Winner of the Christianity Today Book of the Year Award (1995) “The scandal of the evangelical mind is that there is not much of an evangelical mind.” So begins this award-winning intellectual history and critique of the evangelical movement by one of evangelicalism’s most respected historians. Unsparing in his indictment, Mark Noll asks why the largest single group of religious Americans—who enjoy increasing wealth, status, and political influence—have contributed so little to rigorous intellectual scholarship. While nourishing believers in the simple truths of the gospel, why have so many evangelicals failed to sustain a serious intellectual life and abandoned the universities, the arts, and other realms of “high” culture? Over twenty-five years since its original publication, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind has turned out to be prescient and perennially relevant. In a new preface, Noll lays out his ongoing personal frustrations with this situation, and in a new afterword he assesses the state of the scandal—showing how white evangelicals’ embrace of Trumpism, their deepening distrust of science, and their frequent forays into conspiratorial thinking have coexisted with surprisingly robust scholarship from many with strong evangelical connections.

Mark Noll has written a major indictment of American evangelicalism. Reading this book, one wonders if the evangelical movement has pandered so much to American culture and tried to be so popular only to lose not only it's mind but it's soul as well. For evangelical pastors and parishoners alike, this is a must read! --Robert Wuthnow.

What is an evangelical . . . and has he lost his mind? Carl Trueman wrestles with those two provocative questions and concludes that modern evangelicals emphasize experience and activism at the expense of theology. Their minds go fuzzy as they downplay doctrine. The result is “a world in which everyone from Joel Osteen to Brian McLaren to John MacArthur may be called an evangelical.” Fifteen years ago in The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind, historian Mark Noll warned that evangelical Christians had abandoned the intellectual aspects of their faith. Christians were neither prepared nor inclined to enter into intellectual debates, and had become culturally marginalized. Trueman argues that today “religious beliefs are more scandalous than they have been for many years”—but for different reasons than Noll foresaw. In fact, the real problem now is exactly the opposite of what Noll diagnosed: evangelicals don’t lack a mind, but rather an agreed upon evangel. Although known as gospel people, evangelicals no longer share any consensus on the gospel’s meaning. Provocative and persuasive, Trueman’s indictment of evangelicalism also suggests a better way forward for those theologically conservative Protestants famously known as evangelicals.

Are the opportunities for faithful intellectual engagement and witness even greater now than before? These essays invite readers to a virtual "summit meeting" on the current state of the evangelical mind. The insights of national leaders in their fields will aid readers to reflect on the past contributions of evangelical institutions for the life of the mind as well as prospects for the future.

In Awakening the Evangelical Mind, Owen Strachan provides an accessible historical survey of "neo-evangelicalism," tracing the rise of a movement that would change the American church in profound ways that are still felt today.

"The passing of reformed theology as a major influence in American life during the nineteenth century was not a spectacular event, and its mourners have been relatively few. Calvinism, when it is mentioned, is still often portrayed as a dark cloud that hovered too long over America, acting as an unhealthy influence on the climate of opinion. Nonetheless, the transition from the theologically oriented and well-formed Calvinism characteristic of much of American Protestantism at the beginning of the nineteenth century to the nontheologically oriented and often poorly informed conservative Protestantism firmly established in middle-class America by the end of the same century remains a remarkable aspect of American intellectual and ecclesiastical history. The twentieth-century attitude, itself a product of this transition, has placed strong emphasis on nineteenth-century Protestant activities - their organizations, their revivals, and their reforms. The mind of American Protestantism in these transitional years deserves at least equal consideration." -from the Introduction

In Apostles of Reason, Molly Worthen offers a sweeping history of modern American evangelicalism, arguing that the faith has been shaped not by shared beliefs but by battles over the relationship between faith and reason.