That Was Close

WARNING:

When writing a paper dealing with evangelical movements in the U.S., do not mix up the following terms.

APOCRYPHAL: adj. Of doubtful authenticity; spurious, fictitious, false; fabulous, mythical.

APOCALYPTIC: adj. Of or pertaining to the ‘Revelation’ of St. John; Of the nature of a revelation or disclosure; revelatory, prophetic.

And I always wondered what was wrong with calling those books of the Bible only Catholics use the Apocrypha (the preferred term is Deuterocanonical... and it's fun to say!).

Witnessing

"Witnessing was perhaps the most difficult aspect of the interview situation for me. To open oneself to evangelism is to be willing to offer one's own views for critique by someone who has already judged them to be inadequate. It is to set adside, at least partially, one's own agenda and the all-knowing position of the scholar. In interviewing situations, where I saw myself as primarily a strong, attentive listener, it meant I had to listen even as I was being told, however gently, that I was damned."

-Amy Johnson Frykholm, Rapture Culture: Left Behind in Evangelical America

I'm writing a research paper on the affects of the Left Behind series on mainstream book culture. I'm eternally grateful that people have already written books about it. And even in the writings of a fallen-away evangelical scholar, I can find things, quotes to bring to my ministry team. You just never know where you'll find these things.