Is Evangelicalism Worth Saving?
There has been an ongoing conversation, especially since 2016, of what evangelicalism is, who evangelicals are, and who gets to say who is in and who is out. David Brooks’ latest column at the New York Times is another entry into this seemingly never-ending discussion.
Brooks features heavy hitters like Thabiti Anyabwile, Tim Dalrymple, Kristen Kobes Du Mez, Beth Moore, Russell Moore (no relation), Karen Swallow Prior, and Tim Keller. Each of these people are big names in evangelicalism. And all of them share some variation of the same story: evangelicalism is not what it was, it’s not what it should be, but maybe it can be. Maybe there is still hope, still time to correct what is wrong?
Brooks does a fantastic job laying out a path for how evangelicalism can change. How new coalitions can form from the rubble of what Trump, sex scandals, and racial tensions have created. Brooks, and those he interviewed like Karen Swallow Prior, lays out a hopeful future for evangelicalism. He points out that evangelicals have survived hard times before. Why should this one be any different?
There is a reason why this time might be different. One issue needs to be dealt with if evangelicalism is to be saved if it is even worth saving. Brooks briefly mentions the work of political scientist Ryan Burge in a paragraph noting that “In 2020, roughly 40 percent of the people who called themselves evangelical attended church once a year or less, according to research by the political scientist Ryan Burge. It’s just a political label for them.”
In the same Twitter thread, Burge introduces more research showing that the number of white, self-identified evangelicals who vote Republican has grown since 2008. In 2008, this group was 45% Democrat and 36% Republican. In 2020, according to Burge, that has shifted to 18% Democrat and 65% Republican.
Based on this research by Burge, two things are clear: 1) evangelicalism is becoming a political label for a not insignificant number of people, and 2) that political label is becoming more and more Republican. This is a problem. It’s a problem because it shows that what it means to be an evangelical is becoming increasingly narrow. Sure, as Brooks does, one can always say that evangelicalism is not a hierarchical movement, and so there is no one person or entity to say who is in and who is out. And as long as that is the case, people can still work to correct the course of the evangelical movement.
While there may not be a single person or entity to say who is in evangelicalism and who is out, most evangelicals are already deciding that. The people are banding together and saying that what it means to be evangelical is, to some degree, to be Republican and support Donald Trump, to stick with pastors who have moral failures but have the correct beliefs (political or otherwise), and to adhere to an ideology that favors white men over women and people of color.
Evangelicals who wish to save the movement will have to grapple with this truth. But who will listen to them? Beth Moore was told to “go home” by a famous evangelical pastor, and she has been clear that she left the SBC, an evangelical institution. Russell Moore has also left the SBC, or it may be more appropriate to say Russell Moore got pushed out because he supported survivors of church sex abuse. While both Moores are still affiliated with evangelicalism, many of their evangelical peers have publicly rejected them as representatives of the movement. Thabiti Anyabwile had a Twitter thread that is essentially him saying that he is done with the label. Can these dissenters save a movement that does not want them? Is it even worth saving if these are the kinds of people that evangelicalism does not want?
And this does not even begin to broach the subject that evangelicalism is supposed to be a movement about spreading the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Instead, it is now at least as much about the “good news” of the political right as it is about Jesus. This is a problem. Not that evangelicalism is too political, but that its politics do not look like the things Jesus cared about it. Its values are warped and at risk of becoming a caricature of themselves if they are not already.
If evangelicalism is worth saving, it must be stripped from the clutches of radical right-wing politics. It also needs to be safeguarded against being used by either the left or the right for their political purposes. Evangelicals would become politically homeless, finding that they do not fit in neatly in any party, but that will make the movement healthier. It would also help to make our politics at large healthier.
4 More Things
1) Thomas J. Main writing for the Bulwark answers whether the illiberal right or left is worse. The answer shouldn’t be shocking to those who are paying attention, it’s the illiberal right by a wide margin. While the rise of illiberalism on both sides of the political spectrum is cause for concern, Main makes the case that at this time the illiberal Right is more troublesome simply due to their size. “Moreover, while the Right illiberal audience is nearly a third the size of the mainstream Right’s following, the Left illiberal audience is just 0.2 percent of the mainstream Left audience.”
2) David Gilbert writes in Vice about a heartwarming story of how Wordle is helping one family build back a relationship damaged by QAnon. We’ve written in this newsletter before about the need for relationships to help combat QAnon and divisive partisanship. That seems to be what is happening here for the mother and daughter Gilbert writes about. “Wordle appears to have done a very similar thing [to QAnon],” Joe Ondrak, head of investigations for Logically, an organization that combats online misinformation, told VICE News in a message. “A community has assembled, sharing an interest and understanding, who are meeting to discuss strategies and ways of understanding it further.”
3) Over at The Atlantic, Jennifer Miller has a great article about what college students think about cancel culture. There seems to be a story every week about how cancel culture has come for someone else, either on the right or the left. Many of those stories involve college campuses, so it’s good to see a piece that not only speaks to college students, but gets those students to talk about how they are trying to create spaces for free speech and inquiry. This quote in particular shows that college students may be more accepting than many of us have been led to believe. “We try to remind people [at our meetings], if somebody says something offensive or bad, you can make that into a learning experience,” Nahhas said. “The next time you see them, you don’t have to feel bitter about it. You don’t have to freeze them in time.”
4) William Saletan is over at Bulwark talking about how lies are the foundation for Trump’s authoritarianism. Saletan says it best himself, “It turns out that you don’t have to renounce any of our nation’s founding principles to betray them. All you have to do is believe lies: that real ballots are fake, that prosecutors are criminals, and that insurrectionists are political prisoners. Once you believe these things, you’re ready to disenfranchise your fellow citizens in the name of democracy. You’re ready to cover up crimes in the name of fighting corruption. You’re ready to liberate coup plotters in the name of justice.”