Anna Strhan, Lecturer in Sociology, University of York

Anna Strhan is Lecturer in Sociology at the University of York. She is the author of Aliens and Strangers? The Struggle for Coherence in the Everyday Lives of Evangelicals (Oxford University Press, 2015), shortlisted for the BBC/BSA Ethnography Award 2016, and Levinas, Subjectivity, Education (Wiley-Blackwell, 2012), and co-editor of Religion and the Global City (Bloomsbury, 2017) and The Bloomsbury Reader in Religion and Childhood (Bloomsbury, 2017).

"Strhan provides a novel, child-focused perspective on evangelicals, using captivating ethnographic description in an equally scholarly and accessible narrative. This book is fun to read; it also makes you think—a lovely combination." - Gail Murphy-Geiss, Colorado College, Sociology of Religion

"In this fascinating book, Dr Strhan both identifies a problem and goes a long way to solving it. The problem is the lack of attention to the child and childhood in the study of religion. The solution is a reflective and beautifully written ethnography of three very different evangelical churches. How do these churches envisage the child? And how do they turn their perceptions into action? This book will tell you. I recommend it very warmly." - Grace Davie, Professor of Sociology, University of Exeter, N/A

"Through her ground-breaking, relational approach to studying children and childhood in both conservative and progressive evangelical congregations, Anna Strhan effectively challenges the assumption that children are the "next generation" of their tradition by convincingly demonstrating how children shape their communities through their engagement with adults as well as through adults' efforts to maintain their attention. In short, this book is a must read for anyone interested in the continued currency of term "evangelicalism", the role of children's agency in their communities, and in how children and childhood serve to push religious congregations to adjust to societal change." - Susan B. Ridgely, Associate Professor, University of Wisconsin- Madison