I am sometimes asked why post-evangelicals have created and are retaining an identity and name that carries forward the religion we have left behind. Doesn’t that just reinscribe the trauma? Doesn’t it confuse the effort to define ourselves now? Doesn’t it make it harder for potential participants to rally around? Isn’t it time for us to come up with a positive, future-forward identity?
Good questions, indeed.
After all, Luther didn’t create a “post-Catholic” movement, Wesley didn’t create “post-Anglicanism,” Calvin didn’t create “post-Lutheranism,” and (inside baseball here) ex-Southern Baptists in the 1990s didn’t create the “Post-Southern Baptist Convention.” These leaders created Lutheranism, Methodism, Calvinism and both the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and the Alliance of Baptists.
David Gushee
So what is that we post-evangelicals are creating? Who is creating it? What is it to be called? Who will decide?
Because the answers to these questions are all uncertain, it is not possible to say what will come after post-evangelicalism.
But as a part of the founding generation of the U.S. post-evangelical movement, and now a member of the Wisdom Board of the promising Post-Evangelical Collective, I will at least venture a few observations.
First: Post-evangelical leaders have, on the whole, been marked by the traumatic experiences of marginalization and expulsion. They were part of the leadership cadres of their churches, parachurch organizations, colleges and publishing houses. When they began raising questions about doctrine, ethics or practice, they eventually were forced into exile.
Post-evangelicals did not begin with a reformist vision in order to create a post-evangelical movement. They were part of evangelical institutions until those institutions (or their own conscience) forced them out. Only then did they have to scramble to figure out what to do next and who to create new community with.
“Post-evangelicals did not begin with a reformist vision in order to create a post-evangelical movement.”
It stands to reason that, at least at this first stage of post-evangelicalism, this community and its leaders would be far easier to define in terms of the subculture they left behind, or that pushed them out, than by a positive reformist vision that they were pursuing that gave birth to a new religious movement.
Second: Post-evangelical leaders came out of the evangelical subculture, which was multidenominational and entrepreneurial. Evangelicalism was a religious subculture held together by shared worship styles, influential institutions and successful entrepreneurial personalities — and not by shared theology.
If you drill down, you can find post-SBC, post-Vineyard, post-Reformed, post-Bible church, post-Evangelical Free, post-Assemblies of God, post-Evangelical Covenant, post-Dallas Seminary, post-Church of Christ (and many other) streams within the broader post-evangelical movement. Sometimes when the Post-Evangelical Collective gathers nationally, one can spot people from one of these traditions finding each other and talking in detail about the specific part of the evangelical subculture they have left behind and what it is like to build something on the other side.
I think you also can discern regional differences that to some extent transcend denominations: Post-evangelicalism in Birmingham or Nashville just feels different than post-evangelicalism in L.A. or Boston or Grand Rapids.
It stands to reason that those coming out of this kind of religious subculture built on smaller mini-subcultures are not going to immediately arrive at a shared theological or ecclesial vision. Indeed, they/we may never arrive at a shared theological or ecclesial vision.
“We may never arrive at a shared theological or ecclesial vision.”
Third: There is no single post-evangelical thought leader, and post-evangelicalism as a subculture is actively trying to downplay individuals and platform-building.
Post-evangelicals are intimately acquainted with the massive money, power, status and often the abuse of power that was/is nurtured within the multibillion-dollar evangelical subculture. They have been in the green rooms and watched high religious status go to people’s heads. They want no part of any of that.
That makes it unlikely that any one towering personality will imprint their theological vision on the movement as a whole. Instead, post-evangelicals look so far to be theological and ecclesial explorers, with open borders and a hunger to hear from multiple voices.
No one person is going to define what post-evangelicalism will graduate to become. Various voices will be in the conversation; or, to change images, the post-evangelical table is round, and expandable; there is always room to pull up another chair.
What will the post-post-evangelical future look like, then?
Further innovation. Further development of varying theological perspectives: open and relational theology (shout-out to Thomas Oord), post-colonial theologies, liberationism, feminism, Indigenous theologies, Black and womanist theologies, LGBTQ-developed theologies, panentheist-leaning theologies, Social Gospel, kin(g)dom of God, maybe even Christian humanist theology (if I ever get that book written!)
Some churches will radically decenter “church” in order to center “neighbor” and community. Maybe they won’t meet in a building, or meet as often, and place themselves outside the doors, with neighbors, in community and service. Some will create partnerships with and/or “become” Mainline churches, in the meantime changing those churches and denominations. Some will focus on interfaith dialogue and partnerships. Some will center themselves on overcoming centuries-old racial divisions and leaning into deep reconciliation and antiracism efforts. Some will try to do all the above.
Look for the joyful energy of innovation at work. Construction sites are noisy, but they are places where creative humans build beautiful things.
That, I think, is what happens next. Indeed, that is what is happening right now.
David P. Gushee serves as Distinguished University Professor of Christian Ethics at Mercer University, chair in Christian social ethics at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and senior research fellow at International Baptist Theological Study Centre. He is past president of the American Academy of Religion and Society of Christian Ethics. He also is author of 30 books, including Righteous Gentiles of the Holocaust; Kingdom Ethics; Defending Democracy from Its Christian Enemies; Changing Our Mind; and The Moral Teachings of Jesus.
Related:
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The post-evangelicals take their next step forward | Opinion by David Gushee