broken souls, broken hearts

[tielan]

Rachel Held Evans' piece on Life After Evangelicalism speaks powerfully to me.

The comments are as you would expect, though: concern trolls, mansplainers, HillaryButs, and #NotAllEvangelicals. 90% of them far more concerned with the state of their own reputation and (self-)righteousness than the wounded hearts of others.

I think that what I like is that she doesn't blanket advocate leaving the Evangelical movement in the essay, just lets the broken and hurting people know they're not alone and that they don't have to give up Jesus in giving up the Evangelical church - no matter what the Evangelical church claims.

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Possibly relevant for beatrice_otter and coffeeandrings: Light.

I don't think this is a 'dark time' - at least not in the way the panicking Christian thinks it is. Frankly, a world in which I can't even admit to reading the Bible for fear of death, is a world in which I learn how real my faith is. Is it terrifying? Hell to the yes. Would I rather not have to go through it? Well, duh.

But I'd learn that my faith was real. I'd be reminded that God is not my vending machine. I'd be reminded that whatever happens, I am still His. I don't think that enough Christians - Australian, American, anywhereian - quite comprehend that these days.

And it's a little weird, I think. Christians have always been taught that our 'persecution' would take the shape of the Roman persecution of the late empire. In fact, I think the church's greatest temptation will be to be offered the world and lose its soul - and I think they just took the first lie about the fruit that will ultimately cause its fall - "if you take on the power of the world, you will not die spiritually as God has claimed but will be like Him, having the power to define good and evil".

Comments

[beatrice_otter]

I think that we as Christians have confused having a lot of butts in pews and being able to chase off and silence the competition with spreading the Gospel. People long to get back to the 50s/60s when things were booming and the power of the church was highest. But you know what? There were a lot of people in those pews who weren't Christian, or were only nominally so. For example, my mother's parents were atheists. They went to church because it was just what people did.

It's when you can't control things--when there's no worldly incentive to toe the party line--that you find out who's a disciple and who isn't.

[tielan]

See, that was probably the case here, too - the Billy Graham crusades of the 60s. And yes, we have the nominal Christians. I'm not entirely sure of the charting of that time to the present, where we have much less people in the church life, but there is an honest desire to know and learn more, and to share the good news of God, and to trust him better.

It would be an interesting study, I think.