The Exvangelicals by Sarah McCammon

I just finished up reading Sarah McCammon’s new book The Exvangelicals and I need to take the time to recommend it here. McCammon, a 40-something NPR journalist, has written a book that’s part memoir and part explainer on where Exvangelicals have come from over the past decade, and, more importantly, why.

When I reviewed Tim Alberta’s The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory earlier this year, I noted at the time that he was joining a list of kindred spirits who I found online or by reading their books, and who turned out to be fellow devout homeschooled kids who grew into adults questioning evangelical distinctives and dismayed by the devolution of white American evangelicalism into Fox News-watching Republican sheep. I named McCammon at this point as another one of those people. Little did I know how familiar her story would be.

I first encountered Sarah McCammon when she was a host on Iowa Public Radio. Eventually I followed her on Twitter, and continued to read and occasionally interact with her as she moved from Iowa to the east coast, eventually to work directly for NPR. Her reporting during the 2016 presidential campaign was nuanced and insightful. In hindsight, I should’ve known why.

In The Exvangelicals, McCammon unpacks her own story and uses it to illustrate the Exvangelical movement. She’s a few years younger than I am, but our stories run parallel tracks: growing up in the Midwest, a devout churchgoing family, culturally sheltered, homeschooled, evangelical youth groups, marrying young, eventually finding her own faith torn as she experienced the wider world. Eventually she left the church and faith fervor of her youth, getting divorced, becoming an Episcopalian, marrying a Jewish man. Despite so much Evangelical rhetoric saying the Exvangelicals are only leaving because they want to be free to enjoy sin, McCammon recognizes that it’s actually really painful:

Leaving conservative evangelicalism means giving up the security of silencing some of life’s most vexing and anxiety-inducing questions with a set of “answers” - about the purpose of life, human origins, and what happens after death. It also means losing an entire community of people who could once be relied on to help celebrate weddings and new babies, organize meal trains when you’re sick or bereaved, and provide a built-in network of support and socialization around a shared set of expectations and ideals.

It’s often felt, for me, like a choice between denying my deepest instincts about truth and morality to preserve that community, or being honest with myself and the rest of the world and risking that loss.

She has summed up there in a single sentence my experience of the last dozen years.

It was interesting reading this book back-to-back with Lyz Lenz’s This American Ex-Wife. Lyz is another exvangelical, though I don’t know she’d describe herself that way, who writes with an acerbic fire about coming through her evangelical upbringing and a troubled marriage. (Lyz actually provides one of the blurbs on the back of McCammon’s book.) McCammon’s prose is more NPR, Lyz is more shock jock. McCammon makes me comfortably say “yes, this! Exactly this!”. Lyz makes me uncomfortably say “well, she’s not wrong…” They are both important voices whose words should be read and wrestled with.

The Exvangelicals is a book I would recommend for anyone outside the evangelical experience trying to understand where us weirdos are coming from, and for any one of us Exvangelical weirdos who wants to feel less alone.

Bringing joy to people IS bringing glory to God

Crisanne Werner has a lovely essay up on Substack today about her changing understanding of how the experience of music, and specifically playing music, relates to her spirituality as she goes through a sort of deconstruction.

I, too, have had music be a core part of my spiritual experience for most all of my life. As a worship leader in evangelical churches, I have far too many times heard (and probably used) the “audience of One” phrase that Crisanne wrestles with in her essay. But I love where she lands with it:

…music can, and should, bring glory to God. It shouldn’t be manipulated by false humility; it should have an altruistic motivation. But something that didn’t occur to me as a teen/young adult, was that bringing joy to people is bringing glory to God. Using music to evoke emotions that people otherwise wouldn’t have access to is a gift to them. A gift of love. It falls firmly under the umbrella of loving God and loving others. Other people’s music is that same sort of gift to me- my life, especially my spiritual life, is parched without music. And, despite the proliferation of electronic recordings, nothing moves the soul more than an in-person experience. … On that church stage this weekend, I was fully at peace with my motivation of helping the congregation enter beauty and joy. I was at peace with my audience being One plus three hundred.

I met Crisanne at a retreat last fall and quickly learned that beneath her quiet veneer was a depth of brave wisdom just waiting to come out. I’ve so enjoyed reading her Substack this year. What a treat.

Reimagining Orthodoxy

Dr. Chris Green shared part of an essay today on a theology of disagreement. There’s a ton of good stuff in it. For example, early on:

Truth be told, what seem to be theological disagreements very often arise from and are borne along by other conflicts rooted deeply in hidden personal and interpersonal anxieties and ambitions. But at least some of our theological disagreements, I want to insist, are in fact the upshot of the Spirit’s transforming work taking shape in our as-yet-unperfected lives, moving us toward the “fullness of Christ” in which we find shalom.

This represents a beautiful freedom that I never found in my life in the American evangelical church.

But further, I want to commend to your thinking what he says about orthodoxy. In the evangelical and fundamentalist church, “orthodoxy” tends to be a cudgel used to keep unwanted questions and questioners away, and to scare the flock away from being tempted toward theological ideas that stray from the party line. Green, though, quotes Rowan Williams to suggest a different approach:

[W]e must reimagine the nature and purpose of orthodoxy. Instead of conceiving of it as a wholly-realized, already-perfected system of thought, we need to recognize it as a fullness of meaning toward which we strive, knowing full well we cannot master it even when in the End we know as we are known. Because the Church’s integrity is gift, not achievement, we can never know in advance “what will be drawn out of us by the pressure of Christ’s reality, what the full shape of a future orthodoxy might be.”

He continues, quoting Williams further:

Orthodoxy is not a system first and foremost of things you’ve got to believe, things you’ve got to tick off, but is a fullness, a richness of understanding. Orthodox is less an attempt just to make sure everybody thinks the same, and more like an attempt to keep Christian language as rich, as comprehensive as possible. Not comprehensive in the sense of getting everything in somehow, but comprehensive in the sense of keeping a vision of the whole universe in God’s purpose and action together.

A lot to chew on there, but I love the vision of orthodoxy as a commitment to keeping a vision for God’s continuing purpose and action to which we are only slowly understanding. Beautiful stuff.

Did the Emerging Church Fail?

Richard Beck has a series going right now in which he asserts that the Emerging Church movement failed. I’m usually pretty aligned with Beck but I’m not so sure this time.

He defines the Emerging Church by some familiar characteristics:

  • Engagement with post-modernism
  • Struggle with evangelical doctrinal positions, leading to epistemic humility
  • New awareness of liturgy
  • An “aesthetic component”, including skinny jeans and a “coffee shop vibe”

That group, Beck argues, “never was able to establish a broad network of churches”, and eventually failed because “evangelism became deconstruction”, and, says Beck, “You can’t build churches upon deconstruction.”

I think Beck is setting up a bit of a straw man here to try to make point he wants to make against deconstruction. But I think there’s an alternate history to Beck’s that comes to a different conclusion.

I think we can see two developments from the Emergent Church of the early 2000s.

First, It’s easy to forget that along with Brian McLaren and Rob Bell, people like Mark Driscoll also came along under the Emergent label. The part of Emergent that went the way of Driscoll took an aggressive posture in their engagement with post-modernism, and rejected epistemic humility, but took up at least some pieces of a new liturgy, and were the exemplars of Beck’s skinny jeans-wearing, beer-drinking, coffee shop vibing “aesthetic component”. In short order they would reject McLaren and Bell’s post-modernism and fall into doctrinal fundamentalism, but they didn’t just disappear as Beck asserts.

Second, Beck severely underplays the movement of many in the Emergent Church into mainstream denominations. Rachel Held Evans famously wrote about “going Episcopal”. Nadia Bolz Weber is ELCA. Scot McKnight became Anglican. Richard Rohr, a Franciscan monk, is the patron saint of the whole movement. Anecdotally, at the less-famous level, I see a steady stream of exvangelicals deconstructing, embracing epistemic humility, rediscovering the historic liturgy, and embracing a more traditional “aesthetic component” by joining high church mainline traditions.

So did the Emerging Church “fail” as Beck suggests? Maybe, if you construct your definitions as narrowly as he does. But look just a little more broadly and you can trace a path from the Emergent deconstructionists of the early 2000s to the exvangelicals of the 2010s and 2020s and into the pews of the mainline. Whether we will bring the mainline to a resurgence or only forestall its demise by a few more decades remains to be seen.

Donald Bruce "Don" Hubbs, 1949-2024

Donald Bruce “Don” Hubbs, 74, died Saturday at his home in rural Richland County after a nearly two year battle with brain cancer. Don was born November 15, 1949 in Ellsworth, Kansas, to Lloyd and Marge (Stepp) Hubbs. He grew up in small towns in Kansas and Nebraska before attending Nebraska Wesleyan University and the University of Nebraska, where he received a MA in Music Education. In college he met his future wife, Marjorie Jones, and as school teachers making the most of Christmas break, they were married the day after Christmas, 1971. Don taught high school music for several years before eventually taking up piano tuning and repair, the career he would maintain until his retirement. Later in life he accepted a role in public service as the town clerk for the tiny township he called home, taking up the thankless responsibilities of budget and elections because they needed doing, and needed doing well.

Don’s love and concern for people came through in every situation. He loved meeting and chatting with new acquaintances and old friends; at more than one church he was given a key to the door so he could lock up once he was done chatting after the service. He enjoyed working with his hands, frequently making or building solutions when time was more available than money. He taught his children the value of hard work, faithfulness, and consistency through his example. If music was playing, you would frequently catch him conducting along with it. He passed his love of music on to his children, too; everyone learned at least one instrument and sang. When he had time to relax, Don loved fishing, reading, and listening to classical and jazz music.

During the last few years of his life Don had a fresh enthusiasm in his Christian faith as he explored what he described as the actual “good news” of the Gospel, which he distilled down to seven words: “Fear not. In Christ, God is Love.”

Don is survived by his wife of 52 years, Marj; five children: sons Chris (Becky) of Hiawatha, IA, Ryan of Seattle, WA, Aaron (Emily) of Wonewoc, WI, Andrew (Heather) of Cashmere, WA, and daughter Rebecca (Joel) Grette, of East Wenatchee, Wa, his mother Marge, of Springdale AR, sisters Lou(Bob) Maxson of Kearney, NE, and Joy Hubbs of Springfield, MO, brother David (Shelli) of Springdale AR, and eight grandchildren (Laura, Anwyn, Katie, Abigail, Isaiah, Avery, Henry, and Millie). He was preceded in death by his father, Lloyd, and grandson Burke Grette.

A Celebration of Life will be held at Grace Community Church (County Hwy AA) in Richland Center on Wednesday, Feb. 28th . Visitation will be from 10:30-12:00, with a service and time of sharing at noon. A light lunch will be served, and all are encouraged to stay and fellowship. The Clary Memorial Funeral Home is assisting the family with arrangements. Messages for the family may be left there.

The State of my Task Management, 2024

As a new year begins and I settle into a new-ish position at work, it has been time to again rethink my task management strategy.

Let’s set out the constraints first. My work computing ecosystem is a highly-constrained Windows laptop. My employer doesn’t provide any sort of task management software, and restricts any data flow between company devices and personal devices. I have access to my work email and calendar on my personal device, but it’s very hard to move data back and forth between domains.

Historically I haven’t really used task management apps. I have downloaded free ones and purchased paid ones on occasion, tried them out for a week or two, and then fell away from them one I got comfortable enough with the new task or role that the overhead of using the tool outweighed the benefit it provided me. I use my email inbox as my primary to-do list. If an email is still in the inbox, it means I need to take action on it. I like to use the inbox “snooze” function when I can to dismiss the email from my inbox and bring it back at some scheduled later date, but unfortunately “snooze” only works on the web version of Outlook, not the app versions, so I rarely use it. The upside of this is that I always have all my pending tasks staring me in the face. The downside of this is that I always have all my pending tasks staring me in the face.

I paid for Things on my iPhone and iPad a few years ago and have largely neglected them. But right now I have just enough different and new things on my plate between work and church that I need a coordinated reminder system to help make sure I don’t forget something. So last week I jumped back into Things, added a few categories and a couple dozen tasks, put a widget on my iPad Home Screen, and decided to give it a go.

I’m sure I cribbed my basic pattern for using Things from Rands but I have no idea which post. It works like this:

  1. During the day, as new to-dos come up, dump them into the Things inbox with as little overhead as possible.
  2. Every morning, triage that Inbox, assign due dates to things that need them, and file them appropriately into projects.
  3. Every morning, after triage, see what’s in Today. If there’s enough to keep me busy all day, I’m done. If I have some extra bandwidth, review the “Someday” tasks to see if there’s so thing to pull into Today.
  4. Start working and checking off tasks once they’re completed!

I’ve been working this way for a couple weeks now and I think it might take this time. I really enjoy being able to just quickly dump a to-do onto my phone when I think of it, knowing that I’ve already got a plan for reviewing it later. I have also unexpectedly enjoyed not having all my to-dos staring me in the face. By doing the triage and scheduling tasks, I have a level of comfort in knowing that whatever is on my Today widget on my iPad is all I need to worry about today. I’ve had a couple small panics so far where I jump into the Upcoming view to make sure I do have some particular task scheduled, but I suppose that’ll fade as I start getting more consistent with using Things every day.

Recommended Reading: The Kingdom, The Power, and The Glory by Tim Alberta

My first completed book of the year is one I can wholeheartedly recommend: The Kingdom, The Power, and The Glory by Tim Alberta. Subtitled “American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism”, journalist Alberta’s book details his many interviews with American Evangelical leaders since the rise of Trump in 2016. He interrogates their motivations, how their words align with their actions, and how those words and actions comport with the teachings of Jesus.

Alberta is uniquely positioned to write a book like this. A professional journalist currently with The Atlantic, he has also written for, among others, Politico and The Wall Street Journal. But, as he reveals in the book’s initial chapters, he is also a pastor’s kid. His father, up until his untimely death, was the pastor of a large Evangelical Presbyterian church in Michigan. Alberta grew up a devoted Christian within that church, and continues today as a professing Christian. The Kingdom, The Power, and The Glory at places verges on memoir. But Alberta’s fluency with evangelical language, teaching, and culture give him an insight and authority that other journalists would lack.

If you have been following along in the Evangelical culture wars post-2016, most of the folks Alberta discusses will be familiar. He introduces them chapter by chapter: The Falwells and Liberty University, Robert Jeffress, and the Southern Baptist Convention. Firebrands like Greg Locke. Unabashed politicos like Ralph Reed. Fradulent historian David Barton. SBC stalwart-turned-outcast Russell Moore. Journalist Julie Roys. Pastor Brian Zahnd as a Midwestern prosperity preacher turned lonely prophet.

Whether it’s on purpose or just so close to home (for both the author and me) that Alberta couldn’t avoid it, the theme of children of Evangelicals turning and becoming their parents’ reproof played over and over through the book. Nick Olson, the son of an early Liberty student who came back to teach, only to be driven away when his politics didn’t align. Rachael Denhollender, the conservative homeschooled gymnast who, after bravely testifying against her abuser, became an advocate for sexual abuse victims within her own denomination. Cameron Strang, CEO of Relevant magazine, the son of a religious huckster. Jonathan Falwell, at a crossroads after taking over leadership of the “family business”, Liberty University. Alberta finally questions his own actions and motivations. Would he have been willing to ask these questions, to write this book, were his father still alive and in the pastorate? That question remains forever unknown. I understand, at least a little bit, Alberta’s quandary.

Over the past decade a pattern has emerged for me. When I encounter someone from my generation, usually online, who speaks with a resonant voice of sanity about America’s religion and politics, it turns out they, like me, grew up evangelical, usually homeschooled, and have spent their adult lives forging a path out. I’m thinking of people like author Lyz Lenz, new NYT film critic Alissa Wilkinson, writer and editor (and Alissa’s former podcast-hosting sidekick) Sam Thielman, NPR journalist Sarah McCammon, and famous lawyer spouse Jacob Denhollander, kindred spirits all. I’m now going to add Tim Alberta to that list.

At the end of the book, Alberta expresses an uncertain hope that this younger generation is successfully turning the evangelical world away from the worst of its political debauchery. To my mind, that jury is still out. Leader after leader throughout the book express their befuddlement and confusion as to why so much of the Evangelical church has been willing to follow political prophets away from the call of Jesus. Like them, Alberta doesn’t have the answer. But with this book, he has done what he can: incontrovertably documenting the political corruption of the American Evangelical church for anyone willing to read it.

A short note on Travel Planning

I have found myself, since returning home from Washington, DC in mid-December, without any travel on my calendar. Normally I travel a half-dozen times per year for work, meaning usually at any given point I’ve got something at least on the calendar. But right now? Nope.

That may be changing here in the next week or two, with a new possible travel destination for me: York, UK. Somehow I’ve been to Europe 8 or 9 times but never to the UK. I’d be happy to add it to my list!

My 2023 Reading in Review

Another year full of books! (Previous summaries: 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007…

I read 72 books for the year, which feels like a nice even number. There’s still a lot of theology and science fiction in the list, but I read more science this year, along with several memoirs.

Here’s the full list of reading, with particular standouts noted in bold:

Theology

  • Out of the Embers: Faith After the Great Deconstruction by Bradley Jersak
  • On the Soul and the Resurrection by St. Gregory of Nyssa
  • Reparations: A Christian Call for Repentance and Repair by Duke L. Kwon
  • Sanctifying Interpretation: Vocation, Holiness, and Scripture by Chris E. W. Green
  • The Peaceable Kingdom: A Primer in Christian Ethics by Stanley Hauerwas
  • Art and Faith: A Theology of Making by Makoto Fujimura
  • Not All Who Wander (Spiritually) Are Lost by Traci Rhodes
  • A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward an Undivided Life by Parker J. Palmer
  • Trauma-Informed Evangelism: Cultivating Communities of Wounded Healers by Charles Kiser
  • Christ in Evolution by Ilia Delio
  • Breathing Under Water: Spirituality and the Twelve Steps by Richard Rohr
  • The Phenomenon of Man by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
  • The New Being by Paul Tillich

Green is wonderful here. I posted a few excerpts while reading it that would be a good introduction.

Science and History

  • The Evolution of Knowledge: Rethinking Science for the Anthropocene by Jurgen Renn
  • Unmasking Autism: Discovering the New Faces of Neurodiversity by Devon Price
  • Fundamentals of Software Architecture: An Engineering Approach by Mark Richards
  • Mindsight: The New Science of Personal Transformation by Daniel J. Siegel
  • The Technology Trap: Capital, Labor, and Power in the Age of Automation by Carl Benedikt Frey
  • Out of the Wreckage: A New Politics in the Age of Crisis by George Monbiot
  • The Book of Genesis: A Biography by Ronald Hendel
  • Digging Up Armageddon: The Search for the Lost City of Solomon by Eric H. Cline
  • Secular Faith: How Culture Has Trumped Religion in American Politics by Mark Alan Smith
  • Until the End of Time: Mind, Matter, and Our Search for Meaning in an Evolving Universe by Brian Greene
  • The Book of Job: A Biography by Mark Larrimore
  • On the Origina of Time: Stephen Hawking’s Final Theory by Thomas Hertog
  • Quantum Reality by Nick Herbert
  • The Talmud: A Biography by Barry Scott Wimpfheimer
  • The Case Against Reality: Why Evolution Hid the Truth from Our Eyes by Donald D. Hoffman

Memoir and Biography

  • Every Good Boy Does Fine: A Love Story, in Music Lessons by Jeremy Denk
  • Still Just a Geek: An Annotated Memoir by Wil Wheaton
  • Agent Josephine: American Beauty, French Hero, British Spy by Damien Lewis
  • Heretic: A Memoir by Jeanna Kadlec
  • Joel on Software by Joel Spolsky
  • God on the Rocks: Distilling Religion, Savoring Faith by Phil Madeira
  • All My Knotted-Up Life: A Memoir by Beth Moore
  • Mystics and Zen Masters by Thomas Merton
  • Birth of a Dancing Star: My Journey from Cradle Catholic to Cyborg Christian by Ilia Delio
  • How Far the Light Reaches: A Life in Ten Sea Creatures by Sabrina Imbler
  • Being Heumann: An Unrepentant Memoir of a Disability Rights Activist by Judith Heumann
  • Making It So: A Memoir by Patrick Stewart

I posted some appreciation for Stewart before I got my hands on his memoir. The memoir did not disappoint. He’s an imperfect, lovely man. The book was a pleasure to read. Also, he’s a great example of why we need funding for arts and arts education. But I digress.

Other Miscellaneous Non-Fiction

  • My Bright Abyss by Christian Wiman
  • Oscar Wars: A History of Hollywood in Gold, Sweat, and Tears by Michael Schulman
  • The Ultimate Quest: A Geek’s Gude to (The Episcopal) Church by Jordan Haynie Ware
  • Transitions: Making Sense of Life’s Changes by William Bridges

Fiction

  • The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin (re-read)
  • A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers (re-read)
  • Dead Lions by Mick Herron
  • Don’t Cry for Me by Daniel Black
  • The Passenger by Cormac McCarthy
  • The Bayern Agenda by Dan Moren
  • Record of a Spaceborn Few by Becky Chambers
  • Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
  • Hunting Time by Jeffrey Deaver
  • Ordinary Monsters by J. M. Miro
  • The Mountain in the Sea by Ray Nayler
  • The Morning Star by Karl Ove Knausgard
  • Babel by R. F. Kuang
  • Translation State by Ann Leckie
  • Average Jones by Samuel Hopkins Adams
  • The Odyssey by Homer, trans. Emily Wilson
  • Red Queen by Juan Gomez-Jurado
  • The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin
  • The Fifth Season by N. K. Jemisin
  • Blackouts by Justin Torres
  • Starter Villain by John Scalzi
  • The Testament of Mary by Colm Toibin
  • Girl One by Sara Flannery Murphy
  • Titanium Noir by Nick Harkaway
  • My Old Home: A Novel of Exile by Orville Schell
  • The Helsinki Affair by Anna Pitoniak
  • Time’s Mouth by Edan Lepucki
  • The Collector by Daniel Silva

Schell’s epic story following a young man’s life growing up in 20th century China is beautiful and tragic and very worth the read.

Summary

One of my goals from previous years was to read fewer books written by white guys. By my count, 24 of this year’s books meet that goal… which isn’t as good as I’d hoped it would be. That science section didn’t help in that regard. I made a stronger shift this year, though, away from theology and to science. That wasn’t super-intentional, but just where my interest was at the time.

On to 2024! I’m nearly halfway through my first book of the year.

Chopin Being Mean

I have hacked through the Chopin Ballades for years now. I started learning the first one in high school, and in adulthood I played through #3 and #4 often enough that I can, well, hack through them. I never spent the time working everything out and polishing; I just kept sight reading until I could blaze through it.

This past week I decided it was time to actually sit down with #4 and work it out more carefully. Today I got to this pictured section which, when sight reading, had always thrown me for a loop. Practicing the right hand by itself, I finally realized what makes it such a pain.

It’s 6/8 time. On the first line, the bass has gone to triplets in each eighth note. Then on the second line, the right hand picks up triplets per eighth, while the left switches to sixteenths. Ok, that’s 3 against 2, no big deal.

But while the right hand is in triplets, the pattern written (as indicated by the eighth notes on the up stems) is a four-note pattern, almost an Alberti pattern. So, you have what is by pattern a four-beat pattern, played as triplets against two in the bass. My brain wants to interpret that as four against two, which is very simple. But it’s not - rhythmically, it’s 3 against 2, but the 3s are logically and musically grouped in sets of four. This one is gonna take my brain a while to work out.