Consulting the Faithful: What Christian Intellectuals Can Learn from Popular Religion

In this careful assessment of contemporary religious trends, Mouw remains committed to theological orthodoxy while also asserting that the Christian intellectual community should pay careful and sympathetic attention to popular religious culture. Probing the thought of some theological giants of the past -- John Henry Newman, Abraham Kuyper, and others -- Mouw advocates a "hermeneutic of charity" toward popular religion and says that Christian scholars, besides teaching the "little people" of the church, must also learn from the "practical theological wisdom" of laypeople.