Darren Dochuk

Faith and Oil

Ethics, Culture & Social Issues

“Faith and Oil is a sweeping and engrossing account that details how petroleum industrialists and interests have long operated at the center of the modern religious right, particularly in the oil-saturated (but woefully understudied) terrains of Alaska. Moving from the local to the global, from early-twentieth-century fundamentalist oilmen like Lyman Stewart to early-twenty-first-century Pentecostal politicians like Sarah Palin, K. L. Marshall ably casts fresh light on the nation’s past and current populist politics.”

God’s Cold Warrior

History & Biography

“Written with compassion and scholarly care, assiduously researched and a pleasure to read, with so many moral lessons offered for today, John Wilsey’s study of John Foster Dulles is Christian biography at its absolute best. Here readers gain fresh access to one of the most consequential men of the twentieth century and learn how this towering political figure, often caricatured as stodgy and sanctimonious, was at his core a principled and pragmatic Christian whose faith animated his daily life and ambitions to change the world. God’s Cold Warrior is a sparkling addition to the Eerdmans religious biography series and to the annals of religion and politics in modern America.”

Reading Evangelicals

History & Biography

“In this splendid study of Christian pop culture, Daniel Silliman not only analyzes a body of literature that warrants scholarly attention on its own terms (can any other genre boast such a massive hold on such a massive readership in the late twentieth century?) but also uses the study of evangelical fiction to reassess the meaning of evangelicalism itself. Demonstrating a skill with the pen that rivals any first-rate fiction writer, he guides the reader through the most important books of a late-twentieth-century subculture that has typically been defined strictly in political or theological terms. With much-welcomed nuance and sense of the in-betweens, Silliman instead paints evangelicalism as a community primarily defined by its expansive (always evolving) tastes and sensibilities, consumer practices, imaginations of purpose and being, and discourses of belonging. This is an indispensable contribution to our study of a movement (indeed, a phenomenon) that has shaped our times.”

Religion and American Culture

History & Biography

“In this survey of the religious (and, paradoxically, secular) forces that have shaped American life over the past four centuries, Marsden masterfully weaves colorful insight and incisive analysis into an accessible narrative that readers of all levels will find highly instructive. This is a must-read, invaluable resource for anyone interested in making sense of past and current trends in American religious culture.”

The Church Must Grow or Perish

History & Biography

“A master salesman in his innovative approach to ministry, famed positive-thinking mega-church founder Robert Schuller was at heart a small-town pastor whose obsessions with church growth grew out of the affinities and tragedies of his youth, and enduring fears that American Christianity (and society) was in sharp decline. In this beautifully crafted, smartly argued biography, esteemed sociologists Mark Mulder and Gerardo Martí explain the complexities of his intentions and thought, as well as the market-driven ambitions that made him a ‘how to’ model for many of his peers and young pastors nationwide. In the process, they open up a remarkably fresh rendering of late modern American religious culture that should be deemed a must read.”

The Rise and Fall of Dispensationalism

History & Biography

“Writing in the Trump moment when sweeping generalizations (and indictments) of evangelical populist thinking (and politics) easily prevail, Daniel Hummel takes the tougher route. With notable patience, careful attention to the granular as well as the big picture, and a sensitive touch with the pen, he guides readers through the centuries-long developments that saw a dissenting dispensationalist theology rise to the fore of mainstream evangelicalism and American apocalyptic culture. The result of his considerable efforts is a remarkably learned and readable book that surprises and entertains as well as enlightens.”