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Vintage Books. $28.95/$15.95. T. M. Luhrmann’s When God Talks Back is a book solidly located within the social sciences and nevertheless reverberates with significant implications for theologians. Luhrmann, a psychological anthropologist at Stanford University, spent over four years immersing herself in two Vineyard churches (one in the Chicago area and the other in Northern California). The author sought to study how these particular people, most especially in an age of rising doubt and atheism, could nevertheless claim that they had direct experiences with a living God. Overall she sought to explore how God was experienced as real to modern people. What Luhrmann discovered should leave at least some theologians in a cold sweat. Direct reflection on doctrine, it turns out, or really any desire for intellectual assent, was neither helpful nor important to these deeply committed believers. And unlike the bias of so many in academic theology who see the charismatic and evangelical experiences of people as suspect, Luhrmann actually affirms them, showing that these people who hold to a personal and real experience with a God who talks to them are neither crazy nor stupid. She asserts that while it is true that they are not as
Ecclesial Practices – Brill
Published: Oct 10, 2014
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