Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Clint Schnekloth

Home
Progressive Christian
If You’re Evangelical It’s Time For You To Leave

If You’re Evangelical It’s Time For You To Leave

Last updated on: November 17, 2021 at 1:46 pm by Clint Schnekloth

If You’re Evangelical It’s Time For You To Leave 2021-11-17T13:46:07-05:00 Clint Schnekloth

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Christianity historically has been a capacious body. There’s room for difference (think, for example, of the four gospels, each with a different telling of the narrative of Jesus).

Sometimes the very back-and-forth of dialogical discernment of truth itself becomes part of that body (think for example of the letters of Paul to the Corinthians, or the Lutheran Augsburg Confession and the Apology to it, where the confession of the faith records the call and response of disputation and clarification).

But…

At some point, certain viewpoints are so at odds with Christianity, so at odds with the good news of Jesus Christ, so at odds with truth they need to be rejected altogether. Christian responsibility at that point is to vote with your feet.

The co-optation of evangelicalism and various strains of populist Christianity by “Christian nationalism” is such a moment.

It’s no longer that the evangelicals have one truth, and the Catholics another, and mainline Protestants another.

Conservative evangelicalism has left the building. If you’re still affiliating with it, it’s time for you to leave.

I’m certainly aware that many faithful people in evangelical churches oppose at least some of the harmful views of the majority. I hear the pain from those evangelicals, struggling as they are to find their way in a religious movement that is drifting further and further away from them.

But at this point, evangelicalism (and the various strains of populist Christianity that ride alongside it, like Southern Baptists, mega-churches, etc.) is so beholden to forces antithetical to the gospel of Christ, I believe there is nothing there to reform, and so many ways to get to healthier spaces.

Remaining means propping up an establishment that is doing immeasurable harm to our world, our nation, and the faith itself.

You can’t really say “I’m inclusive and support LGBTQ+ people” if you continue to give financially to churches who exclude LGBTQ+ from the pulpit and church leadership.

And you can’t really say you are truly for immigrants and others in harms way of Christian nationalism if you keep propping up with your presence and your membership an institution that offers cover for, or actively encourages, arguing for us to become a nation of just one religion (or arguing, as many do, that we always were a “Christian” nation).

This is now the moment when John Hagee’s worship leaders are leading chants with a few thousand worshippers of “Let’s Go Brandon!”

This is the movement that fails to speak out publicly in condemnation of someone like Michael Flynn, who recently said:

“If we are going to have one nation under God, which we must, we have to have one religion. One nation under God, and one religion under God.”

Make no mistake, this is the Christo-fascist goal of the majority of Republicans. If it weren’t, Republicans and prominent evangelical voices would be condemning Flynn. They aren’t.

And in my experience, this is how conservative evangelical Christians actually operate in public spaces. If I attend quorum court meetings or other public events led by evangelicals, they force everyone there to pray “in the name of Jesus,” living out an apparent fiction that everyone present will identify with their prayers.

As I said, Christo-fascism.

I wish I could encourage those in conservative churches to remain and work for change, but I’m afraid there’s honestly nothing redeeming left.

When Christians start putting an American flag inside the fish symbol and affixing it to their cars, it’s clear both they do not comprehend the irony of such an act, and they also truly believe that Christianity and America are essentially the same thing.

This is idolatry. Generally speaking nobody needs to stay in an idolatrous space and fix it. The appropriate response to idolatry is to walk away.

For those who are thinking about leaving, I have a couple of pastoral encouragements for you. I guess they are prayers, in a sense.

First, I pray you’ll have time to be yourself for a while. I’m not trying to get you to come join my church or one like mine. That would be perpetuating the same kind of manipulative proselytization endemic in evangelical circles. It’s okay to just be yourself. You don’t have to be instrumentalized as someone else’s salvation project.

Second, there are increasing tools around to do this work, the necessary work of recalibrating away from harmful religious beliefs and communities. Check out deconstruction videos on TikTok if this interests you, or just do some independent reading on your own in the Scriptures with which you’re already familiar, but be open to the idea that Scripture doesn’t actually say much or most of what evangelicals believe and practice.

Third, lots of love to you. Leaving is hard work. There are many relationships there that will have to change.

But if you want to do the work of justice, if you want to live into the kingdom of God, part of that living into necessarily means first putting up boundaries to exclude practices and organizations currently operating in opposition to God’s kin-dom.

There’s a path forward. But it may first necessitate a leaving.

Uncategorized

Previous Post

November 9, 2021

Deconstruction! Ironic Learnings of "Pastor" for Make Benefit Weak Faith of Post-Pandemic

Next Post

November 21, 2021 Ableism and the Elements For Communion

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category #blacklivesmatter advocacy Avengers baptisms Capitalism church growth clergy silence corporate ethics Creation Care Donald Trump elections Evangelicals Evangelism Friendship hermeneutics Immigration Intersex introverts Jesus Labor Liturgy Lutheran MLK Jr. New urbanism Pentecost philanthropy Poem political theology Post-program church Prayer private devotion Reformation Refugees sacraments Scripture Secularity Sin small church social media Sovereignty Trauma-Informed Theology travel Trump Uncategorized wealth white supremacy Workers worship Youth

Select a Month January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 January 2016 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 May 2014 March 2014 June 2013 January 2013 December 2011 December 2010 February 2005 February 2004

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Who was the strongest man mentioned in the Bible?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Goliath Saul Samson David

Books by This Author Books by Clint Schnekloth

See All Titles »