Mark Noll is a well-known evangelical historian who wrote a book in 1995
entitled The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind, in which he contends that the scandal is that
there’s simply not much to the evangelical mind. That’s how he starts off this award-winning
intellectual history and critique of the evangelical movement. His underlying concern is, why
the largest single group of religious Americans –who enjoy increasing wealth, status, and
political influence– have contributed so little to rigorous intellectual scholarship in North
America. If we truly nourish believers in the simple truths of the gospel, why would that
cause evangelicals to flounder when it comes to sustaining a serious intellectual life? Are
these two somehow at odds? Why would we not promote a strong evangelical witness in the
realms of high culture? His answer has to do with a certain evangelical characteristic that tends to cloud the intellectual horizon: the strong focus on emotions and sentimentalism, which Noll sees as a tendency inherited from Pietism.
Mark Noll is a well-known evangelical historian who wrote a book in 1995
entitled The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind, in which he contends that the scandal is that
there’s simply not much to the evangelical mind. That’s how he starts off this award-winning
intellectual history and critique of the evangelical movement. His underlying concern is, why
the largest single group of religious Americans –who enjoy increasing wealth, status, and
political influence– have contributed so little to rigorous intellectual scholarship in North
America. If we truly nourish believers in the simple truths of the gospel, why would that
cause evangelicals to flounder when it comes to sustaining a serious intellectual life? Are
these two somehow at odds? Why would we not promote a strong evangelical witness in the
realms of high culture? His answer has to do with a certain evangelical characteristic that tends to cloud the intellectual horizon: the strong focus on emotions and sentimentalism, which Noll sees as a tendency inherited from Pietism.
