor
- Narrated by: Joshua S Porter
- Length: 7 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This book is more than Porter's own story. It also invites those who may be in the deconstruction process themselves to consider the perspective of someone who was tempted to leave his faith—yet stayed. And it provides theological insight and pastoral support to those who worry that everyone is bailing out on the church.
-
-
Beautiful
- By Anonymous User on 05-10-23
By: Joshua S Porter, and others
-
Good Without God
- What a Billion Nonreligious People Do Believe
- By: Greg Epstein
- Narrated by: David Marantz
- Length: 10 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A provocative and positive response to Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, and other New Atheists, Good Without God makes a bold claim for what nonbelievers do share and believe. Epstein's Good Without God provides a constructive, challenging response to these manifestos by getting to the heart of Humanism and its positive belief in tolerance, community, morality, and good without having to rely on the guidance of a higher being.
-
-
Speaker sounds too robotic
- By Lisa S. on 08-27-21
By: Greg Epstein
-
The Marketing of Evil
- How Radicals, Elitists and Pseudo-Experts Sell Us Corruption Disguised as Freedom
- By: David Kupelian
- Narrated by: David Kupelian
- Length: 4 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Americans have come to tolerate, embrace, and even champion many things that would have horrified their parents' generation - from easy divorce and unrestricted abortion on demand to extreme body piercing and teaching homosexuality to grade schoolers. Does that mean today's Americans are inherently more morally confused and depraved than previous generations? Of course not, says veteran journalist David Kupelian.
-
-
This should be recommended reading.
- By E. Giuetti on 08-01-17
By: David Kupelian
-
Atheism for Dummies
- By: Dale McGowan PhD
- Narrated by: Paul Mantell
- Length: 15 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Atheism For Dummies offers a brief history of atheist philosophy and its evolution, explores it as a historical and cultural movement, covers important historical writings on the subject, and discusses the nature of ethics and morality in the absence of religion. A simple, yet intelligent exploration of an often misunderstood philosophy.
-
-
Great topic...irritating narrator
- By Duke Playbent on 10-26-14
By: Dale McGowan PhD
-
Nonverts
- The Making of Ex-Christian America
- By: Stephen Bullivant
- Narrated by: Liam Gerrard
- Length: 6 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The United States is in the midst of a religious revolution. Or, perhaps it is better to say a non-religious revolution. Around a quarter of US adults now say they have no religion. The great majority of these religious "nones" also say that they used to belong to a religion but no longer do. These are the nonverts: think "converts," but from having religion to having none. There are currently about fifty-nine million of them in the United States.
-
-
Deeply Insightful, But …
- By S. J. Young on 12-29-22
-
Speaking of Faith
- By: Krista Tippett
- Narrated by: Krista Tippett
- Length: 6 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this illuminating story of her life and conversations, the host of public radio's Speaking of Faith describes her journey of spiritual exploration - a journey shared by countless others.
-
-
Clarity of Faith
- By Charles on 06-01-07
By: Krista Tippett
-
A New Kind of Christianity
- Ten Questions That Are Transforming the Faith
- By: Brian D. McLaren
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 11 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
We are in the midst of a paradigm shift in the church. Not since the Reformation five centuries ago have so many Christians come together to ask whether the church is in sync with their deepest beliefs and commitments. These believers range from evangelicals to mainline Protestants to Catholics, and the person who best represents them is author and pastor Brian McLaren. In this much anticipated book, McLaren examines ten questions facing today's church - questions about how to articulate the faith itself, the nature of its authority, who God is....
-
-
Clear, Careful, Considerate Confrontation
- By Celia on 09-10-12
By: Brian D. McLaren
-
Philosopher of the Heart
- The Restless Life of Søren Kierkegaard
- By: Clare Carlisle
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 10 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Søren Kierkegaard is one of the most passionate and challenging of all modern philosophers, and is often regarded as the founder of existentialism. Over about a decade in the 1840s and 1850s, writings poured from his pen pursuing the question of existence - how to be a human being in the world? - while exploring the possibilities of Christianity and confronting the failures of its institutional manifestation around him.
-
-
Fatally flawed
- By Citizen M on 02-26-23
By: Clare Carlisle
-
Letters to a Young Pastor
- Timothy Conversations Between Father and Son
- By: Eric E. Peterson, Eugene H. Peterson
- Narrated by: Eric E. Peterson
- Length: 4 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Have you ever felt in over your head? When Eric Peterson became the pastor of a brand-new church, he quickly and wisely turned to his dad for guidance. Eugene Peterson, author of more than 30 books, including his best-selling memoir The Pastor and his groundbreaking Bible The Message, here reflects on pastoral ministry in all its complexity - from relationships to administration to the sheer audacity of leading God’s people in a particular place. This is Eugene Peterson at his best - lifelong wisdom written with deep love.
-
-
humanizing
- By Adam Shields on 12-01-23
By: Eric E. Peterson, and others
-
God and Ronald Reagan
- A Spiritual Life
- By: Paul Kengor
- Narrated by: Bob Souer
- Length: 9 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ronald Reagan is hailed today for a presidency that restored optimism to America, engendered years of economic prosperity, and helped bring about the fall of the Soviet Union. Yet until now little attention has been paid to the role Reagan's personal spirituality played in his political career, shaping his ideas, bolstering his resolve, and ultimately compelling him to confront the brutal - and, not coincidentally, atheistic - Soviet empire.
-
-
Depth of info
- By Jan Waldrep on 09-01-24
By: Paul Kengor
-
The Second Mountain
- How People Move from the Prison of Self to the Joy of Commitment
- By: David Brooks
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 12 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Author David Brooks explores the four commitments that define a life of meaning and purpose: to a spouse and family, to a vocation, to a philosophy or faith, and to a community. Our personal fulfillment depends on how well we choose and execute these commitments. Brooks looks at a range of people who have lived joyous, committed lives, and who have embraced the necessity and beauty of dependence. He gathers their wisdom on how to choose a partner, how to pick a vocation, how to live out a philosophy, and how we can begin to integrate our commitments into one overriding purpose.
-
-
Pursue meaning, reject hyper-individualism
- By Adam Shields on 05-07-19
By: David Brooks
-
Sex, Mom, and God
- How the Bible's Strange Take on Sex Led to Crazy Politics - and How I Learned to Love Women (and Jesus) Anyway
- By: Frank Schaeffer
- Narrated by: Frank Schaeffer
- Length: 8 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Alternating between laugh-out-loud scenes from his childhood and acidic ruminations on the present state of an America he and his famous fundamentalist parents helped create, best-selling author Frank Schaeffer asks what the Glenn Becks and the Rush Limbaughs and the paranoid fantasies of the “right-wing echo chamber” are really all about. Here’s a hint: sex.
-
-
Entertaining and enlightening
- By Listens-a-lot on 11-16-11
By: Frank Schaeffer
-
Fantasyland
- How America Went Haywire: A 500-Year History
- By: Kurt Andersen
- Narrated by: Kurt Andersen
- Length: 19 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A razor-sharp thinker offers a new understanding of our post-truth world and explains the American instinct to believe in make-believe, from the Pilgrims to P. T. Barnum to Disneyland to zealots of every stripe...to Donald Trump. In this sweeping, eloquent history of America, Kurt Andersen demonstrates that what's happening in our country today - this strange, post-factual, "fake news" moment we're all living through - is not something entirely new, but rather the ultimate expression of our national character and path.
-
-
Bland Title For An Amazing Book!
- By David Larson on 09-07-17
By: Kurt Andersen
-
The Next Christians
- The Good News About the End of Christian America
- By: Gabe Lyons
- Narrated by: Gabe Lyons
- Length: 4 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Turn on a cable news show or pick up any news magazine, and you get the impression that Christian America is on its last leg. The once dominant faith is now facing rapidly declining church attendance, waning political influence, and an abysmal public perception. More than 76% of Americans self-identify as Christians, but many today are ashamed to carry the label. While many Christians are bemoaning their faith’s decline, Gabe Lyons is optimistic that Christianity’s best days are yet to come.
-
-
Optimistic about the church
- By Ellen Gilmartin on 09-12-24
By: Gabe Lyons
What listeners say about Reading Evangelicals: How Christian Fiction Shaped a Culture and a Faith
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Adam Shields
- 11-29-21
Exploration of Evangelical history through novels
I am a Christian fiction skeptic. It is not that I don’t think there are good Christian fiction novels, but experience suggests that those Christian novels that are good, are likely not being published, or not being published by Christian publishers. But I know I have a bias. When I first heard of the concept of Reading Evangelicals, I was hopeful for a guide that might help me be less cynical about an area of the Christian world that I had almost entirely stopped reading ten years or so ago.
Daniel Sillman is very ambitious with Reading Evangelicals. He uses these five books, Love Comes Softly, This Present Darkness, Left Behind, The Shunning, and The Shack, to provide not just an exploration of the novels but of Evangelicalism. The meaning of Evangelicalism is hotly debated. There have been dozens of books debating the meaning and value of the term over the past ten years. Broadly, there are three main ways that Evangelical is defined. One way is a theological definition like the National Association of Evangelicals version or Bebbington’s Quadrangle. The main objection to these is that this is not how many people use the term. The second way that Evangelical is used is as a political identity that roughly means conservative, White republican who cares about abortion, gay marriage, and who was likely to have voted for Trump twice. The objection to this usage is that there is a significant subgroup that does not fall into this category, either because roughly 1/3 of theological Evangelicals in the US are non-White, or that even those that are White, approximately 20-25% do not identify through political means or regularly vote democrat. In addition, this is a very US-centric definition, and many self-identified Evangelicals (using the political definition) rarely, if ever, attend church. The third primary definition of Evangelical is as a consumer definition. This is primarily the definition that Kristen Du Mez uses in Jesus and John Wayne. Even though it isn’t the primary definition here, a significant thread of Reading Evangelicals is about the rise and fall of the Christian books store and publishing industry, contributing to the consumeristic definition of Evangelical.
Love Comes Softly was the first novel that could be called a Christian Romance novel. It was published in 1979 at the start of the growth of local Christian books stores. It was one of the first novels written directly for an Evangelical audience and published by Evangelical presses. I read Love Comes Softly early. Probably as a pre-teen or early teen. As one of the quotes from the book said, I read it because my mom owned them all, and the church library stocked them. There were not a lot of Christian novels that I had access to in the mid-1980s. While Stillman does read the novels closely and discuss themes and the books themselves, the context is to the novels is what I find most helpful. Janet Oke was responding to a turn toward not just explicit sex but sexualized violence in the secular romance novel market in the late 1970s. A common trope at the time was that the protagonist would be kidnapped and/or raped, often more than once, and then she would eventually fall in love with her rapist. Before Love Comes Softly, Christian publishers almost entirely published non-fiction, often academic-leaning books targeted toward pastors and bibles. The rise of local Christian books stores needed products to sell, and novels filled a niche. In addition, the rise of the local Christian book store was necessarily ecumenical in orientation. Many Christian publishers were denominationally rooted, and they needed ways to sell outside of their narrow constituencies without alienating them. Love Comes Softly was a successful proof of concept that Christians would buy novels and that fiction could sell.
This Present Darkness is where politics and fear start to enter the picture. Frank Peretti started as an assistant pastor in an Assembly of God church that his father pastored, but by 1983 he quit the pastorate and started working at a factory. Peretti was influenced both by the storytelling of Stephen King and the cultural commentary and theology of Francis Schaeffer. Crossway Books was looking for a novel that would put into practice the theology of Francis Schaeffer, who Crossway had published. Two years after Shaeffer’s death, in 1986, Crossway published This Present Darkness. It hardly sold until Amy Grant was sent a copy, and she started talking about it in her concerts. After selling 4200 books the first year, it sold approximately 750,000 copies in the first two years after Amy Grant’s promotion. The sequel had 400,000 preorders in 1989. This Present Darkness was built on the early culture war ethos of the Moral Majority and the concerns about ritual child abuse, secular humanism, and the New Age that was throughout the culture at the time.
Part of the value of Reading Evangelicals is that Stillman is not interested in easy complaints about the quality or purpose of the books but interested in understanding the context, the deeper reasons that the books resonated, and the cultural shifts within evangelicalism that marked the rise and fall of the publishing industry. I remember reading This Present Darkness in the middle of high school and the increase in attention to spiritual warfare. Even in my conservative mainline Christian experience, I remember engagement after This Present Darkness with people concerned about attacks by demons and possession. It is easy to be cynical about the ways that white Evangelical culture was presented as under attack in books like This Present Darkness, or about the disbelief of sexual abuse or the casual racist references there, but this history is helpful in reading our recent history in books like Jesus and John Wayne or The Myth of Colorblind Christians.
I am not going to detail the discussion of the last three books in the same way, but each book played a role in the rise and then the downfall of Christian publishing and local Christian book stores. Each book has earned a place in helping to define what it means to be an Evangelical, both by contributing to the theological understanding of the term and by creating a culture that allowed for a communal experience of Christianity that many understand as Evangelical. Daniel Stillman is the news director at Christianity Today. He is intimately familiar with the culture and history, and reality of Evangelicalism. And Reading Evangelicals was both expertly written and deeply informative with a type of care that is difficult to do. I want to read or re-read all of these books again. But I also have a renewed sense of the nuance of the Evangelical story that, even though I experienced it, requires a guide to see into that experience well.
This is not a cheap book on kindle or hardcover. I listened to the audiobook, which for me as a member of Audible was the cheapest method. Trevor Thompson, who narrates many Christian books and who I often think of as Eugene Peterson, CS Lewis, Nicholas Wolterstorff, James KA Smith, Mark Noll, John Fea, and more, did a fine job. There were a couple of mispronounced words as is not uncommon, but the narration was well done.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful