American Evangelicalism, Then and Now

I’m back in town from Toccoa, Georgia and from the “American Evangelicalism: Then & Now” conference that officially wraps up tomorrow but whose second day I won’t be attending, having to work at Bogart Library.

My paper was in the second of a series of parallel paper sessions, and although I did face a rather animated response to my paper in Q&A, I feel like I answered his questions about living in the same world as Emergent-types skillfully enough.? I presented opposite a communications professor from Toccoa Falls College whose paper also featured nuggets of wisdom from Neil Postman.? We enjoyed a good conversation after our session was over with a few of TFC’s students, and I felt like the experience overall was a good one.

I spent a very pleasant day after that with Michial Farmer and Victoria Reynolds, and after we had a bite of lunch and watched a rather awkward panel discussion featuring the folks in the right-hand lineup of the pamphlet photo, Michial gave an interesting paper on Walker Percy and his crititques of Christians’ putting ignorant things before devotion to Christ.? I have a hunch that the thing went clean over the room’s heads, because none of them could articulate so much as one question for him in Q&A.? (I can’t claim any great acumen either–I couldn’t come up with anything to ask him until the chap after him started.)? Then we went to see Victoria’s paper on the neo-modesty, “Girls Gone Mild” movement and its relationship to the parts of feminism that evangelicals typically see as their enemy.? She did receive quite a few retorts during her Q&A, though with some of them I wonder whether they actually heard her paper.

Overall, the experience was a good one–another conference paper for the CV, a day spent with friends, a chance to talk theology.? I wish my power steering pump didn’t start whining when I turned on the way back (I’ll have to get that looked at on Monday), but aside from that, it was a good day.