Mother of American Evangelicalism: The Life and Legacy of Henrietta Mears

Migliazzo (Teaching as an Act of Faith), professor emeritus of history at Whitworth University, argues persuasively that Sunday school teacher and publisher Henrietta Mears (1890–1963) was an influence on famous 20th-century American evangelical leaders including Billy Graham and Bill Bright. According to Migliazzo, Mears’s conviction that “religious beliefs and the pursuit of knowledge should complement each other” and her attention to pedagogical and psychological techniques when working to convert people to Christianity set her apart from fundamentalists of the period and presaged the popular midcentury evangelicalism Graham and Bright exemplified. Mears rose to prominence as the director of First Presbyterian Church of Hollywood in Los Angeles, and her popular Sunday school programs led to her founding the National Sunday School Foundation and formed the core of bestselling What the Bible is All About, published posthumously in 1966. Migliazzo provides an insightful account of Mears’s youth, education, and early questioning of her vocation, drawing on extensive research to support descriptions of Mears’s charismatic leadership. Unfortunately, the narrative also suffers from Migliazzo’s decision to confine discussion of Mears’s shortcomings, particularly her complicity in racial stereotyping, to one chapter towards the end. While lay readers may struggle with the exhaustive detail, Migliazzo’s biography will be of interest to scholars working in 20th-century evangelicalism. (Nov.)