Bruce Hindmarsh Wins 2019 Word Award
We are pleased to share that Bruce Hindmarsh’s recent book, The Spirit of Early Evangelicalism, has been awarded a 2019 Word Award for best academic book of the year.
The annual Word Awards honour Canadian writing exploring the Judeo-Christian faith. Dr. Hindmarsh, James M. Houston Professor of Spiritual Theology and Professor of the History of Christianity at Regent College, expressed his appreciation for having received the award:
“I’m grateful for having been awarded the academic book prize for 2019 from the Word Guild, and that in this I get to keep company with many respected friends and Regent authors, past and present.”
The Spirit of Early Evangelicalism (Oxford UP, 2018) shines light on the rise of evangelicalism in the eighteenth century, bringing it into conversation with other major historical trends of the time: Modernism, Enlightenment, and the Scientific Revolution. Readers will find original research on some of the period’s vital figures, including Jonathan Edwards and the Wesley brothers. The book’s original take on George Whitefield, drawn from the British evangelist’s cryptic manuscript diaries, has proven to be a highlight.
Hindmarsh described the lengthy process behind the final product as a “labour of love and devotion” coming out of “many years of research and writing, sometimes through tears.”
He told a brief story to illustrate: “One early reviewer of my book said in passing that ‘Hindmarsh writes effortlessly.’ Well, that’s nice, but when my wife Carolyn read that, she laughed out loud! Someone once said that it’s easy to write: you just sit down at the typewriter and open a vein.”
This isn’t the first honour the book has received: In December 2018, the book won the Christianity Today 2019 Book Award in the History/Biography category.
Many of Bruce’s contemporaries in the field have also recognized the book’s achievement, commenting on its thoroughness and depth.
Mark Noll, author of The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind, wrote, “no one before Bruce Hindmarsh has explored in such comprehensive detail what evangelical spirituality actually meant.”
Hindmarsh summed up his own attitude toward all the attention the book has been getting: “It is a joy that it now has found its readers."