When I was a young Evangelical Christian coming of age back in the early 1970s, I remember feeling that there were two paths before me. One was legalistic, anti-intellectual, combative and rigid. The other was missional rather than legalistic, reflective rather than anti-intellectual, communicative rather than combative, and supple rather than rigid.
I chose the latter path, represented by an array of figures (from C.S. Lewis to Francis Schaeffer to John Stott) and organizations (from InterVarsity Christian Fellowship to the Jesus Movement to Evangelicals for Social Action to Sojourners).
In the decades since then, those paths have criss-crossed and split and converged and re-diverged in more ways than I could have imagined. The choices have changed, but the need to choose has not.
One popular contemporary path has a lot to recommend it and many young evangelicals are choosing it. Travelers on this path are sure of themselves, uninhibited and uncompromising. They know what they believe and they let their true colors shine. They employ creative and bold rhetoric (something I approve of and often fall short of). Whenever creative and bold rhetoric fails them, folks on this path don't back down. Instead, they often put their outspokenness on steroids, amping it up with mockery and misrepresentation when necessary (something I occasionally indulge in and always feel ashamed of the morning after).
People on the other path are not, as you might expect, the opposite of the first. They are not timid and retiring. They are not hesitant and unsure. They are no less passionate and articulate than those on the first path. But there is a key difference.
The difference is exemplified by a young Evangelical communicator named Rachel Held Evans. In her book and blog posts, she excels as a creative, bold communicator. But she rejects and opposes the more excessive rhetoric of her counterparts. In fact, she has a name for that rhetoric: bullying. She doesn't engage in bullying; she stands up to it, and urges others to do so as well.
I know that most folks like to divide Evangelicals along a political spectrum that runs from left to right, or along a theological spectrum that runs from conservative to progressive. But I think the more significant divide is between those who bully and those who stand up on behalf of the bullied.
I'm not sure which road is broader and which is narrower. I suppose it depends on how you define broad and narrow. But I know which road I'd rather be on. The choice made by this generation of young evangelicals will make all the difference, for them and for the shared future we are creating now.
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There were not two paths. There are many paths. You can't ignore the path of non-belief so easily.
I feel like you have written this post using hints and special code that only insiders would understand. You wrote about two paths without identifying them sufficiently for this reader. You gave one example of a difference--Rachel Held Evans--without telling us who she is different from. I got to the end of the post thinking, "What on earth is he talking about?"
Would you care to elaborate?
Sheesh, Brian, you were at Gray Goose with Frankie, haven't you been paying attention to what he's been telling us about what it was like growing up with his dad?
They both think you're guilty as hell. They're just pushing different buttons to get you to confess.
Here's a message to evangelical Christians - whether of the soft kind or the hard kind: Many of us - in fact most of us - simply aren't buying what you're selling. We reject the basic content that your peddling as neither true nor helpful.
And in fact, we think it would be a much, much better world if you would stop selling altogether. Go to your churches and Bible study groups. Pray in private or in your Christian gatherings if you must.
But leave the rest of us alone - once and for all.
We've been great commissioned for two thousand years already. Enough is enough. Let it go.
We all know how to Google. We all know where to find you if the urge to become a Christian comes upon us. You don't have to go looking for us anymore - and really, we wish you just wouldn't.
So - whaddya say you just drop the word EVANGELICAL from your self-identification, and content yourselves with being Christians. Other religious people do that. Why can't you?
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You do realize you've given the "No true Scotsman" line a go here, don't you?
Seriously, it's all too clear that all sorts of Christians - liberal and conservative, Catholic and Protestant, true and untrue - are entirely obsessed with this business of evangelizing, missionizing and converting the rest of us to their point of view.
To say otherwise is to ignore the facts - including the facts of the obsessed Christians who post here on HuffPo.
There are plenty of religions and religious who just don't do that. Either they keep to themselves and leave the rest of us alone, or they confine themselves to speaking in the first person, realizing that "your mileage may vary" to use an internet cliche.
I mean, really: If you drive a Ford, do you actually spend one moment of your time thinking about how to convince your neighbor to convert from his preference for a Chevy, or a bicycle?
Be honest with me, if you're going to talk at all. Look at the Christian church objectively, and admit that we've had two millenia of great commissioning, and it's still going strong.