Reading Evangelicals: Doctrine, Culture, and Popular Christian Fiction (Daniel Silliman)

Left Behind. This Present Darkness. Love Come Softly. The culture of faith in the West has been greatly shaped by Christian fiction. Many books that are popular in Christian circles plant flags of doctrines within their pages, providing something for Christians to buy into.  Join us this week as Daniel Silliman (author of Reading Evangelicals: How Christian Fiction Shaped a Culture and a Faith and news editor for Christianity Today) discusses how books such as Left Behind have influenced evangelicalism, and how the book market more broadly has influenced Western Christianity.  Show notes: 0:27 Fictional vs. non-fictional arguments 2:44 Christian fiction and the effect on culture 4:44 Novel belief and worldviews 8:17 How to think about evangelicals 9:54 Advocating vs. reflecting 10:47 The book market shapes evangelical culture 13:54 Creating narratives literature 16:48 Mental spaces and formative belief 21:26 Supposing 24:26 Fighting the imagination 30:18 Assume the importance of the four gospels 31:59 How Scripture teaches through narrative 32:09 Objection to mass Christian literature 34:24 Book recommendations Show notes by Dominique LaCroix  Credits for the music used in TBM podcast.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.