Say the words

Say the words "evangelical worship" to anyone in the United States -- even if they are not particularly religious -- and a picture will likely spring to mind unbidden: a mass of white middle-class worshippers with eyes closed, faces tilted upward, and hands raised to the sky. Weaving together insights from American religious history and liturgical studies, and drawing on extensive fieldwork in seven congregations, Melanie C. Ross brings contemporary evangelical worship to life. Critics have underestimated evangelical worship, seeing it as little more than a manipulative effort to arouse devotional exhilaration. This book will irrevocably change that interpretation, revealing worship to be the site where congregations forge, argue over, and enact their unique contributions to the American mosaic known as evangelicalism.

Ross's book also does something that almost no scholarly work on the history of evangelicalism ever does: discuss what happens in actual church services.... I am only scratching the surface here regarding the rich detail that Ross's book reveals about evangelical worship culture in the U.S.... Read Professor Ross's outstanding book.