This is a great, affirming book. It's really about a spiritual search, and the author does a great job relating the conflicting passions of modern evangelicals (desire for safety, certainty, security, in a rapidly changing and apparently [to them at least] amoral world) and, in the final chapter relates them to the original protestant vision articulated by Luther and others and to his own struggles with the culture. As he points out through interviews "it's really a lover's quarrel," but one with profound implications for day to day religious belief.

This neat little book is a wonderful overview of the evolution of religion in the United States in the twentieth century. The book begins with the early schism between the more conservative branch of Protestantism (which produced the Fundamentals of the Faith) and the more liberal branch (which produced the National Council of Churches). However, as it flows along, it embraces the streams Roman Catholic and Jewish development. Eventually, the book examines the arrival of traditional non-Judeo-Christian religions, and New Age religions.

This is a great book, one that gives the reader a clear understanding of religion in the United States, and how we arrived at this point. Although originally written for High School age readers (or perhaps because of that), it is highly informative to any reader, and indeed this orientation means that it is an easy read for those not already knowledgeable about the subject. I highly recommend this book.

After reading this book in one sitting, I am still unclear about its purpose. Readers expecting an historical overview will quickly become mired in long discussions about colonial ethnic politics. Readers expecting more penetrating scholarship will be put off by such gloss-overs as when Balmer writes the socially complex Salem Witch Trials off with a single word: 'misogyny' or when he repeatedly asserts that contemporary hymns inherit significant sexual imagery from the pietistic tradition but never presents an argument to support this assertion. The final two chapters strike me as thinly veiled assaults on Promise Keepers and the Christian Coalition. Justified or not, these attacks take the book out of the realm of history and into the realm of socio-political commentary, thus adding to my confusion about its ultimate purpose.

Balmer does have some interesting things to say, particularly about how American individualism and anti-institutionalism affect American politics and religion. Despite its apparent lack of focus, I enjoyed reading the book and found some useful nuggets related to my current academic project. Students of history, sociology, or religion may find the end-notes a good starting point for more serious study. Those looking for an overview (as the sub-title suggests) should look elsewhere.

Maybe its because reading Balmer's "Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory" was like reading my own mind that I found "Blessed Assurance" a dull read. I got the feeling that the author took several academic essays and made a book out of them. There is still some great information and thought in this book, so it is worth reading. I agree with the author that confessional theology and ideology in general have given way to pragmatism in evangelicalism, but I disagree with his assertion that the general dislike of Hillary Rodham Clinton among Evangelicals is simply because she is a powerful woman. Most evangelicals strongly support powerful women such as Margeret Thatcher, Jean Kirkpatrick, Elizabeth Dole and Laura Schlessinger on ideological grounds. If you've already read "Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory" then go ahead and read this book..if not start there.

A nice short (115 text pages!) history of Evangelicalism in America, from the First Great Awakening to the present day. Barnard professor Balmer gives an historian's perspective on different aspects of the Evangelical movement in our national life without placing undue emphasis on the personalities behind the scenes. At the heart of his discussion is the exploration of several key ironies. First, he marvels at the fact that Americans take their religion so seriously (compared to people from other industrialized societies). It is ironic that it is in the United States, with its Constitutional imperative to keep church and state separate, that religious expression is so vibrant, various, and abiding. He attributes the freedom of religion (and the absence of direct governmental support though taxation) as being key to the ability of native-born religions to prosper and grow exponentially. He also finds it ironic that the Fundamentalists who decry scientific modernism in every form have so willingly embraced the new technologies: radio, technology, and the Internet. Another irony he looks at is the current-day Evangelical rejection of feminism. Women are sidelined within Evangelicalism and assigned the sentimentalized role of guardians of morality. This is ironic in light of the important leadership roles women held in the nineteenth century and early twentieth century church-based reform movements.

This book is more handy than it is comprehensive (the endnotes direct the reader to some promising articles and books, but Balmer does not provide even a short bibliography). This book probably won't be very satisfying to serious students of American religion looking for a good introduction to the subject; but the average reader who is curious about religion and public life will find it informative. Don't skip the last chapter, "Vocabulary of Evangelicalism", in which Balmer defines the Evangelical subcategories: Fundamentalism, the Holiness Movement, Pentecostalism, and the Charismatic Movement.

This is at once one of the most engaging and also the most disappointing books I have read this year.

The positives first -- really nicely packaged; good looking; easy to use; fills a great need. It's very informative in places and often lively.

Yet I have read it cover to cover, it has been a disappointment. In general I found the tone to be cynical and dismissive of much of its subject matter. I also believe it to contain an excessive number of factual errors and omissions. I'm going to list some random examples below. This may seem picky, but I think they are illustrative of why I found this such a flawed work:

p. 3: The paragraph on Reagan in the abortion article simply assumes the worst kind of insincerity and opportunism in Reagan's position.

p. 54: Baylor is "still quite conservative"? Any (never mind a majority) evangelicals in the religion dept. or Republicans in its political science dept.?

p. 73: A long entry on Bluffton College, with no hint of where it is located.

p. 86: Sizable article on British Israelism without a mention of its most prominent 20th century proponent, Herbert W. Armstrong.

p. 97: I would question whether Covenant College and Covenant Seminary were in fact "even more conservative and separatist than Wheaton."

p. 135: T. DeWitt Talmage was an "evangelical titan"?

p. 169: States with obvious glee that James Woodrow was betrayed by his "erstwhile friend" Dabney simply because Woodrow "refused unequivocally to oppose Darwinism." Woodrow was not simply a champion of freedom on the issue -- he did in fact advocate and teach a form of Darwinism.

p. 212: McIntire is said to have broken from the PCA, when in fact it was the OPC.

p. 314: On Kenneth Kantzer: "He occasionally advanced somewhat liberal views and then quickly retracted them in the face if conservative opposition."

p. 315: Garrison Keillor article implies that his childhood religion is only a humorous oddity in his past. It's a long article with no mention of his current churchmanship, which is regular and very strong.

p. 316: Factual issue: "By 1967, Coral Ridge Pres. Church had become the fastest growing church in the PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF AMERICA*..." No entry for that denomination is given (there is one for the correct Presbyterian Church in America). Further, there was no PCA anyway in 1967. In fact, the PCA was founded in 1973, and Coral Ridge didn't join it until 1979.

p. 322-3: Knox Seminary is "open to students from other compatible denominations." Would Balmer bother to say that of Princeton Seminary or Duke Divinity? I'd have to check, but I'm certain folks from pretty "incompatible" denominations like the United Methodist Church and Disciples of Christ would be admitted to Knox if they so desired.

Worse than that, Balmer state that the school "feels like a throwback to the nineteenth or early twentieth century.." (!) In what way does it "feel" like that? That it's conservative? No more conservative than about one-third of the ATS accredited schools. Is it old fashioned in its ministry model? No way. That's just uncalled for and comes off as dismissive and unbalanced.

p. 340: Sproul is called an "arch-Calvinist". He is simply a Calvinist, like any number of other classic Reformed figures (Hodge, JC Ryle, John Piper, whoever). Maybe a "zealous" Calvinist, or "committed" or "firm Calvinist.

p. 350: Machen is said to have supported the ouster of Briggs from the Presbyterian church. He was age 10 at the time in 1892!

p.351: Presbyterian Church of America is capitalized and asterisked, as if it had an entry in the book, when it does not. (Presbyterian Church IN America does, but that is another group anyway).

p. 365: Westminster Seminary is in caps. with the asterisk, but there is no entry for that school. Also, McIntire is labeled "even more militantly fundamentalist than Machen's OPC..." Must the OPC be termed excessively "militantly fundamentalist"?

p. 379: While Balmer seems to exaggerate the strictness of the orthodoxy of every conventional evangelical type, he makes no mention in the Joyce Meyer article that she is considered heterodox by many standard evangelicals, and is listed as cultish by some groups.

p. 408: Pat Robertson and Pat Buchanan are termed "demagogues" (hey, I don't like them much either, but some restraint in the contempt maybe?). And George Bush is treated as a cynical opportunist playing on the paranoid delusions of the "far right."

p. 420-421: No mention of Ockenga's earned Ph.D. in a very long article (though it mentions his undergraduate institutions and seminary). (I've noticed that in several other articles of conservative evangelicals).

p. 464: The PCA stats are from 1995. They publish new stats on their web page every year.

p. 481: The New Light RPCGS group that joined with the Bible Pres. group subsequently joined them in the PCA not the PCUSA.

p. 508: Francis Schaeffer was a "fundamental(ist)"?! Tell that to Carl McIntire, who (unfairly) termed him a "socialist" in print, or any bona fide fundamentalist like the Bob Jones crowd.

p.545: Machen "left the denomination" - well, yes. But he was actually "expelled" formally. Balmer rarely grant the Right the same charity as the Left in his phraseology.

I could go on and on with these.

I'm also surprised by what was left out. I know there are size constraints, but so many other entries seemed irrelevant and frivolous (all the Christian Music entries, tiny fundaemnetlaist schools, etc.). Why does little Knox Seminary get such an article and yet theologically similar and far larger and more influential Covenant, Westminster and Reformed Theological Seminaries get omitted? Similarly, Charles Woodbridge is covered, but his far more important classmates Allan MacRae and Lorraine Boettner are left out? Walter Martin (colorful, controversial head of Christian Research Institute, host of the Bible Answer Man radio show, author of one of the best-selling Christian texts of the last half century) is also excluded.

Big dissapointment.

An encylopedia of Evangelicalism--a true encyclopedia--is badly needed. This book, unfortunately, does not fill that need. The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, edited by Cross and Livingstone, is a serious, carefully researched, and authoritative reference work that has always been disappointing when I've turned to it for information on American Christianity in general and Evangelical traditions in particular (for example, it contains nothing on Aimee Semple McPherson or Billy Sunday). I purchased Balmer's book hoping it would serve as a supplement to the Oxford Dictionary. While it fills some information gaps, its analysis of key issues is suprisingly superficial (when attempted at all).

For the most part the Encyclopedia is more an A-to-Z quick reference to the American Evangelical subculture with special attention to the last quarter of the 20th century. By comparing the lengths of articles, you can see how major issues get reduced to brief summaries and matters of minor and transient importance get inflated beyond merit. Gospel Music gets 1/3 column of text and hymn writer Fanny Crosby, 1/2 column. But Contemporary Christian Music gets 4 columns; Amy Grant, 2 columns; Michael English, 2 columns; Sandi Patty, 2 columns; Jars of Clay, 1 1/2 columns. This is not to say that the articles on Mr. English and Ms Patty weren't interesting in a dishy, People Magazine kind of way; it's just to call into question Balmer's editorial judgment. Also of note, there is a one column entry in Exodus International, a ministry founded in 1976 to rescue homosexuals and lesbians from their deviant lifestyle, but nothing on Evangelicals Concerned, a more gay-affirming national evangelical ministry founded one year earlier. The absurdity of what gets emphasized and what doesn't is thrown into high relief by the frequently cross-referenced half column article on Ronald Wilson Reagan. While it gives the date he became governor of California, it does not say when he was elected president of the United States; nor does it cite even one book or article we can turn to for a deeper analysis of Reagan's political and religious views.

By way of comparison, the longest article I was able to locate in the Encyclopedia is the one on Methodism (8 columns of text). The one on Evangelicalism runs one column shorter. Considering its brevity it does a reasonably good job of giving a succinct overview of the subject. I found one statement in this article especially helpful in understanding the editorial perspective behind entire Encyclopedia: "Evangelicalism in America has largely retained [these] characteristics: the centrality of conversion, the quest for an affective piety, and a suspicion of wealth, worldliness, and ecclesiastical pretension."

The complaint of superficiality and noncritical presentation of topics is further evidenced in the works referenced at the ends of articles. Often the source cited is the official organ of the church body or organization under discussion, rarely a more scholarly work. Similarly, for articles on people, the editors cite those persons' autobiographies. While I'm sure I'd find Fanny Crosby's autobiography fascinating, I would also like to know if a more analytical work written by a church historian or musicologist exists.

Another frustrating thing about this book, which is perhaps common to all first editions of reference books, is the evidence of sloppy or rushed copy editing. For instance, there is a frequent bold-faced cross reference to an article on Modernism; when you turn to Modernism there is no article, but you are sent to the article on Liberalism; at Liberalism (not the exact equivalent of Modernism in my thinking) you get a short article and a cross reference back to Modernism. Ooops! There is also some sloppiness with dates: David Livingstone, who was born in 1813, is said to have made his first trip to Africa in 1741; Aimee Semple McPherson, who died in 1944, is said to have been buried in October 1994.

Even with the aforementioned gripes, this book provides some interesting and lively reading. The articles on McPherson and Cyrus Ingersoll Scofield, for instance, were actually quite touching. And there is the occasional useful fact (Did you know that Goshen College has the largest collection of information on Anabaptism and the Reformation in America?). This books is perhaps best appreciated as self-directed casual reading. So if you find yourself one night unable to fall asleep for fear that the Rapture will occur before you have a chance to repent of your latest sins, this is the book you'll want to have on your bedside table.

I enjoyed this book far more than the other two (thus far) reviewers, although my expertise on theology is lacking. I'm just a woman who gradually turned into a conservative evangelical Christian over a 40 year period.

I did find that there were many things missing in the book...I was hoping for an entry on Walter Martin, too, for example; but I appreciated the guidance through the history of the church in America.

My favorite entries focused on the culture that we've surrounded ourselves with. For example, take "Just." Now, you might think the article accompanying that would have to do with justification, or judgment of a just God, or righteousness....but no. Balmer is referring to "the most frequent adverb in evangelical prayer" as in "Lord, we just thank you for giving us this time for coming together, and we just want you to know that we just appreciate your world and your love for us, and just worship you and just....." etc.