I would have posted this earlier, but the author doesn’t always tell me about these things when they appear in print (although I assure you I did get to read a draft). But I highly recommend Dan’s latest in Christianity Today: “Can You Be Born Again Without ‘Feeling’ It?” This story about Francis Wayland gives you a taste of Dan’s book-in-progress, God’s Apologists, a sweeping history of apologetics in America from the 17th century to the present.
A taste from this piece:
I briefly encountered Wayland in my study of early 19th-century American antislavery activism, but I only recently realized that this opponent of slavery and professor of “Christian evidences” also struggled with assurance of his salvation because of lacking what he considered an authentic born-again experience.
For much of his early life, Wayland believed such an experience was required to become a Christian. After all, he had grown up steeped in the evangelical theology of Jonathan Edwards in a Calvinist Baptist home. He believed true conversion required a supernaturally wrought change of one’s affections and will. And like many evangelicals of his day, he believed this change manifested in a conviction of sin followed by a sudden sense of bliss.
For Wayland, the conviction came—but not the ecstatic experience… since he had never experienced the divine heart transformation he sought, Wayland was convinced that he was still lost—a thought that terrified him.
This does ends well for Wayland, and you can read Dan’s piece for the full story, which is quite fascinating.