Draw near
What does faith look like for an "ex-vangelical"?
In North America today there is a certain first-person narrative that frequently grabs the attention of the secular media. The typical storyline runs like this:
“I was raised in a Christian home where I was taught not to question the beliefs of my church community. My parents believed in, say, a literal six-day creation, a Bible that was dictated word for word by God himself to little more than secretaries, a sabbath observance that excluded sporting activities with friends and a laundry list of similarly negative items. This community created a closed environment that conflicted with my emerging sense of self, leaving me feeling oppressed.
“But eventually I saw the light and left all this behind. Now I’ve written a book about my experiences and am holding my former faith community up to severe scrutiny. I have broken with my past and have embraced the larger society’s less oppressive ways, receiving its applause, along with positive reviews from the mainstream media.”
Sound familiar?
Those telling such stories are often called “ex-vangelicals,” distancing themselves from their conservative religious past. However, not all such people become atheists or agnostics. Many retain belief in God and perhaps even in Jesus Christ, but their faith has become more idiosyncratic – a matter of adjusting what they were taught as children to who they feel themselves to be today. They have made themselves the arbiters of what is and is not acceptable in the faith.
I don’t want to evaluate such people too negatively, because I recognize that some may have suffered genuine trauma from those who have misinterpreted scripture. Finding healing is difficult for them, and they feel adrift.
Necessary community
However, the message of the gospel is that salvation is found solely in Jesus Christ, God incarnate, who entered the world, lived, suffered, died and rose to new life so that we too might be united to him and receive life eternal. Adjusting this message to my sense of self and the desires of my heart will not save me and, moreover, risks leaving me in my sins. Instead, I must die to self and give my whole life over to Christ.
And here’s the hard part: I must necessarily do all this as a member of the people of God, the body of Christ. This requires being part of a local church, filled with hypocrites and other sinners. It means adhering to the creeds and confessions of this community and remaining radically open to God’s word. This will not earn me plaudits from the larger culture. Neither will it earn me salvation. But I cannot work out my salvation alone. I can only do so alongside my fellow Christians, who are equally dependent on God’s grace and the work of the Holy Spirit.
If one is willing to learn, the book Exvangelicals provides important insights into why churches have not been effective in reaching the “nones.” I think it should be read by many in the CC circle because it sheds light on significant problems with the dominant Christian witness today. Dismissing it as inferior to one’s own perspective misses its core message. Mixing story evidence with more traditional approaches to theology may seem superficial to some; it is now a well-established approach to analysis in many fields. It can reach into and outside the self-reinforcing circles that characterize many churches.