How Revival Turned Protestants into Evangelicals

Several months ago a friend was relaying a heated discussion and asking for counsel about how she handled it. “This girl was so emotional about the history of injustice in this situation,” she said. “It was like she couldn’t even see things clearly or how we were trying to be part of the solution.” I listened for a few minutes, irked but unsure why.

It wasn’t until hours later that it dawned on me: organized thought and emotion were being pitted against one another, as if the only route to resolution was through systematic thought. Meanwhile, emotion was being dismissed as merely lack of logic.

Logic is a helpful tool for thinking through all kinds of situations, but the belief that it’s the most necessary tool…