Any author who uses Pat Robertson and James Dobson as spokespersons for evangelicals clearly fails to understand how diverse evangelical culture is. Those two were more likely to be spokespersons for fundamentalists, and in Robertson's case, the fringy charismatic variety of fundamentalist. This is a cardinal error in Carol Howard Merritt's HuffPost essay Why Evangelicalism is Failing a New Generation. It's only the first, but it's a big one.
This has to do with a cultural inability to define the damn word. Evangelical, depending upon whom you're speaking with, can mean anything from Pat Robertson to Jim Wallis, and from Billy Graham to Benny Hinn. The term means virtually nothing, but it's not helped by affixing it to two men who built ministries on divisiveness. Why not apply it to Jim Wallis and Brian McLaren? How about George W. Bush? Toss in Joyce Meyer while you're at it. Joel Osteen? You get the point. It's such a broad term that it has lost any denotative definition, and has instead become synonymous with "conservative Christian," but that is the fault of sloppy reporting, not evangelicals themselves.
Merritt wants to discuss the three factors she believes are driving young people from evangelical churches. Clearly, she hasn't been to Lifechurch.tv lately, but I suspect there is a dearth of megachurches in D.C. However, National Community Church in her own backyard seems to be doing quite well. Wonder what the average age is there. Anyway, much like Rachel Held Evans insisting the evolution/creation debate is driving scores of young people from the churches (again, likely fundamentalist, not evangelical), Merritt is guilty of projecting her own core issues onto the motives of others. I don't disagree with her assessment, mind you, but I would like to avoid false cause errors wherever possible. Her three issues:
- pernicious sexism
- religious intolerance
- conservative politics
Um, this probably sounds fucking awesome in HuffPost (and I love HuffPost), but it's clearly a failure to look beyond the street outside your D.C. townhouse to evaluate evangelicalism nationwide. Who the hell is she talking about when she says evangelical? I've met a few of these folks, but they don't self-identify as evangelical. More likely emergent, liberal, or mainline. But she says she's talking about herself, and I'm fine that Merritt considered herself an evangelical at one point. That she pastors Western Presbyterian Church in the nation's capital makes it very unlikely that her definition of evangelical would fly all that well down here where evangelicals make up more than 50% of the population. They are about 15% or less in D.C., and I say less because the Pew Forum map reports that number for Maryland/D.C.
That evangelicalism takes on the characteristics of the culture in which it's embedded seems beyond contradiction, and the stronghold of evangelicalism is Dixie. This is important because these people see things far differently than a female Presbyterian pastor in D.C. Hell, they'd call her a liberal never having met her. Female, Presbyterian, East Coast, Pastor. Shit, they'd bet a thousand dollars to make five bucks that she performs same sex unions.
Again, I agree with her assessment of some of evangelicalism's demons, but these aren't the reasons young people are leaving in droves. (I should remind everyone at this point that young people have always left churches in droves, especially between 18-21. The test was whether they came back, and in many cases, especially first child, they do.) It's a difference of definitions again. She sees submission as sexism, and while I don't disagree, you don't get to tell people how to read their sacred texts. The interpretation chosen by complementarian evangelicals is consistent with the text. Sorry, it just is. This nearly always comes down to an issue of authority, not what the text actually says. If God truly did order wives to submit, it's not sexism; it's the law of God. If you don't like it, parse the Bible like most sane people do, or get out, like other sane people do, but don't insist that the text doesn't say what it says. You just sound deluded.
It's not religious intolerance to be exclusivist. She conflates exclusivism with intolerance. Many evangelicals I know love their neighbors of various faiths, and they believe those neighbors might be in danger of hell. That is not intolerance, folks. I expect evangelicals to act like evangelicals here in Oklahoma, not like...well...like East Coast PCUSA feminists. Kids here aren't leaving their churches for these reasons, not in large numbers.
I'll give her the nod on conservative politics, but seriously, colleges aren't suffering from want of members to join young Republican clubs. Many young evangelicals I know are content conservatives. They aren't wringing their hands about supporting the military, opposing abortion, and clamoring for smaller government. Again, to whom is she speaking? About whom is she speaking? Who does she think is leaving? I think she's talking about Sojourners kids, but as a former staffer told me a while back, a majority of the D.C. staffers are Republicans, kinder, gentler Republicans, kids who are fiscally conservative and socially moderate, but still Republicans. They still self-identify as evangelical.
Her last paragraph is worth quoting at length, because in it, she reveals the wishful thinking that animates her wistful analysis:
Where are all of the young Evangelicals going? That's hard to say. I found a home in the Presbyterian Church, but most of them probably aren't going anywhere for now. Nevertheless, this is an important moment for progressive Christians. There is a generation of people wandering, and many of them are hoping that their faith is made of something deeper than what they hear from the Evangelical talking heads.
It's fair to say that if you found a home in the Presbyterian Church, your evangelical bona fides were shaky to begin with. And if you believe progressive (whatever the fuck that means) churches will appeal to committed evangelicals, you're clearly deluded. I'm so weary of the hipster terms and nebulous labels. What is a progressive church? Please just call yourself liberal or post-liberal and get it over with. The inference is that you are progressive and those other folks are regressive. It's shitty theology and shitty ecclesiology, oh, and it's not very Christian.
Young people are leaving the church, but they are leaving all churches, not just evangelical churches. They are leaving because American Christianity offers nothing they can't get outside of church. That she believes "progressive" churches are better at offering something (other than intellectual stimulation) that evangelical churches can't provide, as if they aren't equally guilty of pandering (just pick the parts that "make sense"), shows that she truly misunderstands the actual problem. Her diagnosis plays well to a readership who already think with a leftward slant, but it's worthless in terms of diagnosing actual problems. Until she figures out that it is American Christianity in all its materialistic, individualistic, consumerist glory that is the problem, she'll keep thinking the PCUSA, sorry, progressive churches, have it figured out.
