My copy of The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind is scuffed, highlighted, dog-eared, and underlined; it was my young adult equivalent of a well-loved teddy bear. Its 1994 release coincided with my beginning a doctoral program in cultural anthropology at American University. With lifelong roots in conservative evangelicalism, part of me worried that evangelicals were right: I'd contribute more to God's kingdom as a wife and mother, or maybe a missionary, than as a professor. Arriving at just the right time, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind strengthened my inner conviction that a scholarly vocation was valid for an evangelical, even a female one.

I hesitated, however, at the very notion of...