"Pioneered the Techniques of Creating Trust in a Pure Religious Product"

"What Crowell did—and what makes him so important to my mind—is that he solved the problem that had plagued individualistic, evangelical religion since it first emerged during the First Great Awakening in the eighteenth century. (When things started to go a little nutty, respectable middle class Protestants swung back to an emphasis on church and tradition.)
"Crowell figured out a way to impose order on evangelicalism, but without having to resort to churchly guardrails. He used the techniques of consumer capitalism that he knew so well, packaging and trademark and massive promotional campaigns."


Daniel Silliman in Salon talks with Timothy Gloege, author of Guaranteed Pure: The Moody Bible Institute, Business, and the Making of Modern Evangelicalism.