In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Reviewed by:
  • Bad Girls and Boys Go to Hell (or not): Engaging Fundamentalist Evangelicalism by Gloria Neufeld Redekop
  • Joseph G. Schner SJ
Gloria Neufeld Redekop. Bad Girls and Boys Go to Hell (or not): Engaging Fundamentalist Evangelicalism. Eugene, or: Wipf & Stock, 2012. Pp. 351. Paper, us$41.00. isbn: 978-1-62032-061-7

Bad Girls and Boys Go to Hell (or not) is a collection of ten essays on Fundamentalist Evangelicalism from historical, theological, and psychological perspectives. The seventh chapter deals explicitly with a theology of hell although the theme of a fear of damnation is focal in examples in several other chapters. The subtitle, Engaging Fundamentalist Evangelicalism, better describes the work than its main title. Three essays offer the reader an experience of the religious phenomenon of fundamentalist evangelicalism: the author’s autobiography, her exploration of the role of singing in early fundamentalist evangelicalism, and a discussion of religious faith development. Each serves as a sub-theme for Redekop’s personal and theological exploration.

In the initial essay, and parenthetically throughout the other nine essays, Redekop describes her faith development within and her separation from the Mennonite Brethren community. She traces her religious education from childhood to adulthood—home instruction to doctoral research—by recalling events and puzzles from her developmental journey. From an early age, she remembers having difficulty with the faith she discovered in her early conversion. These difficulties eventually led her, as similar difficulties with fundamentalist doctrines have led others, away from her childhood religion. These memories serve as fine examples of religious development, and provide a narrative sample of faith life. She further explores this theme in a chapter on the experience of other former fundamentalist evangelicals.

Redkop offers a helpful summary of the history and growth of both the evangelical tradition and its fundamentalist counterpart. She also illustrates the doctrines and practices of her own early beliefs by analyzing the hymns (196 in number) used in worship around the turn of the 19th Century. She quotes generously from these compositions that illustrate the basic tenets of the Mennonite Brethren creed. This analysis, however, could have benefited in complexity and thoroughness if she had made use of one of the several textual analytical techniques readily available on line for such a task.

The author’s chapter on theories of faith development adds a psychological dimension to her life development and to her coping with the theological theme of damnation and hell. She relies heavily on the cognitive aspect of James Fowler’s works on religious faith development, and combines this with the work of Transpersonal psychologist, Jim Marion. However, she does not include the more esoteric areas that Marion bases on the work of Ken Wilber. Neufeld Redekop attempts to use Fowler and Marion as the basis for her own faith development theory (illustrated by her disillusionment and then departure from fundamentalist evangelicalism). It seems to me that the affective/emotional aspect of Fowler’s later work based on his exploration of psychoanalytic theory would have enriched her focus on religious thinking. Faith encompasses the whole person, and the cognitive aspect has to be complemented by the affective in an understanding that faith is not just about “truth statements,” but about basic trust and relationship within which such statements need to be heard. From my own small contact with the Mennonite community, this is an aspect of faith life in which they excel.

For Redekop “engaging fundamentalist evangelicalism” was part of her coming to terms with her faith. Her reflections on this process are well worth reading for their contribution to a personal understanding of this aspect of Christianity. Her work serves as a “living human document” of theological reflection. [End Page 440]

Joseph G. Schner SJ
Regis College, Toronto School of Theology
...

pdf

Share