Category: Evangelicalism
From the Ashes
Despite formidable remnants of power, the western late-modern system and its globally imperial philosophies are collapsing under the weight of their internal inconsistencies and increasingly visible external shortcomings. For evidence of our collectively culpable failure, one need only look to...
Missing the Subtler Yet Greater Problem: Replying to “Jesus and John Wayne”
Author’s Note I wrote and submitted this essay in advance of the January 6th events at the Capitol. Since then there has been a deluge of think-pieces and journalistic treatments of the events and the role “evangelicals” had in them....
A Homegrown Christian Insurgency
We’re living between the times. We’re in the territory of the “already, but not yet.” Is the kingdom of insurgency at hand?
Accusations Aren’t Evidence: Responding to “Jesus and John Wayne”
Flannery O’Connor’s short story “Revelation” begins with a holier-than-thou character having a book, along with her sin, thrown in her face. She returns home with a bruised face and bruised pride to reflect on her sins. For many of us,...
Jesus Plus Masculinity for America’s Sake: Replying to “Jesus and John Wayne”
As I reflected on Calvin University professor Kristin Du Mez’s brilliantly provocative and painful, Jesus and John Wayne, I realized how many different intersections I had with her subject. After all, I serve as a pastor in a Presbyterian denomination...
Defining “White Evangelical Crap”
One of the comments I got in response to Monday’s post was a fairly simple question: “What exactly do you have in mind when you talk about ‘white evangelical crap?'” It’s a fair question. So here’s an attempt at an...
After Evangelicalism
Recently I was talking with a dear friend about how the gift that our particular collegiate experience gave us could be summarized this way: It made it possible for us to disentangle “Christianity” from “stupid American evangelical crap.”
An Unbelieving Church
Author and psychiatrist, Curt Thompson, once remarked “we become what we pay attention to.” Reformulated as a question, it becomes arguably the guiding question we need today, namely who are you becoming? In a time of political crisis and social...
Radio Theatre and the Problem of Evangelical Art
I. Embed from Getty Images Either you’ve never heard the name John Avery Whittaker, or you recognize it like an old friend’s. In fact, his friends call him Whit. You’ll like him immediately, and the more you learn about his...
What the Courtship Movement and the Jedi Both Get Wrong
We are going to play a game. The game is called “Joshua Harris or Jedi Path?” and if you bring it out at parties, you will not be invited back.