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The Beliefnet Guide to Evangelical Christianity (Beliefnet Guides)

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The Beliefnet® Guide to Evangelical Christianity presents an overview of Evangelical Christianity covering evangelicalism's definition, beliefs, history, and current status politically and culturally. It includes a glossary of "church-speak" and a very good reading list. The book comes across in a friendly manner and is claimed to be written by an insider. Zoba does well in her attempt to dispel the negative stereotypes surrounding Evangelicalism, although she does not flinch from reporting its more embarrassing features. She also prefaces the book by stating that she does not speak for all evangelicals, a welcome admission considering some of her later statements.

She gives a good definition of this difficult-to-define movement which can be summarized as those Christians having: an emphasis on a born again experience, a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, belief in a reliable and authoritative Bible, and an obligation to share their faith. This is followed by a very good section on just what the gospel is and why it was necessary for Christ to die for sin. The book is certainly not perfect, however. While no single error necessarily makes the book completely unacceptable, there are many of them and taken together make the book of questionable value.

While the author often distinguishes between those doctrinal features of Evangelicalism that fall within a range of acceptable possibilities and those that do not, she makes questionable or even false claims in other areas that she implies are fairly unanimous. One troublesome assertion is her explanation of the Trinity which smacks of heretical Modalism. There is also a repeated referral to a "strangely warming" sensation that Evangelicals allegedly equate with the influence of the Holy Spirit. I have been an Evangelical for over 15 years and the only time I have heard a phrase like this referring to God's interaction with us was from Mormons. A somewhat vague Charismaticism is assumed without mention of those who hold to Cessationism. Some important questions are also left open making it appear as though Evangelicalism is still struggling with issues that have actually been adequately answered (e.g. the fate of those who never heard the gospel is said to be a "mystery beyond human reckoning").

Her sections on morality leave much to be desired as well. The homosexual issue is considered to be more of an marketing problem for Evangelicals than a true moral dilemma, and the abortion debate is relegated to politics. In her section on the former she allows the ridiculous question "How did homosexuality leap over murder and adultery?" to stand as an assessment of culture's influence on Evangelicalism rather than its reliance on Scripture. She even makes the bizarre conclusion from Romans 1:26-27 that "the seemingly really bad sins as well as innocuous ones carry the same result" (which is the opposite of Paul's discussion here). Other statements like "the evangelical approach to justice [is] restorative, not retributive" are also less than representative.

It would have been better to simply state only her views (as such) or always include all options. Mixing the two without notice paints an inaccurate picture of the evangelical landscape. The uninformed reader will likely be far more confused after a perusal of this "premier source of information" than they were before they began.

I decided to read Wendy Murray Zoba's "Evangelical Christianity" without really knowing what to expect. An evangelical Christian myself, I thought it might be interesting to see what a good author like Murray Zoba would have to say about evangelicalism, as I have appreciated her work in the evangelical standard-bearer magazine, "Christianity Today."

Ultimately, I would say that she does a reasonable job of summarizing a diverse, amorphous, hard-to-define movement like evangelical Christianity. The book hits all of the major points (high regard for Scripture, emphasis on personal conversion experience, etc.), without obsessing about any peripheral issues. It is even-handed, fair-minded, and appropriately critical of some of the foibles of evangelicalism, while also offering sympathetic explanations of some of the evangelical positions that befuddle outsiders. And the writing style is very readable, neither overly academic nor dumbed-down.

However, as much as I generally appreciated the style and content of the book, I wasn't particularly engaged. Maybe this disconnect is due to my familiarity with evangelicalism, but I'm not sure that I gained much from reading this book. As an evangelical insider, my primary response to the book was simply, "Yup, that's about right." But I can't say that I really learned anything significant or that I was particularly challenged or inspired.

So, the value of this book really rests on its audience and their expectations. For those outside the evangelical world, this book could function well as a primer. Though guilty of occasional over-generalization or over-simplification (and I'm not sure you could write a book about something as nebulous as evangelical Christianity without some of this), Murray Zoba offers a helpful summary of evangelicals that is accessible, informative, and thoughtfully written. I'm not inclined to recommend it to my evangelical friends, but it can definitely serve a purpose of educating the non-evangelical world about who we evangelicals are.