From Publishers Weekly
Nine erstwhile evangelicals who recanted their beliefs—historical figures including George Eliot, Vincent van Gogh and James Baldwin—stand at the center of this new volume by Hempton (
Methodism: Empire of the Spirit), a social historian at Harvard. Relying on letters, speeches, novels and other writings, Hempton creates minibiographies tracing the faith journeys of these disenchanted evangelicals and what such journeys reveal about the movement itself. Hempton is careful not to paint his subjects' movement away from evangelicalism as the inevitable secularization of thoughtful people; he does, however, examine his subjects' common reasons for leave-taking, including frustration with rigid doctrine and disillusionment with the church's reluctance to speak out on such issues as racism and gender inequality. Hempton also points to the vestiges of evangelicalism that often remained even after his subjects had formally quit the movement, characteristics such as moral earnestness, a desire to witness and preach, a commitment to social activism on behalf of disadvantaged people, and a concern for the truth. Readers along the entire spectrum of religious faith and disenchantment will find this book a worthwhile read.
(Dec.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Review
"A beautifully written and artfully constructed book that draws intriguing conclusions about the nature of evangelical Protestantism."—Mark Noll, University of Notre Dame
(Mark Noll 20100101)
“This book charts new territory by close examination of a series of case studies of people previously well-known but not previously compared. Hempton succeeds wonderfully well in producing compelling mini-biographies.”—Thomas Kidd, author of The Great Awakening: The Roots of Evangelical Christianity in Colonial America
(Thomas Kidd )
“Hempton tells these stories with excellent skill, insight, and fair-mindedness. These accounts of loss of faith of prominent figures illuminate not only their personal struggles but also some fascinating relationships between evangelicalism and mainstream public culture, especially in Great Britain and the United States.”—George Marsden, author of Fundamentalism and American Culture
(George Marsden )
“Evangelicalism has no more loving critic and no better historian than David Hempton. He brings compassion, judgement and searing insight to tales of faith and to tales of disenchantment alike.”—Ann Braude, author of Radical Spirits: Spiritualism and Women''s Rights in Nineteenth-Century America
(Ann Braude )
“Hempton’s purpose in his wonderful book, as fascinating as it is erudite, as elegantly researched as it is painstakingly researched, is to tell the stories of significant figures who [have] at one stage in their lives embraced Evangelical Christianity.” — Revd Dr John Pridmore, Church Times
(Revd Dr John Pridmore
Church Times )
Chosen as an Outstanding Academic Title for 2009 by Choice Magazine
(
Choice )
"Enormously interesting. . . . The writing is crisp, and each character is treated with sympathetic charity. The book''s very premise—that we can learn as much from the falling-away as from the coming-to faith—is provocative and should foster future studies. . . . Hempton has inaugurated a new line of inquiry that promises enormous payoffs in the study of evangelicalism and, indeed, the changing nature of belief (and unbelief) itself." —Andrew R. Murphy, Church History: Studies in Christianity and Culture
(Andrew R. Murphy
Church History: Studies in Christianity and Culture )
"This book is a must read if you know someone who has left the Churches of Christ...It provides much to ponder for those who are charged with the spiritual care of others and for those itnerested in the emergence of lived religion as a category of historical scholarly work."--Shaun Casey, Restoration Quarterly
(Shaun Casey
Restoration Quarterly )
"David Hempton''s Evangelical Disenchantment is a lucidly written and riveting narrative of nine evangelical men and women who left the faith in which they once believed and were nurtured. The strengths of the books are its sensitive and sympathetic treatment of its subject matter and its attention to and appreciation of the complexity of the issues it addresses. Hempton never loses sight of the humanity of his subjects. . . . This is intellectual history at its best. . . . A well-written and deeply researched book. Hempton crafts a compelling story whose details he has mastered, and he presents them in extraordinary clear prose. . . . His sensitive and sympathetic analysis of subjects is exemplary. . . . Hempton''s book is not a simple story of disenchantment as linear progress toward enlightenment. It is a story of tragedy and disappointments, gain and loss, with broken relations and new friendships. It is an eminently readable book that deserves wide reading because it bears on so many important aspects of religious history, biography, and the challenges to faith in the modern world."—Curtis J. Evans, Journal of Religion
(Curtis J. Evans
Journal of Religion )
