Enter your mobile number or email address below and we'll send you a link to download the free Kindle App. Then you can start reading Kindle books on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.

  • Apple
  • Android
  • Windows Phone
  • Android

To get the free app, enter your mobile phone number.
Download to your computer
Kindle Cloud Reader
Facebook Twitter Pinterest <Embed>
  • List Price: $15.95
  • Save: $5.19 (33%)
FREE Shipping on orders with at least $25 of books.
Only 14 left in stock (more on the way).
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com. Gift-wrap available.
When God Talks Back: Unde... has been added to your Cart
Want it Tuesday, Aug. 16? Order within and choose this date at checkout.
Ship to:
Select a shipping address:
To see addresses, please
or
Please enter a valid US zip code.
or
FREE Shipping on orders over $25.
Used: Very Good | Details
Sold by BMD USA
Fulfilled by Amazon
Condition: Used: Very Good
Comment: Used book in very good condition. Eligible for Prime as well as Free Super Saver Shipping.

Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) is a service we offer sellers that lets them store their products in Amazon's fulfillment centers, and we directly pack, ship, and provide customer service for these products. Something we hope you'll especially enjoy: FBA items qualify for FREE Shipping and .

If you're a seller, Fulfillment by Amazon can help you increase your sales. We invite you to learn more about Fulfillment by Amazon .

Sorry, there was a problem.

There was an error retrieving your Wish Lists. Please try again.

Sorry, there was a problem.

List unavailable.
Have one to sell? Sell on Amazon
Flip to back Flip to front
Listen Playing... Paused   You're listening to a sample of the Audible audio edition.
Learn more
See this image

When God Talks Back: Understanding the American Evangelical Relationship with God Paperback – November 13, 2012

by
T.M. Luhrmann (Author)
› Visit Amazon's T.M. Luhrmann Page
Find all the books, read about the author, and more.
See search results for this author
Are you an author? Learn about Author Central
T.M. Luhrmann (Author)
4.1 out of 5 stars 84 customer reviews
See all 4 formats and editions Hide other formats and editions
Price
New from Used from
Kindle
"Please retry"
$10.34
— —
Hardcover, Deckle Edge
"Please retry"
—
$4.68 $3.41
Paperback
"Please retry"
$10.76
$6.65 $3.77
Unknown Binding
"Please retry"
—
$1,600.85 $874.78
Wiley Summer Savings Event.
Wiley Summer Savings Event.
Save up to 40% during Wiley's Summer Savings Event. Learn more.
$10.76 FREE Shipping on orders with at least $25 of books. Only 14 left in stock (more on the way). Ships from and sold by Amazon.com. Gift-wrap available.
click to open popover

Frequently Bought Together

  • When God Talks Back: Understanding the American Evangelical Relationship with God
  • +
  • How God Changes Your Brain: Breakthrough Findings from a Leading Neuroscientist
Total price: $20.17
Buy the selected items together
NO_CONTENT_IN_FEATURE
The latest book club pick from Oprah
"The Underground Railroad" by Colson Whitehead is a magnificent novel chronicling a young slave's adventures as she makes a desperate bid for freedom in the antebellum South. See more

Product Details

  • Paperback: 464 pages
  • Publisher: Vintage; Reprint edition (November 13, 2012)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0307277275
  • ISBN-13: 978-0307277275
  • Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.9 x 8 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 10.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (84 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #85,782 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

    •  Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?

Customer Reviews

Top Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 starsA Great Source for Discussion
By Alex Van Riesen on April 10, 2012
Format: Hardcover
I am the current Lead Pastor of the Vineyard Christian Fellowship of the Peninsula (VCFP), which is one of the two churches Mrs. Luhrmann attended while researching and experiencing what eventually became this book. I am grateful for the perspective of someone coming into our church, who does not identify themselves as a Christian, and sharing with us (VCFP) what they experienced. I think there is a lot for us as a church to discuss, in terms of what those who visit our churches experience and what it says to them both about our church and about God. I also find Mrs. Luhrmann's observations helpful in having a more robust conversation about what experiencing God is like, or can be, in our culture today. While I do not identify with everything she describes, nor would I always define things the same way, I find her observations and insights engaging and enlightening. I would love for every church in the Vineyard movement to discuss this book and how it either does or does not reflect their congregation, but then ask the bigger questions of why or why not. In that process we can all have a more clear understanding of why we do what we do, and possibly - hopefully - even have a better understanding of what those who do not follow Jesus experience when they visit our churches. I think that should matter a lot to us. Finally, I consider Mrs. Luhrmann a friend and enjoy my conversations with her. I appreciate most that she is asking questions and looking to learn and grow. This book displays her sensitivity, compassion and kindness - as well as her intellect - in very clear ways. I recommend this book highly.
5 Comments 154 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
Report abuse
5.0 out of 5 starsA Model of Christian Practice for both believers and nonbelievers
By Jeremy Garber on May 24, 2012
Format: Hardcover
An excellent, sympathetic, yet well-researched and objective look at how "revivalist evangelicals" train their brains to literally experience God. Luhrmann, an anthropologist, spent years with Vineyard Christians as a participant-observer to explore how they maintained faith in a God that was not directly available to their ordinary senses. Luhrmann also devised a sophisticated experiment that connected various forms of prayer with the psychological tendency to "absorption," that is, becoming totally enveloped in a particular activity. She concludes that prayer in an evangelical sense is not centered on belief - especially not on unwavering belief - but rather on cognitive techniques that allow one to become "absorbed" in reconstructing a world in which God exists. The "kataphatic" tradition, or visualizing oneself in connection with Scripture and God, provided particularly striking results. Luhrmann's style is simultaneously intensely readable and intellectually rigorous. She lays out a way for both believers and nonbelievers to understand Christian practice in a 21st century world. A paradigmatic example of participant observation at its best.
Comment 36 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
Report abuse
4.0 out of 5 starsEvangelicals erhnographed
By T. Peter on May 21, 2013
Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase
Evangelicals Ethnographed

In her intriguing "When God Talks Back: Understanding the American Evangelical Relationship With God," Stanford University cultural anthropologist Tanya Marie Luhrmann sympathetically but objectively examines the religious psychology and practices of American evangelicals, in the spirit of William James' 1902 classic "Varieties of Religious Experience". In her previous books, Luhrmann presented fascinating ethnographic studies of modern witches and ceremonial magicians in contemporary England, the once prestigious and privileged Parsis in post-colonial India, and the training and ideological indoctrination of young American psychiatrists. In "When God Talks Back", her latest book, she analyzes the growing movement of evangelical, Pentecostal, and charismatic Christianity.

Luhrmann specifically examines how evangelicals come to experience God as a close, intimate, and invisible but very real friend and confidant with whom they can communicate on a daily basis through prayer and visualization, clearly recognizing His voice. She is not quite a believing evangelical herself, more a sincerely interested, warmly sympathetic student of an important human activity in the manner of William James. In the tradition of James, and before him of the 18th century German Lutheran theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher, she treats religion as a matter of psychology, feeling, and personal experience, rather than of dogma or doctrine, as emotionally and emotionally enriching rather than as rationally convincing. She addresses religion's educated modern potential sympathizers as Schleiermacher addressed its skeptical Enlightenment "cultured despisers."

Luhrmann investigated the new evangelical movement as a participant-observer.Read more ›
Comment 19 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
Report abuse
4.0 out of 5 starsDeeply Insighful and Mind-Opening Study
By Tom Dylan on May 7, 2012
Format: Hardcover
Even though I do not believe in a supernatural God, I am always fascinated by my religious friends' ability to have faith. This book gave me much more understanding how the human mind can make something unreal seem alive and real for these people. I always thought religious people are borderline insane. But so many supposedly very smart people (I have deeply religious friends who are physicians, even genetic biologists). This book also made me much more feeling sympathetic to these people. Because we are humans capable of rational (or irrational) thought, we all desire to be loved, to be cared, to have a social companion.

Some of the psychological studies are also interesting. Such as the test given to evaluate mental insanity conducted on these Vineyard specimens. The study seems to indicate these Vineyard religious people relate to God positively, when asked if they feel to have been followed or spied upon, they said no. But they always feel the presence of God not associated with negative, but with love and care. If a person feel some hostile force following them, they are likely to react violently, but if they feel a benevolent force following them, they feel much more at peace.
3 Comments 21 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
Report abuse

Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 starsA place where waffling is okay

It was good to read a book that put into words what I myself have experienced. Over the years I have written down moments when God came close or when he took the anxiety in my mind... Read more

Published 1 month ago by Karl Marxhausen
5.0 out of 5 starsLoved this book

What an interesting perspective on faith! The fact that she is an outsider to the faith looking in gave her a great amount of credibility to my mind on the subject of Evangelical... Read more

Published 1 month ago by Kay
5.0 out of 5 starsA truly sensitive, respectful and through analysis of the ...

A truly sensitive, respectful and through analysis of the modern American evangelical imagination. The book benefits from a clear and well-structured argument from cover to cover... Read more

Published 2 months ago by Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 starsAn objective look at a popular spiritual practice

This book is a fascinating look at how members of a small faith community are able to overcome their doubts, mistakes and fears by learning how to talk with "God. Read more

Published 6 months ago by Robb Smith
3.0 out of 5 starsComprehensive and Interesting

Luhrmann takes a deep look into American Evangelism using many interesting and scientific approaches. Read more

Published 7 months ago by Angela
5.0 out of 5 starsFantastic.

Meticulously researched, generously written and incredibly interesting, Luhrman has crafted a real gem with this book. Read more

Published 9 months ago by Janderson
5.0 out of 5 starsAnthropology of charismatic religion is better than it sounds

Tanya Luhrmann does a creditable job of explaining what charismatic evangelicals do in a branch (the Vineyard) that develops skills for cultivating intense prayer and direct... Read more

Published 10 months ago by Harry Marks
4.0 out of 5 starsConversing with God

Tanya Luhrmann, anthropologist at Stanford University, has been on a multiyear quest “to understand how God becomes real for modern people (xix). Read more

Published 11 months ago by Geoff W Sutton
4.0 out of 5 starsGreat content! I really enjoyed the beginning and the ...

Great content!
I really enjoyed the beginning and the end. But the middle tends to be a little repetitive.

Published 11 months ago by James Andrew
5.0 out of 5 starsFive Stars

Cheap and in great condition!

Published 11 months ago by Ja

Set up an Amazon Giveaway

When God Talks Back: Understanding the American Evangelical Relationship with God
Amazon Giveaway allows you to run promotional giveaways in order to create buzz, reward your audience, and attract new followers and customers. Learn more about Amazon Giveaway
This item: When God Talks Back: Understanding the American Evangelical Relationship with God
Set up a giveaway

There's a problem loading this menu right now.

Learn more about Amazon Prime.