BOSTON (AP) — For decades, Boston University sociologist Peter Berger says, American intellectuals have looked down on evangelicals.
Educated people have the notion that evangelicals are "barefoot people of Tobacco Road who, I don't know, sleep with their sisters or something," Berger says.
It's time that attitude changed, he says.
"That was probably never correct, but it's totally false now and I think the image should be corrected," Berger said in a recent interview.
Now, his university's Institute on Culture, Religion and World Affairs is leading a two-year project that explores an "evangelical intelligentsia" which Berger says is growing and needs to be better understood, given the large numbers of evangelicals and their influence.
"It's not good if a prejudiced view of this community prevails in the elite circles of society," said Berger, a self-described liberal Lutheran. "It's bad for democracy and it's wrong."
The study is being directed by Berger and Timothy Shah, an evangelical political scientist at the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. Shah is documenting the history of the evangelical movement, including its historical hostility to higher learning, a revival of scholarship, and the minds and ideas it has since produced.
Some aren't convinced evangelical scholars have made as much progress as they think.
Boston College sociologist Alan Wolfe, who wrote an article in The Atlantic, "The Opening of the Evangelical Mind" in 2000, said despite the success of some evangelical scholars, many have retained an insularity and defensiveness that limits their effectiveness.
"There isn't enough mixing in the larger world of ideas," he said.
An estimated 75 million Americans are evangelicals, people who emphasize a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and commit to spreading the message of salvation though his redemptive death.
Evangelicals say they often aren't well-understood beyond their Bible-banging, evolution-hating caricature.
Many equate evangelicals with fundamentalists, an evangelical subset that interprets the Bible literally — as in the six calendar days of creation — and is home to ardent evolution opponents. But Shah said most evangelical scientists believe in evolution guided by God.
A quote from a 1993 Washington Post article, describing followers of two leading evangelists as "largely poor, uneducated and easy to command," remains infamous among evangelicals as an example of the bias they claim to face. After President Bush won the 2004 election, New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd wrote Bush had won the evangelical vote, in part, by appealing to their "fear of scientific progress."
Mark Noll, an evangelical and well-known historian at the University of Notre Dame, said the stereotype is perpetuated because both religious and secular thinkers have created an either-or choice between science and God.
"It's just false," Noll said. "You go back to (Isaac) Newton and (Johannes) Kepler, the founders of early modern science were theists of one sort or another."
Shah says a major split between evangelicals and popular culture came after the so-called Scopes monkey trial in 1925, in which a teacher was convicted of violating Tennessee's ban on teaching evolution — a decision later overturned. Defense attorney Clarence Darrow told his opponent, William Jennings Bryan, that: "You insult every man of science and learning in the world because he does not believe in your fool religion." Continue >>
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I flagged my self to make a spelling correction.
"The beginning of any education is the fear of the Lord."
This is the epitome of nonsense and the root of the problem regarding the way "evangelicals" are viewed in the broader world. The true beginning of education is a willingness to accept that there may be more than what one already knows (or believes). This applies equally to religeous and non-religeous learning.
Has this story been written "12 Un-learned Messianic Jews Who Changed the World ."?.
Who cares if your education is broad and high if you use it to apostatize.The beginning of
any education is the fear of the Lord. Christian scientists (not the religion) are the salt of the earth. Yet ,they are not perfect, but are the Lord's.They are the true high priiest of God's
creation.
Interesting story. I would take issue with a comment attributed to Wolfe though, that "Evangelicals in the academy too often aren't open to truly engaging those who disagree." Not sure where he's been. Most of the time, real discussion is impeded by inflammatory name calling. I work in a university setting and the ideology is a monolith. If one doesn't go along with the party line bad things will happen from personal attacks to denial of tenure. We must work harder though, strive for excellence, and represent Christ in truth and love no matter where we work.