 | Emerging Evangelicals: Faith, Modernity, and the Desire for Authenticity The Emerging Church movement developed in the mid-1990s among primarily white, urban, middle-class pastors and laity who were disenchanted with America's conservative Evangelical sub-culture. It is a response to the increasing divide between conservative Evangelicals and concerned critics who strongly oppose what they consider overly slick, corporate, and consumerist versions of faith. A core feature of their response is a challenge to traditional congregational models, often focusing on new church plants and creating networks of related house churches. James Bielo is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Miami University. He is author of numerous books, including Materializing the Bible: Scripture, Sensation, Place (Bloomsbury, 2021); Ark Encounter: The Making of a Creationist Theme Park (NYU Press, 2018); Anthropology of Religion: The Basics (Routledge, 2015); Emerging Evangelicals: Faith, Modernity, and the Desire for Authenticity (NYU Press, 2011); and Words Upon the Word: An Ethnography of Evangelical Bible Study (NYU Press, 2009). |
