T. M. Luhrmann, author of “When God Talks Back: Understanding the American Evangelical Relationship With God,” has a great piece in the New York Times today on praying and speaking in tongues.

Let me repeat that: the New York Times. 

And it’s positive. 

Go figure.

Her research may help lead to a better understanding of things that just can’t be explained.

At an American charismatic evangelical church I studied, about a third of the congregants spoke in tongues occasionally when praying alone. As one young man put it: “You run out of things to pray for and you just need to pray, to let all these emotions run out of your head. So you pray in tongues. I do that quite often.” The Pew Research Center found that 18 percent of Americans spoke in tongues at least several times a year.

It’s an interesting piece and worth the time to read it.