"It appears that American evangelicalism is finally coming into its own as a subject of social research and academic
attention well beyond the scope of those who identify with it as insiders. It seems we now realize there is more to know than what we learned from the Simpsons' neighbor Ned Flanders. Yet as soon as evangelicalism becomes a subject, it splinters and splits ..."
The Chronicle of Higher Education, The Chronicle Review, January 15, 2010
"What is it about this book that is grabbing so many people sopowerfully? It's not the writing. The Shack is not The Road. No one, including its modest author, is heralding it as a literary masterpiece. What has its readers buzzing is its theology, which is not your run-of-the-mill pop God-talk ...'"
"Despite more than a century of creationism-versus-evolution debates, few are aware that there are actually several different accounts of creation scattered throughout the Bible, and they don’t all agree ..."
The Chronicle of Higher Education, The Chronicle Review, June 9, 2006
"I first realized that The Da Vinci Code had become a pop-culture phenomenon in the religious-studies
classroom when a bright sophomore slipped into my office, closed the door behind him, and explained to me, in
hushed tones, that he wanted to leave his bioengineering major and pursue the study of 'religious symbology ...'"
"HELL has no air-conditioning, but I knew that. Still, the message had never been brought
home to me in quite the same way as it was when I stopped my motor home along a
country road near Prattville, Ala., lured by a roadside display called Cross Garden ..."
The Chronicle of Higher Education, The Chronicle Review, March 19, 2004
"Place and memory intertwine; it's a familiar human experience. But when a
place is
associated with trauma, the feeling intensifies. It is as if the space itself remembers ..."
The Chronicle of Higher Education, The Chronicle Review, July 26, 2002
"Today we are witnessing a burgeoning of bibles. Not the kind you read in a synagogue or
church,
but the kind you read to master Java scripting. Or to get washboard abs ..."
The Chronicle of Higher Education, The Chronicle Review, Novemberr 9, 2001
"Our monsters open spaces in popular culture for negotiating ultimate questions,
questions
that resonate with a new and undeniable depth in this time of war and terror ..."