I have attended conservative evangelical churches for my entire life. I began taking my Christian identity (and by consequence my Christian beliefs) seriously about halfway through high school, which for me was about 13 years ago at the time of this writing. There was no dramatic event or crisis which pushed me to do so. What drove me was this basic thought: If Christianity is true and if its claims are significant—meaning my agreement or disagreement with them is going to have a meaningful impact on either this life or the life to come (if there is a life to come), then I guess I should probably put some actual thought into 1.) what those claims are and 2.) whether I actually believe them. Thus, despite always hating school and not being naturally inclined toward reading, I have nevertheless spent countless hours reading books and articles and listening to lectures, sermons, and debates on just about every religious subject that has ever come to my attention.
I am happy to report that at the present time, 13-ish years later, I am quite strongly persuaded that what I see as the basic claims of the Christian faith are in fact true. Moreover, I still believe that what is broadly called evangelicalism (though the term is becoming increasingly meaningless) does in fact possess those basic truths. That being said, I have been observing the phenomena known as deconstruction and what’s called the “exvangelical” movement for several years now. For the record, I know most deconstructionists insist that deconstruction is not necessarily deconversion, but for my purposes here I will use them synonymously because those who deconstruct without deconverting are beyond the scope of what I intend to address.
Part of my interest in deconstruction is personal. Many of my closest friends from those early years—some of whom I looked up to as role models for what it looks like to practice Christianity seriously—have walked the exvangelical road. Many are now mostly apathetic to Christianity and the church, and some are now openly hostile to it. But beyond my personal experience with close friends deconstructing their faith, something else about this trend has captivated my attention: I actually think many of the common exvangelical arguments I hear have some teeth to them. They tap into frustrations I myself have had over the years.
Now, to be sure, I don’t mean to say the various arguments made by exvangelicals actually hold water as refutations of the Christian faith itself. I also don’t mean to suggest that prominent exvangelical voices are actually sincere and honest in how they go about making their case (though I do try to give the benefit of the doubt). What I do mean is that many of their arguments serve to highlight where the Christian faith as commonly expressed within what is usually considered conservative evangelicalism is in fact deficient. In other words, I believe there is some merit to the claim that evangelical churches can be atheism factories.
Of course, not everyone who leaves evangelicalism becomes an atheist or agnostic. Some adopt progressive Christianity, which I in turn view as religious atheism (yes, I know that is a paradoxical term). Others, although a minority, depart evangelical traditions for Roman Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy and I will also look to address some of those issues in the future. The point I am making is this: many of the popular criticisms of evangelicalism gain the most traction only against the backdrop of legitimate errors and deficiencies that are common (though certainly not universal) within it.
I intend to address some of what I see as the most glaring examples of these flaws, how they animate secular (and sometimes Roman Catholic or Orthodox) criticisms and, most importantly, give what I believe is a better alternative. My goal for this is not to merely refute various exvangelical arguments but rather to give a positive exposition of several key Christian ideas in light of various criticisms.
In my view, often times the best corrective to many of the very real errors and deficiencies common in modern evangelicalism is actually not to run to secularism or to one of the ecclesialist (Roman or Orthodox) traditions, but rather to return to a more historically-rooted classical Protestantism, especially the Reformed tradition. My hope is that this series will prove helpful to anyone who is either struggling with doubts about their faith, disillusioned with their Christian experience, or curious about whether or not Christianity is a viable belief system in the modern world.
Jonathan's Headspace 