You have written something kind here -- but also true about what the movement has become. It's hard to thread that line, but I appreciate your clear writing and open heart.
As a Brit I have found the recent goings on, and criticism of, current American evangelicals puzzling. I think mostly because my image has been of the older style you highlight in your essay which was my upbringing and I still carry with me. Therefore a lot of the criticism felt harsh and too generalised although clearly on point for what to me was an "odd minority".
Your essay as therefore helpful both in understanding how things had developed in America and also confirming my own sense of what evangelicalism was "really like" even if unfortunately it is not all like that at this present time.
It also confirms my wariness of over generalisation and responding to people based on their "tribal grouping" rather than taking each person on their own values as an independent entity who may have affiliations to organisations who's values may not completely match their own.
I came from a Lutheran family background that reached some other theological conclusions, but ran from a liberal, social justice oriented, and deeply liturgical place to something that is disturbingly close to the sexist, defined role, homophobic. Over the last few decades, Lutheranism has split. Missouri Synod, and especially Wisconsin Synod have become more and more a part of the White Evangelism world, While LCA has become more and more liturgical and episcopal.
Coming from Missouri Synod I am accounted a heretic by family members. ::sigh::
Add my enthusiastic thank you, Diana, to the other comments! The two branches of evangelicalism and some history--so good for me to get this perspective. I'll go back over my own manuscript's introduction with your thoughts in mind.
Thank you for this essay! I also found a "home" in evangelicalism for a time, and I have wondered how I could have been so oblivious to the authoritarian/racist/misogynist environment that it must have been with what evangelicalism now looks like from the outside. But I recognize "my" recalled evangelical home as the liberation evangelicalism you described, and I am so relieved to know what I remember with fondness was real and that there "might be again" a much bigger "tent" of what evangelicalism can be.
I, too, came of age in the 1970s, and was swept up in Evangelical fervor. I went to Son City, the enormous youth group out of which Willow Creek Community Church was born. I went to Trinity College in Deerfield, Illinois, and I was there as they made their transition from slightly more open-minded evangelicalism to narrow, right-wing Republican evangelicalism. The transition in 1982-83 was jarring and disruptive. But the “in-crowd”/“out-crowd” mentality of evangelical Christianity has always been there. People who are born again are going to heaven. People who aren’t are going to hell. They pretty much believe that the Bible is inerrant to some degree. No matter how into social justice an Evangelical may purport to be, they are set up for supremacy and this spiritual elitism. That said, I miss the “heart and soul” devotion to Jesus. The Mainline is so heady and unemotional. Wish we could better integrate heart mind and strength in faith.
I think that this question would be a good discussion topic say with Eddie Glaude, Jr.-and it would further be interesting to look at the question in the context of-are evangelicals at the “after Trump” point?
I’m all for as many examples of faith development/faith formation as I can find. Especially as applied to adults, as I come from Roman Catholic tradition where (almost) every parish works very hard on educating children up until confirmation and then we’re sorta finished then?
So, reading “Freeing Jesus” is fitting the bill nicely as DBB clearly lays out her journey. I was sort of shocked by that part of the book where DBB writes about seminary on the North Shore of Boston. I lived there for some time and have a good friend that went to school there but she became an optometrist. ( She sees the light all the time. sorry, couldn’t resist)
I'm glad you wrote this essay. I was a part of your "open house" on April 23 and asked the question about where we are in the process of the "great awakening" you wrote about Christianity After Religion. I'm writing a book with and about Noel Paul Stookey (of Peter, Paul, and Mary) and his solo music and faith journey, which took him into and beyond evangelicalism. I proposed the book to him because I see in stories like yours and his a model for what growth in faith can be. As a former United Methodist campus minister, I have long been interested how to encourage people to grow into a more expansive, generous, and justice-loving faith and have come to believe the memoir theology is a powerful way of doing that because it can influence without head-on confrontation. Memoir theology has an essential role in any form of spiritual awakening. The fact that you can both critique and value your journey through evangelicalism make your witness all the more powerful. Thank you.
Thank you for a clear, honest and personal (in the best sense of that word) reflection. Many would have "walked on the other side of the street" to avoid the question you address. And, of course, those of us in mainline protestant churches have our own ways of avoiding a transforming, for us and our culture, friendship with the man we claim to follow.
You have written something kind here -- but also true about what the movement has become. It's hard to thread that line, but I appreciate your clear writing and open heart.
As a Brit I have found the recent goings on, and criticism of, current American evangelicals puzzling. I think mostly because my image has been of the older style you highlight in your essay which was my upbringing and I still carry with me. Therefore a lot of the criticism felt harsh and too generalised although clearly on point for what to me was an "odd minority".
Your essay as therefore helpful both in understanding how things had developed in America and also confirming my own sense of what evangelicalism was "really like" even if unfortunately it is not all like that at this present time.
It also confirms my wariness of over generalisation and responding to people based on their "tribal grouping" rather than taking each person on their own values as an independent entity who may have affiliations to organisations who's values may not completely match their own.
I came from a Lutheran family background that reached some other theological conclusions, but ran from a liberal, social justice oriented, and deeply liturgical place to something that is disturbingly close to the sexist, defined role, homophobic. Over the last few decades, Lutheranism has split. Missouri Synod, and especially Wisconsin Synod have become more and more a part of the White Evangelism world, While LCA has become more and more liturgical and episcopal.
Coming from Missouri Synod I am accounted a heretic by family members. ::sigh::
Thank you Diana for your clarity and wisdom. Great article!
The truth(and brevity) of this evangelicalism is what keeps me going. Thank you!
Add my enthusiastic thank you, Diana, to the other comments! The two branches of evangelicalism and some history--so good for me to get this perspective. I'll go back over my own manuscript's introduction with your thoughts in mind.
Thank you for this essay! I also found a "home" in evangelicalism for a time, and I have wondered how I could have been so oblivious to the authoritarian/racist/misogynist environment that it must have been with what evangelicalism now looks like from the outside. But I recognize "my" recalled evangelical home as the liberation evangelicalism you described, and I am so relieved to know what I remember with fondness was real and that there "might be again" a much bigger "tent" of what evangelicalism can be.
I, too, came of age in the 1970s, and was swept up in Evangelical fervor. I went to Son City, the enormous youth group out of which Willow Creek Community Church was born. I went to Trinity College in Deerfield, Illinois, and I was there as they made their transition from slightly more open-minded evangelicalism to narrow, right-wing Republican evangelicalism. The transition in 1982-83 was jarring and disruptive. But the “in-crowd”/“out-crowd” mentality of evangelical Christianity has always been there. People who are born again are going to heaven. People who aren’t are going to hell. They pretty much believe that the Bible is inerrant to some degree. No matter how into social justice an Evangelical may purport to be, they are set up for supremacy and this spiritual elitism. That said, I miss the “heart and soul” devotion to Jesus. The Mainline is so heady and unemotional. Wish we could better integrate heart mind and strength in faith.
I think that this question would be a good discussion topic say with Eddie Glaude, Jr.-and it would further be interesting to look at the question in the context of-are evangelicals at the “after Trump” point?
I’m all for as many examples of faith development/faith formation as I can find. Especially as applied to adults, as I come from Roman Catholic tradition where (almost) every parish works very hard on educating children up until confirmation and then we’re sorta finished then?
So, reading “Freeing Jesus” is fitting the bill nicely as DBB clearly lays out her journey. I was sort of shocked by that part of the book where DBB writes about seminary on the North Shore of Boston. I lived there for some time and have a good friend that went to school there but she became an optometrist. ( She sees the light all the time. sorry, couldn’t resist)
I so love a good history lesson. Thank you Diana!
I'm glad you wrote this essay. I was a part of your "open house" on April 23 and asked the question about where we are in the process of the "great awakening" you wrote about Christianity After Religion. I'm writing a book with and about Noel Paul Stookey (of Peter, Paul, and Mary) and his solo music and faith journey, which took him into and beyond evangelicalism. I proposed the book to him because I see in stories like yours and his a model for what growth in faith can be. As a former United Methodist campus minister, I have long been interested how to encourage people to grow into a more expansive, generous, and justice-loving faith and have come to believe the memoir theology is a powerful way of doing that because it can influence without head-on confrontation. Memoir theology has an essential role in any form of spiritual awakening. The fact that you can both critique and value your journey through evangelicalism make your witness all the more powerful. Thank you.
Diane I am so glad you are getting a wilder audience! You say it so clearly!
Like you, we can celebrate the birthing of our faith development! I just glad you can articulate it so well!
As they say, “You go girl you’re doing great!”
Thank you for a clear, honest and personal (in the best sense of that word) reflection. Many would have "walked on the other side of the street" to avoid the question you address. And, of course, those of us in mainline protestant churches have our own ways of avoiding a transforming, for us and our culture, friendship with the man we claim to follow.