What will happen with the children of post-evangelicals?

Richard Beck has an insightful piece up on a topic that’s had me thinking. While he’s a decade older and from a different denominational background than I am, he and I have traveled a similar path from a strict conservative Christianity into a progressive post-evangelicalism. But what impact, he asks, does this have on our children?

Anyway, we were talking about how our kids now view the church. We’ve become liberal in our views and so we’ve raised our kids as liberals. We’ve preached messages of tolerance and inclusion. And we’ve been successful. Our kids don’t look on the world with judgment and suspicion. They welcome difference. But we’ve noticed that this comes with a price. Our kids don’t have the same loyalty to the church as we do. We were raised conservatively, so going and being loyal to a local church is hardwired into us. We can’t imagine not going to church. It’s who we are. But our kids weren’t raised by conservatives, they were raised by us, post-evangelical liberals. Consequently, our kids don’t have that same loyalty toward the church. So we were talking about this paradox in our small group, how our kids weren’t raised by our parents, they were raised by us, and how that’s made our kids unlike us. Especially when it comes to how we feel about church. Basically, our kids aren’t post-evangelicals. They are liberals.

He goes on to say that he doesn’t mean that being a liberal is a bad thing, but that he wonders if his children will have a rootedness in a community and deep sense of belonging that he experienced growing up in a more conservative environment.

I’ve had similar questions about raising my own children. While I consider myself pretty solidly post-evangelical, as a family we have spent the last decade as committed members of a fairly conservative evangelical church. My kids attend Sunday School and youth group and get taught many of the same things I did when I was their age. Then they come home and I feel the tension keenly when we have discussions about hot topics that have come up - things like evolution, gender roles, religious tolerance, and historical and textual criticism of the Bible.

Maybe my willingness to stay committed to a conservative church gives lie to the claim that I’m post-evangelical. I guess that’s ok with me - it’s not like post-evangelicalism is a club for which I need to establish my bona fides. What I’m really hoping for my kids is that we can find a sweet spot in the middle - one that doesn’t view orthodox doctrine and social responsibility as an either/or proposition but rather a both/and, one that sees questions as a sign of a strong faith rather than a weak one about to shatter.

Maybe it’s truly the journey that has shaped my theology and Christian outlook into what it is today, but I’m holding onto hope that my children can find their path to a confident faith even through being raised by a meandering post-evangelical.

The Gospel Coalition has its #MeToo moment

The pace of sexual abuse allegations and resignations / firings in the wake of the #MeToo movement has been stunning. Since early October when Harvey Weinstein was deposed from his organization, executives, journalists, actors, athletes, and doctors with patterns of abuse have been uncovered and summarily fired, retired, and replaced.

Last week, the trial of US Gymnastics team doctor Larry Nassar provided the most heartbreaking story yet as 160 women gave victim impact statements, confronting a man who had abused each of them under the guise of providing medical treatment. (As many as 265 people have now come forward accusing Nassar of abuse.) Rachael Denhollander, a victim of Nassar’s as a teen, was the key witness in his prosecution and provided the capstone victim impact statement last Friday. In a 30-minute address in the courtroom, Denhollander spoke bluntly about the systems that had failed her and Nassar’s other victims, about her struggles to advocate for abuse victims, and then about the good news of the Gospel.

Denhollander’s statement went viral. My Facebook and Twitter feeds were full of Christians, from leaders to laymen, lionizing her courage and willingness to share the Gospel so publicly. But from a close reading of her statement, there was a question stuck in my head: she said that her victim advocacy “cost me my church”. What was that all about?

Yesterday, in a fantastic interview with Christianity Today, the other shoe dropped. Rachael revealed that the church she lost was a church “directly involved in restoring” Sovereign Grace founder C. J. Mahaney, who left his pastorate after being accused of covering up sexual abuse within his church network. She says that she and her husband were told by multiple church elders that this church ‘wasn’t the place for them’ if they were going to speak out for abuse victims that way.

This hits close to home.

Mahaney was a council member of The Gospel Coalition (TGC), a group that is strongly influential in the evangelical circles I’ve been in all my life. TGC leaders have consistently supported Mahaney, with Southern Baptist Theological Seminary president Albert Mohler making jokes about the accusations against Mahaney while introducing him as a “guest speaker” at the “Together for the Gospel” (T4G) conference in 2016. Mahaney resigned from the TGC council after the abuse scandal broke, but has slowly, without publicly addressing the allegations, worked his way back into good standing with the group. He is now back as a regular headline plenary speaker at T4G 2018.

Mahaney isn’t the only T4G plenary speaker in the penumbra of this kind of allegations. A former student at The Master’s College, founded by John MacArthur, has come forward to allege that the leaders of that college forced her into a “biblical counseling” session with her abuser, and then threatened church discipline if she refused to drop charges, eventually kicking her out of the school.

It’s time for The Gospel Coalition to come to grips with their own #MeToo moment.

TGC is filled with men (and yes, it’s only men) who have served long in ministry and been helpful to many. I’ve personally benefited from the teaching of MacArthur and Matt Chandler and TGC founder Don Carson over the years. But in this cultural moment, their willing blindness to these issues is inexcusable, and their silence is deafening. Indeed, this planned T4G 2018 seminar leads me to believe they still really don’t get it:

We can do better.

How loudly would it speak to the watching world if Rachael Denhollander were invited to be a plenary speaker at T4G18? For the leaders of the theological movement that Rachael and her husband are a part of to recognize their failures in the area of addressing abuse, to repent, and to hear the truth spoken by their sister?

Rachael is a survivor of abuse and mistreatment from the hands of both a despicable doctor and a group of church leaders more intent on protecting themselves than their sheep. Her words cry out to them like the blood of Cain’s brother calling from the ground. From the end of her interview with CT:

First, the gospel of Jesus Christ does not need your protection. It defies the gospel of Christ when we do not call out abuse and enable abuse in our own church. Jesus Christ does not need your protection; he needs your obedience. Obedience means that you pursue justice and you stand up for the oppressed and you stand up for the victimized, and you tell the truth about the evil of sexual assault and the evil of covering it up. Second, that obedience costs. It means that you will have to speak out against your own community. It will cost to stand up for the oppressed, and it should. If we’re not speaking out when it costs, then it doesn’t matter to us enough.

Rachael Denhollander is a hero and example to us all. It’s time for The Gospel Coalition to admit their complicity in these things and show true repentance. Come on, guys, set an example for us. Invite Rachael to speak at T4G. Let’s show the world what it can really mean to be together for the Gospel.

15-year-old Chris would be in disbelief

File this under “things that would’ve stunned the 15-year-old Chris”.

As a teenager, the evangelical Christian culture we were in lionized people like Jay Sekulow. He founded the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), which was out there fighting against the secular world to protect Christians’ rights. He argued and won a 9-0 Supreme Court decision that guaranteed Jews for Jesus could distribute evangelistic pamphlets at Los Angeles International Airport. A sterling example for Christian young people to look up to.

At the same time, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) was spoken of with disgust. Anti-Christian. There to take away our religious liberty. Thank God we have people like Jay Sekulow to fight them on our behalf.

Fast-forward 25 years.

We now have a President who has been described by Jerry Fallwell Jr. as “evangelicals’ dream president”. In that president’s flurry of anti-immigrant activity, Immigration and Customs Enforcement is now looking to deport more than 100 Iraqi Christians, most of whom have been in the country legally for many years, and send them back to Iraq where they are a heavily persecuted minority.

Wait, what? Christians immigrants being deported? Where are the religious liberty groups like the ACLJ and our brave heroes like Jay Sekulow?

Oh, that’s right: Sekulow is currently a part of the President’s legal team and is making the rounds of the Sunday news talk shows arguing with TV hosts about why the President’s tweets saying “I am under investigation” don’t really mean that he’s under investigation.

And who is standing up for the Iraqi Christians?

The ACLU.

Yes, I know all the objections that will come back to this. Not all evangelicals. Franklin Graham actually broke with the President on this one. Some of the deportees have criminal records. The ACLU supports some causes I disapprove of. Etc, etc.

But really, this is such a stunning reversal of positions (or at least, my perception of those positions) over the past couple decades that it’s enough to set my head spinning. It also makes me happy to have set up a recurring monthly donation to the ACLU.

“He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” - Micah 6:8, NIV

A Little Plastic Surgery for the Body of Christ

As a musician and long-term volunteer worship leader, I have plenty of opinions when it comes to church music. So this morning when I came across a job posting for a Music Director position I was brought up short. And boy, do I have opinions.

Here’s the job posting. On The Gospel Coalition website, it’s for Paramount Church of Jacksonville, Florida. It’s hard to tell from their church website how large their church is, but there appears to be one paid staff pastor and about a dozen deacons.

So here’s the job posting, which comes in 3 sections. I’m bolding the things that stick out to me:

A. General Description of Position

Paramount Church is a gospel-centered church in Jacksonville FL. The Director of Music is responsible for designing and implementing a style of music that is contemporary and band-driven yet not contemporary for the sake of novel, innovative creativity. The ideal candidate for this position will be committed to the centrality of the gospel in all things and possess a solid knowledge of and commitment to the historic Christian worship of the church. The Director will coordinate music plans with the Preaching/Teaching elder, and recruit, direct, and train a team of volunteer musicians. Significant musical experience in performing and directing a contemporary band along with experience in songwriting and production is ideal.

I’m still trying to figure out what “not contemporary for the sake of novel, innovative creativity” means. How exactly do you have un-novel, non-innovative creativity? It is OK to be contemporary as long as we’re copying others and not doing our own thing? But that’s just a small quibble.

“Significant musical experience in performing and directing a contemporary band along with experience in songwriting and production.” That’s a lot. Wow.

B. Position Duties and Responsibilities

  1. Plan and implement Trinitarian, gospel-centered music (Col. 3:16) for Sunday worship services, and special services as required, in consultation with the Elders
  2. Recruit, train, and rehearse members of the music team.
  3. Disciple music team members in a gospel-centered, historic worship paradigm
  4. Coordinate with A/V team regularly to assure quality sound and video/visuals for each presentation and oversee training of A/V volunteers
  5. Attend weekly meetings with the Elders and Leadership Team.

OK, that’s fairly straightforward. Aside from the “gospel-centered” buzzwords that add more branding than meaning any more, that sounds like a standard music director position.

But here comes the big list. Hold on tight!

C. Position Qualifications

  1. Committed to definitive Nicene orthodoxy and gospel-centeredness in doctrine, life, and music
  2. Possess a solid understanding of and commitment to historic Christian worship
  3. Band-driven rather than orchestral-driven style of music
  4. Must be able to incorporate strings, percussion, and other instruments into contemporary-band driven arrangements
  5. Must be able to play piano and/or guitar in a contemporary band setting
  6. Minimum of bachelor’s degree in music and/or 5 years’ related church or industry experience. Possessing an MDiv or MA in theology is ideal.
  7. High-level of overall musicianship
  8. A builder/self-motivated/entrepreneurial spirit
  9. Sanguine stage presence
  10. Experience in leading corporate worship, and knowledge of directing, orchestrating, and coordinating various instruments in a band
  11. Ability to work with and train vocalists in singing of parts
  12. Ability to incorporate backing tracks and loops into regular Sunday and special services
  13. Leadership ability and ability to work with and inspire volunteers

Holy cow. Really? Must be able to incorporate strings, percussion, other instruments into a contemporary band. Oh, and also incorporate backing tracks and loops. And also be able to direct and orchestrate the instruments in the band.

And what the heck is a “sanguine stage presence” anyway?

But here was the kicker to me:

(Part-Time, pay commensurate with experience)

This is a PART-TIME position.

That’s right, you need to be able to write songs, orchestrate, build and lead a team, plan and arrange services including tracks and loops, rehearse, perform, meet with the church leadership on a regular basis, and in the best case would have an MDiv. For a part-time position.

Now, maybe I’m just 39 and out of touch, and there will be a hundred qualified candidates beating down the door of Paramount Church to audition for this position. But really? Are these wise expectations for church music leading, or wise leadership burdens to place on a part-time leadership position?

I fear that so often in the evangelical American church we have set our music performance and production standards so high that the focus is on the production more than the actual act of congregational worship, and that none save the already-professional musicians need apply to participate as a part of the worship bands.

Job posts like this feel like we’re signing the Body of Christ up for plastic surgery when what we really need is just to get it to the gym for regular workouts.

The church should be the incubator for and encourager of the young musicians coming up in it. I am biased here but can speak from a lifetime of having had that experience in the church. From singing special music with my dad and brothers when the youngest was so small he had to be held so he could be seen above the pulpit, to playing Bach for Sunday night offertories when I was just learning the piano, to leading worship teams in college when I was not nearly experienced enough, my musical development has been the product of a multitude of churches that didn’t want professionalism so much as service.

Yes, some standards are appropriate. Some talent is needed. But let’s not set our production standards so high that none but trained professionals can meet them. And let’s not set our job expectations so high that we eliminate the talented amateurs from the conversation. The church can and should be developing these leaders from the inside. To always be searching for professionals from the outside is both unhealthy and unsustainable.

Words matter

O. Alan Noble has a really good piece over on the CT website about the importance of Christians being careful about the truth, especially when it comes to political debates.

I heard a story recently about a fairly well-known evangelical figure who was confronted about public statements he had made in writing and interviews… When the facts became overwhelming, this influential evangelical conceded that he had been playing fast and loose with facts. However, since his overall message was true and important, he reasoned, it was justifiable to fudge the details in order to motivate voters to make the right decision. … The belief that American voters must be manipulated rather than reasoned with if we want to institute any meaningful change is endemic. But this belief is essentially nihilist because it makes all political discourse a matter of coercion, a matter of who is doing the coercing and to what ends. I call this nihilist because it makes power, not truth, goodness, or beauty, the foundation of politics.

As I like to say: words matter.

I am sure I’ve been guilty of this sort of generalizing and overstating positions of people I disagree with - so here’s my renewed commitment to not do so. Let us speak the truth, be honest about the facts, and trust that God is at work.

Especially in this election year.

Oh, and go read the whole article. It’s worth it.

Fiet: Wheaton College and the Fear Machine

Midwestern pastor (and Wheaton alum) April Fiet has some really good thoughts today about the Wheaton College brouhaha around professor Larycia Hawkins’ comments about Muslims and Christians worshiping the “same God”.

Fiet doesn’t tackle the comments themselves, but rather our approach to them, regardless of our position.

What troubles me the most deeply about what is happening at Wheaton has very little to do with statements of faith, and more to do with a hermeneutic of suspicion. More narrowly, I am troubled by the fear that seems to be driving much of the conversation. It seems to me that too many conversations within the church are being powered by fear rather than by love for one another.

She talks about some of the fears she sees, and some of the really good things she has seen happen when fear was not so prevalent. And I really like this reminder:

Fear cannot be the motivating factor for the way Christians live, move, and exist in this world. When writing about the Christian life, the author of Hebrews put it this way: “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith.” (Hebrews 12:1-2a) We run as people motivated by the cloud of witnesses all around us, and we run with our eyes on Jesus. We are not running because we’re afraid. We are not running because there’s something scary chasing us. We’re running as part of a group that has all eyes fixed on Jesus.

I really appreciate her focus here. It dovetails nicely, too, with something one of my pastors has been saying recently on this topic, which is that even if we disagree with Professor Hawkins’ position, we can make good progress in not “othering” our Muslim neighbors simply by remembering and adhering to God’s command to love our neighbor.

Anyhow, Fiet’s piece: recommended reading.

Meador: on Intervarsity and Black Lives Matter

Jake Meador over at Mere O has a really good piece today on the white evangelical response to the messages at Urbana last month, and more generally to the Black Lives Matter movement:

We do not have to endorse everything about the organization Black Lives Matter. We shouldn’t feel like we cannot ask questions—even critical questions—about speeches like the one given by Michelle. But we also should not be instinctively suspicious of the claims of our black neighbors. Our nation’s history is such that we should have no difficulty believing our black neighbors when they tell us about what life is like for black people in America today. Indeed, given our nation’s appalling history it would be more surprising if they didn’t have any problems.

Definitely worth reading the whole thing.

Too much knowledge about the Bible a bad thing?

In a recent update of Christianity Today’s Leadership Journal they interviewed Josh McDowell about, among other things, current trends on the belief in the inerrancy of the Bible. Here’s how the first bit went:

Q: Trust in the inerrancy of Scripture, even among some evangelicals, has waned in recent years. Why do you think this is? There is no one reason. I think one of the major reasons is the information glut on the Internet. The Internet is so gigantic. It has leveled the playing field. Atheists and agnostics have such ready access to our kids. It didn’t use to be this way. Now, information—good and bad—is just one click away. Pastors, youth pastors, professors, and others are being confronted with deep theological, philosophical, and historical challenges to the Scriptures that no one would even hear about until their fourth year at a university. Believers are being confronted with so many opposing positions on the Scriptures—issues the majority from past generations simply didn’t confront. This has tended to undermine people’s belief system. That is why we need to redouble our efforts to communicate biblical truth.

Gutenberg Bible.jpg
"Gutenberg Bible" by Raul654. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

I think McDowell’s point is valid, but I’m a little disturbed about what it seems to imply. If I were to boil the Q&A down, the reasoning might go like this:

  1. “Trust in the inerrancy of Scripture” is waning. This is bad.
  2. This is happening in large part because Christians have more information than they used to have.
  3. If Christians having this information causes a bad result… maybe Christians shouldn’t have this information?

Now, McDowell doesn’t go fully there - he says that we just need to try even harder to communicate biblical truth - but I get wary any time I hear an argument that says the problem was caused by people knowing too much.

If you have an argument that you’re fully confident is true, shouldn’t you welcome the fact that people want to understand more about the Scripture, where it came from, how God uses it, and so on? If there are “deep theological, philosophical, and historical challenges to the Scriptures”, shouldn’t Evangelical leaders be addressing them head-on rather than decrying their broader availability?

Am I overreacting here?

I’m a bit put off by the phrase “trust in the inerrancy of the Scripture”. Of all the things Christians are called to trust in, that’s not one of them.

It seems likely to me that Evangelical leaders have often briskly asserted “inerrancy” as a linchpin for maintaining beliefs about other things (young-earth creationism, homosexuality, complementarianism, etc, etc) either without fully teasing out the difficult nuances of what “inerrancy” means, or (more likely) without dealing with the reality that many preachers will teach on “inerrancy” without any appreciation for those nuances.

Generations of Christians before may have gone through life without ever really stopping to think about what “inerrancy” meant, but as the internet broadens our social and intellectual horizons, the right response isn’t to decry that broadening, but to teach with more detail and nuance what we mean by the word.

For those of you still reading this post who are getting concerned about me putting the word “inerrancy” in quotes: I believe that the Bible is God-breathed, and profitable for doctrine, correction, reproof, instruction, etc. I also agree with John Piper’s nuance of “without error in the original manuscripts”, given his understanding of “error” [emphasis mine]:

A writer is in error when the basic intention in his statements and admonitions, properly understood in their nearer and wider context, is not true.

Revisiting the evangelical worship experience

A self-professed “child of the 1990s’ Christian subculture” recounts her experience revisiting that culture after many years away from it:

When I pulled into the parking lot for the concert, I immediately had a sense of foreboding. I had mostly come to see a favorite singer-songwriter, well-known in Nashville but still touring with larger acts in other parts of the country. For this concert, she was touring with an old high school favorite, and I didn’t think much of it, except that it might be fun to hear them play again. I hadn’t looked into it any further than that, and had been to plenty of church-based concerts in the years since leaving the evangelical church (for lack of better term), so I had no reason to think this one would be any different. Except that it was.

Susan does an excellent job of not questioning the motives or intentions of the concert audience while still asking some pointed questions about the motivations of the performers and producers, and about how the “worship experience” is managed and (potentially) manipulated.

It’s worth reading the entire thoughtful post.

The Spiritual Pep Rally

Really good stuff on the Christian movie phenomenon, in the deliciously-titled “Do You Believe in Confirmation Bias?”

I do remain concerned, however, that when such anecdotal evidence [e.g. of Atheist professors persecuting Christian students] is amplified and looped in and through the echo chamber, it has a detrimental effect on God’s people. It promotes a culture of fear and a culture of antagonism. It reinforces the belief that those outside our circle are our enemies, to be battled, rather than our mission field, to be loved and evangelized.

To the extent it overstates our persecution, it pushes us to prioritize standing our ground and protecting our rights over being salt and light. To the extent it fixates on archetypal stories of our victimization, it makes us quick to assume evil intent when we face conflicts and slow to acknowledge our own roles in perpetuating them.

Perhaps—perhaps—it tempts us with the lie that those times and places where we have been wronged justify ignoring our teachers’ admonitions to treat those who question our beliefs with gentleness and respect.

Maybe the more pertinent question to ask in the face of Christian movies like God’s Not Dead and Do You Believe? is not whether they are accurate representations of the world we live in, but whether the way they respond—and invite us to respond—to that broken world will help us to remake it into something healthier, holier, and more reflective of kingdom principles.

[Christianity Today]