The Dones, Rob Bell, and the Future of Progressive (and Evangelical) Christianity

Last updated on: August 16, 2018 at 2:21 pm by Zach Hoag

The Dones, Rob Bell, and the Future of Progressive (and Evangelical) Christianity 2018-08-16T14:21:37-05:00 Zach Hoag

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.

Photo: Brett Thatcher, Creative Commons 4.0 via #InstaBLAM

A few days ago I wrote a piece on my personal blog about “Graduating.”
It was partly a reflection on the story of Rob Bell and how it resonates with my own. It was also about the “Dones” and “post-church” category and how I identify not with the category itself, but with certain elements of the category even as I carve out my own path ahead.

I am “done” – with evangelical church as usual. I’m done with any ministry obligation to that category and identity. I can’t do it anymore, and neither can my family.

In that sense, I am graduating.

That said, there is a flip side to the equation, and one that makes this promotion an emotional and spiritual move up rather than merely an ideological move left. Really, I find myself just as disinterested in being a good progressive as I am in being a good evangelical. This is a moving forward in that strange lane sometimes called the messy middle.

The day after I wrote my graduation post (amazing timing!), Jim Wellman (who literally wrote the book on Rob Bell) wrote his entry in the Patheos Public Square on the future of Progressive Christianity. The gist of his piece is that the “Dones” or “post-church” leaders like Rob Bell are emblematic of the fact that progressive churches don’t have much of a future. There’s just not enough reason for progressives to stay committed to church institutions, because their primary concern is championing the popular justice issues of the day, and their leaders can be accessed through other means (books, conferences, blogs, etc.).

Here’s Jim:

And so goes Progressive Christianity—from my perspective it lacks the social infrastructure that creates and sustains a social movement; its leaders are spiritual entrepreneurs rather than institution builders; their following is dispersed and has no motivation to gather together on a regular basis, except perhaps to hear a speech on their favorite writers newest book.

I just don’t see a robust future for this movement at this point.

Last month, Patheos Public Square hosted the conversation on the future of Evangelicalism, and an article from my friend John Hawthorne pushed a bit from the other side. John’s findings hint at a conflicted, decentered evangelical expression in America, such that growing hostility and exclusivism from the most conservative culture-war types will continue to both push dissenting evangelical voices out and push evangelicalism itself further into irrelevance.

Here’s John:

The next decade of evangelical life will be hotly contested within the group we’d consider as convictional Christians. The question, as Baylor theologian Roger Olson wrote this month, is whether the evangelical tent is large enough to handle the discussions and differences.

It would serve evangelicals well in the coming decade to return to David Bebbington’sdefinitional criteria for evangelicalism: high regard for scripture, the importance of Christ’s death on the cross, the need for conversion, and the need to share God’s Good News.

I think Jim and John are both right – and the future of the church in America will not lie on the progressive OR (conservative) evangelical “sides,” though certainly core elements of each can remain intact. Instead, the future will take shape as those who jettison their sense of allegiance to cultural evangelicalism AND to cultural progressivism move forward in that messy middle lane. This will mean a rethinking and reforming of the institutions, but not a total abandonment of them. I am inspired by the Dones and post-church crowd, but I am most interested in what it looks like to make use of the institutional structures to keep Eucharistic worship central and streamline everything else to emphasize God’s everyday mission in the world.

We need to take a lesson from those who are fully post-church but apply it to the future-church.

This is what I’ll be arguing for (Jesus-willing) in my forthcoming book After the Apocalypse. Because what we need now are not more cultural progressives and evangelicals, as both, I believe, are passing away in the current apocalypse of Christianity’s decline.

What we need now are post-apocalyptic believers, willing to defy categories and rebuild on the existing structures in completely new and compelling ways.

patheos public square

progressive

rob bell

Previous Post

July 24, 2015

Guns Don't Kill People...

Next Post

August 19, 2015 HBO's John Oliver takes televangelists and prosperity preachers to task - and it is PERFECT

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Uncategorized

Select a Month December 2018 August 2018 July 2018 July 2017 May 2017 January 2017 November 2016 October 2016 August 2016 July 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 March 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 March 2011

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz