Sam Harrelson

Here’s the formal Query I’ve written for my next book, A New Heaven and the New Earth - Southern Baptists in a New Century. Comments, suggestions, concerns and pointers are greatly welcomed and stronly encouraged in the comments section below or by email.

If any of you out there know any good literary agents, feel free to share…

My name is Sam Harrelson and I have a graduate degree in Religion and Literature from Yale University and am entering a Baptist Divinity School here in North Carolina this fall. I have a progressive theological viewpoint, which is often times at odds with my denomination, and I have written a proposal for a book entitled A New Heaven and the New Earth – Southern Baptists in a New Century.  I would like you to review my proposal and consider representing me as an agent.

A New Heaven and the New Earth investigates the ideologies and theologies of the Southern Baptist Convention and exposes the mult-lithic, rather than monolithic nature of the denomination. As the largest Protestant denomination in the Unitedn States with 16.3 million members, the Southern Baptist Convention influence and importance on matters ranging from political elections to local philanthropies provides a fertile ground for investigation and analysis.

The organization of A New Heaven and the New Earth provides a unique look into the tensions and harmonies within the Southern Baptist Convention by exploring the administration, pastors and laity o the convention through interviews. The book is the organized into three major sections around each o these groups and uses interviews with representatives from these three groups within the denomination as a jumping off point to a larger discussion about particular topics such as the practicality of theologies in a lay person’s every day life, or the daily struggles of a pastor or the work of an administrator in the Nashville offices to hold a large association with so many members together and minimize conflict and inefficiencies. In many ways, the book will have the flavor of Carl Sagan’s Cosmos in that this will be a personal journey but will share information and insight to the millions of other Southern Baptists and interested others who are wondering about the denomination, and show the multi-lithic (rather than monolithic) nature of the denomination.

Having grown up in rural South Carolina and being the first person to go to College in my family, I’ve always been interested in the sociology of religion. I attended Wofford College in Spartanburg, SC (a liberal arts Methodist affiliated school) and graduated Phi Beta Kappa and Magna Cum Laude with Religion Degree, which allowed me to investigate my own personal theologies and how they were beginning to differentiate from the Southern Baptist Convention at large. After winning the South Carolina Independent Colleges and Universities Student of the Year award in 2000, I attended Yale University and received a Masters Degree in Religion and the Arts with a focus on Southern literature. While at Yale, I was published by the Yale University Press with a nonfiction book focusing on a collection in the Art Gallery there and its connection to 19th Century evangelicals (Asia Has Claims Upon New England - Assyrian Reliefs at Yale).

This fall I will be entering Gardner-Webb Divinity School to pursue a Masters of Divinity degree to enter the ministry and view A New Heaven and the New Earth as a way to share my experience of reflections and investigations into the true nature of the Southern Baptist Convention as a collection of various voices, theologies, and ideologies rather than then monolithic view normally presented in the media.

If you are interested in seeing my full proposal, please contact me as soon as possible. You can reach me at 803.413.6834 or through this email address. Again, I thank you for your time and look forward to hearing from you.

Best,

Sam Harrelson

technorati tags:baptists, religion, writing, publishing

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