Now Available
Author: Ken Waters
Foreword: John Ferré
Purchase on Amazon (Associates Link)
Total pages: 242
Price: $25.00
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Description
Words That Shape Us explores evangelicalism’s influence on the nation’s cultural and political discourse through the lens of its main independent news publications. Waters delves into the pages of evangelical periodicals that reveal a movement at a crossroads. This book offers an unprecedented look at the internal debates and divergent paths that could redefine the future of American politics and religion. Waters uncovers the widening gap between evangelical elites and those claiming the faith through meticulous analysis of four key independent evangelical publications. From the 2016, 2020, and 2024 Presidential elections to pressing social issues like immigration, racism, and healthcare, this work examines the complex interplay of media, theology, and politics. It’s a must-read for anyone seeking to understand the seismic shifts within evangelicalism and their implications for the future. Words That Shape Us is not just a book; it’s also a framework through which to view the evolving landscape of American evangelicalism.
Endorsements
“Ken Waters’ new book brings light rather than heat to understanding the complexity of “white evangelicals in America.” It provides careful analysis of the content of four well-known periodicals sponsored by self-defined evangelicals through the last three election cycles. The result is to find some unity amid considerable diversity, somewhat more caution about MAGA than in the white evangelical population at large, and many serious questions about a future characterized by declining evangelical numbers and continuing evangelical divisions based more on education and class than Christian doctrine. It is a most illuminating study.”
—Mark A. Noll, Professor Emeritus, University of Notre Dame
“Words That Shape Us is a timely and groundbreaking study of white evangelical culture. While secular media depicts American evangelicalism as a white, right-wing bloc, Ken Waters looks at four evangelical news outlets to reveal nuanced and complex perspectives among the movement’s thought leaders. Examining coverage of key events, such as the 2016, 2020 and 2024 elections, the murder of George Floyd, and the repeal of Roe v Wade, Waters shows how conservative evangelical journalists have wrestled with issues of racism, homophobia, and religious integrity. Rather than jump on the Trump bandwagon, the outlets’ journalists used Christian and biblical lenses to report and comment on controversial issues. Waters’ study, similar to the work of David French and Tim Alberta, explores the politicization of evangelical churchgoers and the problematic impact of right-wingers who call themselves evangelicals but are unchurched. An important book that ought to help readers understand that evangelicalism is a more complex, nuanced and Christian–in the most positive sense of the word–movement, than the secular media would have us believe.”
—Diane Winston, Knight Chair in Media and Religion, Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, University of Southern California
“Ken’s book is a tour of well-intentioned media no longer viable. The journals which did survive served nervous audiences divided along party, social, and cultural lines, readers often as upset at their favorite editors as the publishers were upset at the fickle loyalty of subscribers and funders. Unlike legacy media, these evangelical journals labored to tell their stories with biblical boundaries and eschatological endgames far more ultimate, yet confounding to their secular cousins and often to their churched constituents. Did they succeed? Waters, always the good teacher, invites us to ponder.”
—Mark Fackler, Professor of Communications Emeritus, Calvin University
“Ken Waters brings five decades of experience studying the world of evangelical magazines to analyze how four publications—Christianity Today, World, Sojourners and the Christian Post— navigated the contemporary political terrain while striving to stay true to their biblical vision and journalistic values. Waters raises important questions of how faith-based publications can balance objectivity and prophetic critique, and his analysis illustrates the growing divide between the evangelical elite and the rank and file. This is a must-read text for everyday churchgoers and scholars interested in lived religion, media, culture, and politics.”
—Christina Littlefield, Associate Professor of Journalism and Religion, Pepperdine University
“Professor Ken Waters provides a detailed look at popular periodicals that the evangelical subculture often read to make sense of a dizzying news vista. Like society at large, readers and viewers who identify as Christian and the publications designed to serve them run a colorful spectrum where observation and perspectives often are at loggerheads. The voices are anything but monothetic. Waters helps identify the wide variety of opinions with specifics and offers his opinion on which ones meet the test of offering the best reporting and interpretation in a digital world. While each periodical he studied offers a novel voice of advocacy for what it means to be active in piety in the public square, Waters isn’t shy about when the publications rise to the laudatory role of nailing down the accuracy of a report, making sense of it and bearing witness to modest and grand doings of the church and the state and when they fail. He identifies those on the highway of hope and those who have steered into the ditch of despair. Readers may not agree with his analysis, but they will profit from a wide-ranging review of the leading faith-based publications and their approach to news.”
—Michael Ray Smith, Professor of Contemporary Communication, LCC International University
“We are what we read. Christians know this and many make the study of Scripture a discipline they combine with prayer and reflection. But this discipline requires biblical literacy. There is also a literacy of Christian culture, magazines serving as part of it, that paved the way for the spread of churches across the newly forming United States. Ken Waters digs into this literacy. He shows Christian magazines’ power to shape understanding of politics and faith in public spaces. Does Christian journalism still matter? Oh yes, Waters says. And he proves it chapter after chapter.”
—Michael A. Longinow, Ph.D., Professor of Digital Journalism & Integrated Media, Biola University
“Ken Waters’ new book offers a fascinating exploration of how four evangelical publications, with diverse approaches and perspectives, have covered the Trump era, both in news stories and editorials. Putting aside my own biases about these publications (I love the world-class reporting of Christianity Today, for example, while I’ve complained more than once about the aggregation-machine Christian Post lifting my reporting without proper credit), I appreciated Waters’ methodical and even-handed approach to his research. Ultimately, a complicated picture emerges that will help readers gain a better understanding of the vital role, challenges and competing interests faced by these publications’ journalists.”
—Bobby Ross, Jr., Editor-in-Chief, The Christian Chronicle
“Ken Waters combines his skills as journalist and scholar in a thoughtful historical analysis of how Christianity Today, World, Sojourners and The Christian Post approached coverage of a tumultuous era. In doing so, he will inform and enlighten those who thought they knew the publications well, and those who have little knowledge of them. Perhaps most importantly, the differences among the four, some nuanced and some striking, should allay any misguided assumptions about a congruent lockstep among evangelical journalists or evangelicals writ large. In chapter after chapter, Waters describes how events, personalities and politics shaped the publications’ theology and coverage and how their journalists sought to shape readers’ understanding of the tumultuous Trump era. A great read.”
—Cheryl Bacon, Professor and Chair Emerita, Department of Journalism and Mass Communication, Abilene Christian University
About the Author
Ken Waters (PhD, University of Southern California) is an emeritus professor of journalism at Pepperdine University. His 32-year teaching career included a variety of writing courses, Intercultural Communication, Communication Ethics and an occasional public relations class. Waters also served a seven-year stint as Divisional Dean for Communication at the university. In that role, he managed 30 faculty and planned classes for nearly 400 majors. His overseas teaching assignments have taken him to London, Lausanne, and Florence. He’s also written a dozen journal articles, primarily on the intersection of religious publications and culture. Waters received a B.A. in journalism and history from Pepperdine, and he served as editor of the award-winning student newspaper, The Graphic. He also holds an MA in religion from Pepperdine, and a PhD from the University of Southern California. He and his wife, Julie, are parents to two adult daughters, Katie and Alison. Waters is a life-long resident of Southern California.