The case for Gospel participation
Photos by Diana Simumpande, Nina Strehl, Matt Botsford, and Hannah Busing
Back in March, Gallup released polling results that sent shockwaves through American churches. For the first time since 1937 — when Gallup began surveying religious affiliation and church attendance — less than half of the United States belongs to a church of any kind.
And the hits keep coming, especially for white evangelicals. PRRI’s new The 2020 Census of American Religion report shows that white evangelicals have contracted from 23% of Americans in 2006 to just 14% in 2020. That’s a mass bleed out of about 30 million people.
White evangelical churches lose young people every year for a variety of reasons, a frequent one being that the subculture’s insular authoritarianism naturally leads to questioning certain teachings that are in tension with Scripture and the model of Christ. Political moderates are now just as likely to not be part of a church as liberals are. Conservative estimates put the number of church closings in the thousands every year.
Thoughtful leaders across the Church spectrum are expressing alarm and sadness. Why are people leaving? How did we get here? Other, more hyper-conservative white evangelicals are using America’s move into a “post-Christian” reality as a call to arms. The culture is winning. We must fight the liberal media. The enemy seeks to separate us. We have to stand our ground.
But many of us laypeople, parachurch workers, and leaders within the post-Baby Boomer generations found this news unsurprising. For years, we’ve warned that this day was both fast approaching and preventable. Our most engaged Christian supporters and friends have told us why they are leaving their churches, often in great detail. Many of us have now left, too.
Abuse, hypocrisy, and idolatry can drive even the most faithful Christians from their churches; however, these are often just the triggers for leaving. To better understand why, we need to explore two underlying currents in white evangelical culture.
White evangelicalism is built on consumerism and hierarchy, not Jesus
Serious Christians will tell you that their church isn’t perfect. They can point to miscommunication, volunteer challenges, and other practical examples as reasons why. These are real issues that deserve attention. But when we look for a common theme behind mistakes that churches make, we notice a much bigger problem: leaders trying to be controllers of God’s work instead of active guides and participants.
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This is a two-sided coin that prices Jesus out of white evangelical churches.
The first side is consumerism. You’re told which voices you should and shouldn’t listen too. Certain teachings are described as biblically-based and that things have always been this way, when — in fact — that’s easily debatable. It’s all about consuming the right products, such as books and blogs about rigid, gendered “Christian living” from popular white evangelicals. This cripples the ability to think critically about Scripture and grow closer to Jesus within community.
The second side of the coin is hierarchy. You are told to give absolute deference to your leaders, even abusive ones. Questioning or critiquing certain decisions and stances can feel impossible, and doing so often leads to being shunned or verbally abused. You’re told when and where you will serve with no consideration for your gifts, resources, and calling. This gross power imbalance paves the way to abuse.
Robert P. Jones of PRRI sums up these realities in a recent interview:
“The evangelical worldview in America has historically been built on a set of hierarchies that have been defended as divinely ordained — Christian over non-Christian, Protestant over Catholic, white over non-white, men over women.
In its strongest forms, this worldview is fundamentally anti-democratic and theocratic. It demands deference particularly to white male charismatic leaders (even when they themselves violate communal norms) and builds identity through a politics of aggression to a shifting array of perceived out groups. Most notably, it gives no quarter to critical thought or dissent, defending its own views as divinely ordained and beyond question.”
Tough, but true words.
Many white evangelicals believe their consumerism and hierarchy is simply discipleship. They couldn’t be more wrong. Signs that real discipleship is taking place are early leadership opportunities for younger generations, risk-taking, and growing abilities to serve others (2 Timothy 2:1–2). Discipleship leads to empathy, sacrifice, and love (Luke 9:23–25). The practice produces Christians who love God and their neighbors (John 13:34–35).
Consumerism and hierarchy do the opposite. White evangelical hierarchy refuses access to new leadership opportunities, even when you’ve fully conformed to white evangelical culture. Consumerism looks disapprovingly on risk-takers and those who want to serve in new ways. Both are close-minded — replacing empathy with power struggles — and lead to those who sincerely apologize for their shortcomings being dominated.
When a Christian leaves a white evangelical church, they often cite abuse, hypocrisy, idolatry, or a general unwelcoming environment as reasons why. But if you press further, you will often catch a glimpse of these underlying currents. Here are just three examples I’ve heard the last few months:
“There’s no discipleship or chances for me to grow. People here are just so mean now, too. Why am I still here?”
“My elders won’t answer basic questions about their decisions. It makes them look like they’re hiding something. And then they get mad at us for pointing that out. It’s like they don’t want us to trust them. So weird.”
“Our older leaders keep telling us younger members that we need to listen to them. But they are annoyed every time we bring up our concerns or new ideas. I don’t understand why I have to listen to them but they don’t have to listen to us.”
White evangelical consumerism and hierarchy swirl together around a believer, slowly stripping them of their agency, ability to think freely, and dignity. Disturbingly, it’s all done in the name of Jesus. By the time more direct abuse begins, the victims are already frustrated and considering leaving. Walking out the door becomes their only real option.
Consumerism and hierarchy are bad for leaders, too
Examining the pile of bodies that white evangelical consumerism and hierarchy leave in their wake isn’t a new endeavor. If anything, there’s a heavier emphasis placed on understanding these cultural realities now more than ever before.
Pastors stealing sermons from each other is a common and worrying trend. A growing body of scholarly work shows how “Christian living” ideas spread throughout and are aggressively enforced in white evangelical bubbles. And the fastest way to understand the full breadth of white evangelical brutality is to simply question patriarchal authority.
But something we would do well to pay a bit more attention to is that this broken model of “Christian living” is also destroying church leaders, especially some of the most kind and effective people.
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The white evangelical obsession with hierarchy is the more obvious culprit. When so much power and responsibility is held by a handful of people, important parts of basic church management are going to fall through the cracks. Church members who could use their unique skills to help sit powerless on the sidelines. Pastors and staff get burned out as their elder boards quietly undermine them.
These results shouldn’t be suprising. After all, authoritarian systems are often as incompetent as they are abusive. But when we examine how consumerism impacts church leaders, we get a clearer picture of how dangerous this all is.
2020 put a spotlight on just how much congregations and elder boards have stripped away the humanity of pastors and church staff. Between challenges brought on by COVID-19 and political turmoil, many pastors discovered that they were being reduced to another cable news pundit. Their pastorate was commodified by people trying to justify their own embrace of extremist forms of social conservatism. Pastors who refused to give in were subjected to gossip, further isolated in an already isolating time, and dehumanized.
Effective church staffers discovered that holding biblically-sound positions on issues of justice was suddenly considered too liberal or Marxist. They too were subjected to gossip and dehumanized.
Many good pastors and church staff have since resigned, not because they discovered that their church’s culture was built on consumerism and hierarchy, but because they acutely felt the populist sentiment in their congregations that stemmed from these two undercurrents. They correctly understood that pointing to Jesus wouldn’t change anything. Their best option was to give up.
There are no easy answers
I think and write about issues like these a lot. More often than not, I offer up partial suggestions or no answers at all. Some white evangelicals claim that I’m just complaining or trying to be “a troublemaker” because of this.
Thankfully, inaccurate responses like that make up a small fraction of the feedback I get. Most messages I receive — including from struggling white evangelicals who don’t fully agree with my diagnoses — are various forms of this question: what do we do to fix all of this?
One of the reasons I rarely provide answers is because I have very few. These are deeply embedded, complex problems that vary in degree of severity from church to church. A solution in one place will most likely not work in another.
This is why I think it’s healthier to discover more appropriate language for describing these problems in white American evangelicalism and start generating constructive conversations from there. Yes, consumerism and hierarchy contribute to the climate of fear in white evangelicalism. This fear has led to breaches of trust, rules that are as broken and confusing as they are rigid, and widespread abuse in faith communities. Again, these aren’t controversial claims. They are well-documented realities.
But consumerism and hierarchy have also primed many white evangelicals to expect easy answers for…well…just about everything. And that’s what prevents things from moving forward. There are no easy answers here.
So, this is one of the rare times I’m going to suggest a particular path forward.
The first is that white evangelicals need to replace their militancy and fear with Gospel-centered love and hope (2 Timothy 1:7). Doing so won’t provide specific answers; however, it does put people in a healthier place to begin the search. Re-centering in Jesus pushes consumerism and hierarchy aside. His love and hope restores the dignity that white evangelicalism strips away.
Second, white evangelicals need to learn that understanding true motivations matters. If someone says something that is counter to your beliefs or understandings, it doesn’t make them the enemy, much less wrong. Odds are they have a good reason for believing what they believe or have information about a particular situation that you don’t. Listening to others is part of being a follower of Jesus within a community of fellow believers (2 Peter 1:5–9).
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Closing Thoughts
If there’s a single lesson we can take away from the ongoing white evangelical meltdown, it’s that the authentic discipleship we see in the Bible cannot be outsourced to consumerism and hierarchy. White cultural “Christian living” can’t fill the shoes that Jesus claims (1 Corinthians 10:14–17).
The devastating consequences of white evangelicalism being built atop consumerism and hierarchy are often blamed by church leaders on outside enemies, because white evangelicalism requires enemies. Without them, this brittle ideology immediately begins to fracture and break apart. This is why so many white evangelicals go looking for an enemy when there is none apparent. Fear wins the day.
The departure of younger Christians from these churches is often ascribed to the liberal media, the culture, and political correctness. Phrases like the enemy seeks to separate us are used so commonly that people believe their church is actively under siege.
It may be convenient to blame perceived outside enemies on the Church’s self-inflicted wounds, but it’s not helpful and rarely accurate to do so. Last year, a pastor acquaintance summed up this phenomenon to me really well:
“We often tell ourselves that ‘the enemy’ is the source of all our woes. The Bible does say that there will be enemies seeking to hurt us, but the New Testament especially speaks a whole lot more about how to avoid and heal from intercommunal harm. More of our focus needs to be there because the Bible says more of our focus needs to be there. The Church’s external enemies are most effective when they sit back, pop a beer, and watch a church destroy itself.”
Words of wisdom, to be sure. Encouraging participation in the Gospel — real participation — is the only answer here. But what would doing that look like?
Here are just a few, practical suggestions.
If you don’t want young people to leave your church, then stop operating on top of consumerist and hierarchal beliefs that inevitably hurt and crush younger people. Instead, focus on empowering younger people like Jesus did with his disciples and followers (Matthew 16:18–19). Let young people take on real responsibilities.
Stop claiming that Christians who define as exvangelical or who are deconstructing their faith are just engaging in a “cultural trend.” These are legitimate faith transitions borne out of false, nationalist teachings. When you roll your eyes, you only prove their criticism to be correct. Listen to their stories and pain, do not assume (Proverbs 18:2). Repent from your slander and arrogance, as Scripture calls you to do (Mark 7:20–23).
Stop attempting to reframe movements like #EmptyThePews and #ChurchToo as being about vengeance or destroying gender. These are hurt people you have purposefully denied justice to in the interest of self-preservation. Public calls for accountability is the only choice you have left them with. Instead, elevate their stories and hold abusers accountable. Create systems that are just (Isaiah 10:1–4).
Be holy, not judgmental (Matthew 7:1–2). You can have the holiness of Jesus or the judgmental decadence of white evangelical culture.
But you can’t have both.
I explore faith and American church culture from Memphis, TN. Never miss an article by signing up for my free newsletter or becoming a member. You can also subscribe to my podcast.
