A Reformation

 

There Is Hope

“The age of the narcissistic self, the age of consumerism and moral drift has left us with bitterness and division, a surging mental health crisis and people just being nasty to one another. Millions are looking for something else, some system of belief that is communal, that gives life transcendent meaning.”

David Brooks (“The Dissenters Trying to Save Evangelism from Itself,” New York Times, Feb. 4, 2022)

          David Brooks is both a masterful journalist and an old-school conservative Republican. I respect his views and him for having the courage to stand in his own truth knowing that it will bring the hounds of hell down on him. For the last six years, he has been a bastion of hope in an America spiraling into unrecognizability. And now, he’s written about evangelicals who are trying to turn their churches around to save them from the divisions and false prophets of this decade.

          One of the most mystifying things about the last six years for me has been watching the evangelical church aligning itself with the far right, with conspiracy theories and white-supremacy, and with politicians like Trump and, in Alabama, Judge Roy Moore. This inconsistency in the Christian moral code has led millions of people to leave the church in search of something that at least attempts to mirror the teachings of Jesus about service to the poor and those on the margins. I was especially taken by what Brooks wrote about young evangelicals, who are leaving the denomination in droves rather than continuing to support what is little more than a vocal branch of a political party. Russel Moore, who resigned from a leadership position in the Southern Baptist Convention, put it this way: “We now see young evangelicals walking away from evangelism not because they do not believe what the church teaches, but because they believe that the church itself does not believe what the church teaches.”

          It seems that young evangelical seminarians are interested in creating their own communities rather than joining established churches. These communities are smaller, more intimate, and authentic, and can fit into a living room in someone’s home. Sounds a lot like the early church, doesn’t it? And it reminds me once again of Fr. David Steindl-Rast’s prediction that future forms of authority will not be top-down, but a path from door to door. For that reason and many others, Brooks believes a reformation is happening in the evangelical world. It is true that the split is continuing, but it seems that something good may come from this one—a denomination reborn and closer to the teachings of Jesus. That can only be hopeful for all of us.

                                                  In the Spirit,

                                                  Jane