Yu and Yu, “Learning to Listen”

Yu, Dan Smyer and Wendy Smyer Yu. 2013. Becoming Conversant by Learning to Listen: A Reading of T.M. Luhrmann’s When God Talks Back: Understanding the American Evangelical Relationship to God. Pastoral Psychology.

Abstract: This review considers T. M. Luhrmann’s ethnographic findings on contemporary evangelical Christian practices and her aim to bridge the “rift between believers and non-believers.” Luhrmann’s portrayal of these practices stems from current research within evolutionary psychology, sociology, and the neurosciences on consciousness and religiosity. Depth Psychology and aspects of non-affiliated, lived religions that cultivate such “experiences of mind” are also considered.