Evangelical Sub-Culture

I read Randall Balmer's Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory this book about a month ago and, quite literally, couldn't put it down. There is something about being a part of this sub-culture, if even on the margins, that makes it that much more fascinating to study. What I appreciated about Balmer's ethnographic study was it's lack of distance, lack of impersonality. Balmer was born and raised into a conservative Evangelical home where he was thoroughly emmersed in all things Evangelical. His faith journey has lead him away from traditional Evangelicalism to more traditional, liturgical communities - Episcopalian I do believe. But, upon writing this book, Balmer realized that he will always be an Evangelical at heart, always strangely familiar with the norms and mores that go along with this American folk religion. My friend Tim was raised in a fundamentalist Christian home, and though he has since converted to Catholocism, Tim says that he "will always be a fundamentalist." It's in his DNA. Similarly, no matter which circle of Christian influence I choose to associate myself with, I will always have a familiarity with Evangelicalism that others raised Catholic or mainline or Orthodox will not. It is in my blood.

I really recommend this book because it provides us, churched and non-churched, pious or pagan, with a perspective of the Evangelical wing of Christianity that is far more diverse than we could ever have imagined. From pofiteering tele-evangelists to street performers to house churches, Evangelicalism has manifested itself in a multitude of ways in our society. Balmer conintually refers to it as the "American folk religion." Balmer's writing is witty and sympathetic, and he involves himself in the text like any proper post-modern-era writer should. There is no division between subject and observer in this text. Balmer is not ashamed to share his insight, his agreements and woes, with the people he meets and things he witnesses.
-HEATHER