An Expression of Gratitude and Hearty Congratulations

Thanks to Jon for the congratulations on the successful completion of my viva!  It was a long time coming, especially after having not touched the thesis for nearly a year.  It feels good to be done and now able to concentrate on teaching and doing research on a few projects that have been on the backburner for some time. 

I also wanted to congratulate Larry Eskridge on receiving CT’s book of the year award.  I thoroughly enjoyed reading drafts of Larry's chapters over the years.  A great writer and storyteller.  We want to know when the book tour begins, Larry!  

As I may have mentioned in a previous post, an interview with Larry is forthcoming in the New Year.  Stay tuned!

God's Forever Family: Book of the Year

David Bebbington's star pupil, Tim Larsen, emailed me recently with the news that God's Forever Family: The Jesus People Movement in America by Larry Eskridge (another former Bebbington student) has been named Christianity Today's "Book of the Year." Congratulations Larry!

For a list of the publications by Bebbington students, see my earlier post.

American Religious History Books at Barnes & Noble

Today, I was perusing the titles in the "Religion" section at the local Barnes & Noble in Chattanooga. I was glad to see the following books for sale:

John Turner's Brigham Young: Pioneer Prophet
Larry Eskridge's God's Forever Family: The Jesus People Movement in America
Elesha Coffman's The Christian Century and the Rise of the Protestant Mainline (I have been hearing a lot about Coffman's book, and so I purchased it)

Congratulations to these authors! I wish them success in the sale of their books.

  

Larry Eskridge Interviewed at Religion in American History

Over at the Religion in American History blog, Randall Stephens interviews Larry Eskridge on his new book, God's Forever Family: The Jesus People Movement in America.

Larry explains his personal interest in the Jesus People, evangelicalism's interaction with popular culture, and the importance of his study. Eskridge comments, "I think it’s fair to say that if the Jesus People hadn’t come along when they did the evangelical church would have been nowhere near as formidable a force throughout American culture come the 1980s and beyond."

While reading the book, I found the connection of the Jesus People with Calvary Chapel and Vineyard churches fascinating. In one of my past courses at UTC, I showed a documentary on Lonnie Frisbee, who was instrumental in the Jesus Movement and the success of Calvary Chapel and Vineyard churches, but whose connection was suppressed later because of his sexuality and death from AIDS in 1993.

For anyone interested in religion and 1960s and 1970s hippie culture, I highly recommend Eskridge's book and the documentary, Frisbee.

Larry Eskridge's Account of the Jesus People

As part of my summer reading, I am making my way through Larry Eskridge's God's Forever Family: The Jesus People Movement in America.

Eskridge, a staff member at Wheaton College's Institute for the Study of American Evangelicals, was a PhD student under David Bebbington at the University of Stirling. Eskridge's book is a revised version of his dissertation, which took approximately a decade to complete.

I see that there is a review of Eskridge's book in Christianity Today by John Turner, who calls the book, "a rich, tender history of one of the more surprising developments of the late 1960s." Take a look at the rest of the review here.

Notable New Titles

There are some notable new books scheduled to be published before the end of 2013, including Darryl Hart's Calvinism: A History, Larry Eskridge's God's Forever Family: The Jesus People Movement in America, Brian Stanley's The Global Diffusion of Evangelicalism: The Age of Billy Graham and John Stott, and Molly Worthen's Apostles of Reason: The Crisis of Authority in American Evangelicalism. I've ordered my copies and can't wait to read these new titles!

 

Books Published by Bebbington's Students

This is a great advertisement for David Bebbington. Below are his Phd students from Stirling who have gone on to publish their dissertations, and sometimes other books.


Timothy Larsen (Class of 1997):  
  
Friends of Religious Equality: The Politics of the English Nonconformists in Mid-Victorian Britain (Boydell Press, 1999): Tim's PhD Dissertation

Christabel Pankhurst: Fundamentalism and Feminism in Coalition (Boydell Press, 2002)

Modern Christianity and Cultural Aspirations, edited by David Bebbington and Timothy Larsen (Bloomsbury Academic, 2003)

Biographical Dictionary of Evangelicals, edited by Timothy Larsen (IVP, 2003)

Contested Christianity: The Political and Social Contexts of Victorian Theology (Baylor University Press, 2004)

For Christ in Canada: A History of Tyndale Seminary, 1976-2001, by Timothy Larsen and Jon Vickery (Tyndale University College, 2004)

Reading Romans Through the Centuries: From the Early Church to Karl Barth, edited by Jeffrey Greenman and Timothy Larsen (Brazos Press, 2005)

Crisis of Doubt: Honest Faith in Nineteenth-Century England (Oxford University Press, 2006)

The Cambridge Companion to Evangelical Theology, edited by Timothy Larsen and Daniel Treier (Cambridge University Press, 2007)

Sermon on the Mount Through the Centuries: From the Early Church to John Paul II, edited by Jeffrey Greenman and Timothy Larsen (Brazos Press, 2007)

Women, Ministry and the Gospel: Exploring New Paradigms, edited by Mark Husbands and Timothy Larsen (IVP, 2007)

A People of One Book: The Bible and the Victorians (Oxford University Press, 2011)

The Decalogue Through the Centuries: From the Hebrew Scriptures to Benedict XVI, edited by Jeffrey Greenman and Timothy Larsen (Westminster John Knox, 2012)

Bonhoeffer, Christ and Culture, edited by Keith Johnson and Timothy Larsen (IVP, 2013)


Brian Talbot (Class of 1999)

The Search for Common Identity: The Origins of the Baptist Union of Scotland, 1800-1870 (Paternoster, 2003): Brian's PhD Dissertation




Neil T. R. Dickson (Class of  2000)

Brethren in Scotland, 1838-2000 (Paternoster, 2003): Neil's PhD Dissertation

The Growth of the Brethren Movement: National and International Experiences: Essays in Honor of Harold H. Rowdon, edited by Neil T. R. Dickson and Tim Grass (Wipf & Stock, 2006)


 
Kenneth S. Jeffrey (Class of 2000)

When the Lord Walked the Land: The 1858-62 Revival in the North East of Scotland (Paternoster, 2003): Kenneth's PhD Dissertation





Patricia Meldrum (Class of 2004)

Conscience and Compromise: Forgotten Evangelicals of Nineteenth-Century Scotland (Paternoster, 2006): Patricia's PhD Dissertation



 
John D'Elia (Class of 2005)

A Place at the Table: George Eldon Ladd and the Rehabilitation of Evangelical Scholarship in America (Oxford University Press, 2008): John's PhD Dissertation



Larry Eskridge (Class of 2005)

More Money, More Ministry: Money and Evangelicals in in Recent North American History (Eerdmans, 2000)

God's Forever Family: The Jesus People Movement in America (Oxford University Press, 2013): Larry's PhD Dissertation

 
John Maiden (Class of 2007)

National Religion and the Prayer Book Controversy, 1927-1928 (Boydell Press, 2009): John's PhD Dissertation



 
Jonathan Yeager (Class of 2009)

Enlightened Evangelicalism: The Life and Thought of John Erskine (Oxford University Press, 2011): My PhD Dissertation