In 1995, Mark Noll argued in The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind that the problem with evangelicalism is "that there is not much of an evangelical mind." His solution was to take scholarship more seriously. A decade later, Ron Sider argued in The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience (2005) that the problem with evangelicalism is that Christians live just like nonChristians. His solution was to take the social and corporate implications of the gospel more seriously.

Whether or not these books can be credited with sparking current trends, it's clear the spirit of both of them is alive and well in American Christianity. The so-called "New Reformed" movement is living out Noll's call for greater intellectual engagement and doctrinal sophistication. And legions of younger Christians are taking up Sider's vision to seek social justice in Jesus' name. I support both of these relatively recent developments, more or less. But I think they have the same shortcoming in common. As different as they ...