Reformed Resurgence: The New Calvinist Movement and the Battle Over American Evangelicalism
One of the most significant developments within contemporary American Christianity, especially among younger evangelicals, is a groundswell of interest in the Reformed tradition. In Reformed Resurgence, Brad Vermurlen provides a comprehensive sociological account of this phenomenon — known as New Calvinism — and what it entails for the broader evangelical landscape in the United States.

Vermurlen develops a new theory for understanding how conservative religion can be strong and thrive in the hypermodern Western world. His paradigm uses and expands on strategic action field theory, a recent framework proposed for the study of movements and organizations that has rarely been applied to religion. This approach to religion moves beyond market dynamics and cultural happenstance and instead shows how religious strength can be fought for and won as the direct result of religious leaders' strategic actions and conflicts. But the battle comes at a cost. For the same reasons conservative Calvinistic belief is experiencing a resurgence, present-day American evangelicalism has turned in on itself. Vermurlen argues that in the end, evangelicalism in the United States consists of pockets of subcultural and local strength within the "cultural entropy" of secularization, as religious meanings and coherence fall apart.
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Reformed Resurgence: The New Calvinist Movement and the Battle Over American Evangelicalism
One of the most significant developments within contemporary American Christianity, especially among younger evangelicals, is a groundswell of interest in the Reformed tradition. In Reformed Resurgence, Brad Vermurlen provides a comprehensive sociological account of this phenomenon — known as New Calvinism — and what it entails for the broader evangelical landscape in the United States.

Vermurlen develops a new theory for understanding how conservative religion can be strong and thrive in the hypermodern Western world. His paradigm uses and expands on strategic action field theory, a recent framework proposed for the study of movements and organizations that has rarely been applied to religion. This approach to religion moves beyond market dynamics and cultural happenstance and instead shows how religious strength can be fought for and won as the direct result of religious leaders' strategic actions and conflicts. But the battle comes at a cost. For the same reasons conservative Calvinistic belief is experiencing a resurgence, present-day American evangelicalism has turned in on itself. Vermurlen argues that in the end, evangelicalism in the United States consists of pockets of subcultural and local strength within the "cultural entropy" of secularization, as religious meanings and coherence fall apart.
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Reformed Resurgence: The New Calvinist Movement and the Battle Over American Evangelicalism

Reformed Resurgence: The New Calvinist Movement and the Battle Over American Evangelicalism

by Brad Vermurlen
Reformed Resurgence: The New Calvinist Movement and the Battle Over American Evangelicalism

Reformed Resurgence: The New Calvinist Movement and the Battle Over American Evangelicalism

by Brad Vermurlen

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Overview

One of the most significant developments within contemporary American Christianity, especially among younger evangelicals, is a groundswell of interest in the Reformed tradition. In Reformed Resurgence, Brad Vermurlen provides a comprehensive sociological account of this phenomenon — known as New Calvinism — and what it entails for the broader evangelical landscape in the United States.

Vermurlen develops a new theory for understanding how conservative religion can be strong and thrive in the hypermodern Western world. His paradigm uses and expands on strategic action field theory, a recent framework proposed for the study of movements and organizations that has rarely been applied to religion. This approach to religion moves beyond market dynamics and cultural happenstance and instead shows how religious strength can be fought for and won as the direct result of religious leaders' strategic actions and conflicts. But the battle comes at a cost. For the same reasons conservative Calvinistic belief is experiencing a resurgence, present-day American evangelicalism has turned in on itself. Vermurlen argues that in the end, evangelicalism in the United States consists of pockets of subcultural and local strength within the "cultural entropy" of secularization, as religious meanings and coherence fall apart.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780190073510
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Publication date: 12/01/2020
Pages: 304
Product dimensions: 9.30(w) x 6.10(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Brad Vermurlen is a research associate in the department of sociology at the University of Texas at Austin and a generations in dialogue fellow at the Institute for Advanced Catholic Studies at the University of Southern California. He earned his Ph.D. in sociology at the University of Notre Dame in 2016. His website is www.bradvermurlen.com.

Table of Contents

List of Figures and Tables
Acknowledgments


Chapter 1: Background, Clarifications, and Overview
Chapter 2: Institutions, Leaders, and Features of the New Calvinist Movement
Chapter 3: The Tribes and Their Comparative Strengths
Chapter 4: A Field-Theoretic Model of Religious Strength
Chapter 5: Demonstration of the Model, Part I: Precipitating Causes
Chapter 6: Demonstration of the Model, Part II: Game-like Contestation
Chapter 7: American Evangelicalism in Hypermodernity

Appendix A: Research Methods
Appendix B: Nine (or so) Alternatives to Calvinism
Appendix C: Twitter Followers
Appendix D: Is the New Calvinism Past Its Prime?
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