The past two Sundays I had the opportunity to talk at my church’s Sunday morning Adult Forum. The first Sunday I spent most of an hour just telling my story of growing up in Evangelicalism and eventually leaving it and becoming Episcopal. It’s a long talk, but was good to tell my story and to feel like I finally have enough space and distance from it to start to be able to tell it clearly and fairly.

Week 1 Video on Youtube

As I was writing my story for week 1, I had multiple topics that came up where I thought “that’s an important thing about Evangelicalism, and if you didn’t live in it for a while it might not be obvious at all”. So I compiled those into a short list and spent Week 2 talking about them. These topics included:

  • Biblicism
  • Congregational independence
  • Entrepreneurialism
  • Gender hierarchy
  • Insular cultural environment and the influence of Christian media
  • Opposition to Christian Tradition

Week 2 Video on YouTube

One of the folks who attended week 1 sent me a link to an Ann Patchett interview with the hope that I’d respond to some comments near the end (starting about 26:20 in the link) where she asks whether what religion you pick really matters at all. It was a perfect final question to respond to and tie off my two weeks of discussion. I won’t give away my answer but I’m happy with where it landed.