It has been more than a decade since Claire Mitchell and I published Evangelical Journeys: Choice and Change in a Northern Irish Religious Subculture (UCD Press, 2011).
I recently stumbled across a review of the book by Brutus Green in the academic journal Sociology (December 2012, V46, 6), which I had somehow managed to miss at the time.
Evangelical Journeys attempted to capture the diversity of Northern Irish evangelicalism and to explore processes of identity change within that subculture. It was fascinating research to undertake. Claire Mitchell has talked about this research project recently on the Corrymeela podcast (among other things).
In the interview, Claire reflected that the book received better reviews in generalist publications rather than academic ones, but overall I think the academic reviews also have been kind – as detailed here.
Over the years, I have at times been approached by strangers who read the book and said that it helped them to understand their own evangelical background and journey. For me, this is among the best kind of feedback.
In the years since I have not focused so much on evangelicalism – although it does feature in some of my work, such as Considering Grace: Presbyterians and the Troubles (co-authored with Jamie Yohanis, Merrion Press, 2019), a non-academic publication.
In fact, there has not been much further research on contemporary Northern Irish evangelicalism in the intervening decade, begging all sorts of interesting research questions – for myself (perhaps?) and others (hopefully!).
Here are some excerpts from Green’s review:
The appeal of this book lies in its strong emphasis on personal narratives in the context of paradigms of religious change and the unique culture of Northern Irish Protestantism. The study collates 95 interviews with evangelical Christians and identifies six varieties of religious journey: conversion, deepening of conservatism, steady maintenance of faith, moderation, transformation and finally leaving faith. This typology is related to previous work on classification of evangelical types, but has a significant advantage in relating to processes rather than static identities.
From the outset it is clear that this is not statistical research. The sample is not representative of Northern Ireland, nor even of evangelicals in Northern Ireland. They have instead attempted to achieve as wide a spread of narratives as possible and focussed on those whose narratives involve change. There are some shortcomings in interviewee selection (such as a wide gender discrepancy), but these are stated upfront and on the whole the work very helpfully points to the wider field of research, rarely deviating from the specific aim of delineating the ways in which religious change is articulated and establishing the common threads that connect these transitions.
The most intriguing aspect of the study is the unusually strong reciprocal relationship of politics and changes in religious identity. Mitchell and Ganiel point to cases of political allegiance leading some to conversion or a complementary deepening of conservatism in faith and politics.
… The most striking aspect of the work is the emphasis on choice, given in the title and reinforced throughout. Mitchell and Ganiel carefully describe the socializing forces at work and the role of subculture, family and friendship, together with the acceptance or rejection of wider culture and religious outsiders (particularly Catholics), which bear a strong relationship on the journeys undertaken. They do not look for simple causal relationships but rather point to ‘patterns of experience’ and ‘combinations of factors’ (p. 176). On the other hand, they also confidently express the role of individual choice in ‘the complex ways in which people interact with religious, social and political structures, and the different outcomes this might have for personal identity’ (p. 187). Further articulation of what constitutes this agency would perhaps require a different sort of work; for the moment it is left as an elusive, rather undefined category.
… On the whole though, the study is clear, open minded and highly readable through its lively style, personal approach and engaging material. It dispels certain myths about evangelicals, such as their lack of existential questioning or education, and overall provides a great deal of insight into the complexity of religious subcultures and the transformation of personal identity in an unusually fraught context.