Believers

Recently I have been reading Jeffery Sheler's Believers: A Journey into Evangelical America.  Sheler is Contributing Editor for Religion with U.S. News and World Report.  While he would not identify himself as an evangelical, Sheler grew up in an evangelical church of sorts and is sympathetic to the movement.  In this book he tries to explain evangelicals to his secular colleagues.

I picked up the book mainly to read the chapter on Wheaton College, although I was also interested to read the chapter on Colorado Springs, my wife's hometown.  Readers of this blog may be interested to read about Sheler's conversation with Alliance Council Member Al Mohler. 

Most of the material in the book will be familiar ground to anyone who knows evangelicalism in America.  It is mainly a primer for people who want to get up to speed, with a sprinkling of Sheler's own pilgrimage.  But the conclusion to the book is striking:

"There is nothing alien or weird about evangelical Christianity. It is a faith well rooted in the cultural and theological traditions of the West. Some among them express crazy notions from time to time about how life works. But in  a population of sixty million people that is to be expected. I still believe, as I did starting out, that evangelicals as a group do sometimes face unfair and inaccurate stereotypes, and some of us in the media are at fault for that. But they are not victims, at least not in the ways or as often as some would claim. Their distinctive faith aside, evangelicals are looking and acting more and more like the rest of America. They have found their waqy into the cultural mainstream, where they are both influencing and being influenced by the society around them."

But if the salt has lost its savor, Jesus wanted to know, how will it become salty again?