Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory: A Journey into the Evangelical Subculture in America - Hardcover

Balmer, Randall

3.88

323 ratings by Goodreads

9780195051179: Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory: A Journey into the Evangelical Subculture in America

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0195051173 ISBN 13: 9780195051179

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 1989

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The televangelists are the most conspicuous element of the evangelical subculture in America, and the bizarre antics of some of the most prominent figures--Oral Roberts, Jim Bakker, or Jimmy Swaggart--make for interesting film clips on the evening news. But as Randall Balmer reveals in this vividly written volume, these men are but one small part of a strikingly diverse religious movement; in fact, the Falwells and the Bakkers are marginal figures, of only moderate importance to the many fundamentalist, charismatic, and pentecostal groups found throughout the United States.
Criss-crossing the country, from Oregon to Florida, from Texas to North Dakota, Randall Balmer takes readers on a journey into the heart of evangelical America. In an evenhanded, reflective series of New Yorker-like profiles, he gives one the sense of what it is like to sit in on classes at Dallas Theological Seminary or to accompany evangelical activists as they mobilized support for Pat Robertson and Jack Kemp at the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primaries. We visit an old-fashioned, holiness camp meeting in St. Petersburg, Florida, an Indian reservation in North Dakota, and a fundamentalist Bible camp in the Adirondacks. Throughout, Balmer fills in the theological and historical background--on the Jesus Movement in California, for instance, or Protestant missionary work among American Indians--creating in effect a capsule history of evangelicalism. And while Balmer acknowledges a certain sympathy with evangelicalism, he doesn't gloss over its failings, such as the combativeness--the "you'll die, but I won't" attitude--that permeates much evangelical teaching, or the pervasive theology of prosperity, which Balmer deplores as "the sanctification of American consumerism."
But perhaps what stands out most in this book is the people Balmer meets on his journey, ranging from the evangelical filmmaker Donald Thompson, to pentecostal faith healers, to fervent young evangelists working the beaches of southern California. It is through their eyes that we see into the heart of American evangelicalism, to understand the genuine appeal of the movement, and thereby arrive at a more accurate and balanced portrait of an abiding tradition that, as the author argues, is both rich in theological insights and mired in contradictions.

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About the Author:

About the Author:
Randall Balmer, a historian of American religion, holds the Ph.D. from Princeton University and teaches in the Religion Department at Columbia University. His first book, A Perfect Babel of Confusion: Dutch Religion and English Culture in the Middle Colonies (Oxford, 1989), has received several awards, and his commentaries on American religion appear regularly in the Des Moines Register and other newspapers.

Review:

"A professor of American religious history at Barnard and Columbia, Balmer wrote this book because he had a 'suspicion that many Americans, and certainly the media, really did not have much of a clue about who evangelicals were, what they believed, or what motivated their forays into the political arena.' Fifteen years after the book was published, and with the gap between evangelicals and other Americans still yawning, the book offers a tour of evangelical enclaves throughout the country."--The Washington Post

"Randall Balmer takes readers through evangelical America, and it's a surprisingly lively and light ride. Balmer isn't a preacher, but a fine reporter, curious and respectful about the vitality and diversity of evangelicalism."--The New York Daily News (on previous edition)

"A sensitive, informed, often moving account of lifestyles and belief systems that coexist with--but are usually set apart from--secular mainstream America.... Provides a carefully crafted portrait of religious diversity that is both generous and critical but never patronizing.... We can all read this book with profit."--Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography (on previous edition)

"Fascinating.... This is a wonderful book.... Fair, insightful and respectful.... Balmer understands what he sees, but has enough distance from his subject to be analytical. Outsiders will learn much from his carefully nuanced insights; and insiders will frequently have to nod their heads in agreement: this man knows what he is talking about."--Church History (on previous edition)

"This compelling account makes Randall Balmer the William Least Heat Moon of American evangelicalism. Just as Blue Highways opened up an ordinary America beyond the bright city lights, so Balmer goes beyond media stars like Jerry Falwell, Billy Graham, and Jimmy Swaggart to illuminate the local realities of evangelical life. The worlds of Protestant conservatives are complex--filled overfull with the eccentric and the authentic, locked tightly in the grip of kitsch as well as the grip of grace. In describing that world from Oregon to New Hampshire, Des Moines to Phoenix, Mississippi to North Dakota--Balmer doesn't miss a nuance or a beat."--Mark A. Noll, Wheaton College

"Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory is a book about the sawdust trail that glitters like angel dust. It is witty, lively and richly informative--written with real style and sophistication, and a delight to read."--Frederick Buechner

"Easily the best participant-observer study of the evangelical landscape in contemporary America. He combines the insight of the trained historian with the deft instincts of the birthright insider. The product is at once a critical, painfully funny, warmly sympathetic exploration of the multiple subcultures of a sprawling religious tradition that is all too easily stereotyped--and dismissed--as monolithic fundamentalism."--Grant Wacker, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

"American evangelicalism is as diverse as the nation's landscape. Balmer's book is an extraordinary religious travelogue through that complicated subculture....After reading [his] book, popular stereotypes of 'evangelicals' and 'fundamentalists' will never again be quite so clearly focused."--David E. Harrell, Jr., University of Alabama, Birmingham

"A powerful examination of those ingredients hat constitute the very essence of the phenomenon called American evangelicism. Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory is absolutely essential for anyone who wishes to understand the religious landscape of contemporary America."--Lewis V. Baldwin, Vanderbilt University

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