And With All Your Mind: A Novel About Evangelical Theology is a novel by Steven H Propp, which looks at the contemporary Evangelical churches in America through the eyes of Silas Baker, a professor of theology at Riverstent Bible College.
When the novel begins, in the 1970s, Silas is a regular teenager, who enjoys basketball, beer, adventure stories and dating pretty girls. The pursuit of one such girl leads him to attend a youth group, with which he eventually becomes involved, and has an emotional "conversion experience". On finishing high school, Silas and his friends join a Bible College, but their lives take different paths from there. Silas eventually remains at the College, becoming an instructor, then a professor, and finally the President, under the mentorship of his teacher, Sheldon Barbini. Along the way, Silas encounters the ebbs and flows of Evangelical theology and its controversies, from the Carter era to the election of Barack Obama, and deals with pain and loss in his own personal life. We also meet his classmates - Mandy, the missionary who harbours an unrequited passion for him; Rick, who leaves the church and becomes a militant atheist; Edward, who starts out a passionate apologist but ends up working at the DMV and worried about making ends meet; and Desmond, his best friend who happens, rather inconveniently for the College, to be gay.
Though given to long, expository lectures - which are justified by Silas' being a professional theologian - the book is informative, entertaining, and is an invaluable resource to anyone who wants to understand the uniqueness of American Evangelical Christianity.
Tropes appearing in And With All Your Mind include:
- Earn Your Happy Ending: Silas ends up President of the College, and happily married, but it's a long road there.
- Endearingly Dorky: Despite being a nerd - and a theology nerd at that - Silas still has relationships with two beautiful women, Marilyn Pogess and Terry Sanders, before ending up Happily Married to fellow theologian Judith Saunders-Baker.
- Forceful Kiss: Mandy tries this on Silas. It doesn't work.
