Exangelicals

 Second Friday of Easter

Lectionary Texts:

OT: Micah 4:1-5

NT: 1 Peter 1:1-9

Thanks to Jennifer for her comment. Jennifer, you don't have a limited mind. You have a Methodist mind.

I just this week came across the neologism that is the title of this post. "Exangelicals" are disenchanted evangelicals, usually young, usually brought up by evangelical parents in evangelical churches, who have left their churches and in some cases left the faith altogether. 

There was a major case this past week. Abraham Piper, son of John Piper, has written a scathing article against all things evangelical, including his father. Although Methodists tend not to know his name, John Piper is considered among evangelicals as the great evangelical theological mind of our time. He has written many books, most of them dense 800 pages theological works. The theology is intensely Calvinist. He is known to the mainline church world largely through a series of debates he had against N.T. Wright.

The younger Piper had been something of a prodigal son hero. After dropping out of the church when he was in college in order to pursue the lesser gods of sex, drugs, and rock-and -roll, he penitently came back to the fold at age 24 to become a widely known speaker on the testimony trail. He is now 29 and has gone back to denouncing both faith and father. Although he didn't coin the term, Abraham Piper considers himself a chief exangelical. 

American Christianity has been in shock since the Pew Research report came out a few weeks ago showing that only 48% of Americans are members of churches, synagogues, or mosques. That figure is down from 70% in 2001. Christian researchers are scratching their heads, wondering what happened. 

Exangelicals make up a part of that percentage loss. The reasons for young evangelicals leaving their churches are almost always the same. They dislike evangelical involvement in right-wing politics and support for Donald Trump. They strongly disagree with evangelical denunciation of anything LGBT, especially gay marriage. They oppose evangelical subordination of women. They strongly disagree with evangelical opposition to science, evangelical disbelief in climate change, and evangelical anti-environmentalism. 

Strikingly absent from most exangelical complaints are theological disagreements. They don't like doctrine, but they tend not to know much of it. Some exangelicals throw out God altogether. All seem to like Jesus the man. Most exangelicals seem unaware that there are other approaches to theology and to the Bible. Mainline theology is scarcely a blip on their faith radar. 

 

To my mind exangelicals represent a wonderful opportunity for Methodists. We have what they lack. We don't have what they object to.  We have the opportunity to develop a winning ministry to them, to bring them to a deeper and fulfilling faith, and to reconcile them with their pasts and the people of their pasts. 

Unfortunately Methodists are notorious for missing opportunities. We are far too inward focused, both at the local level and the denominational level, to reach out to those who need our understanding of the gospel. Fortunately we are about to finish our decades long battle over sexuality. Our numbers have diminished to historic lows. We have little else to lose. It's time we started finding something to gain. A ministry to exangelicals could be one of many such somethings.

God of the lost,

Help us to seek and to save. Help us to bring a deeper faith to those who are ironically drowning in shallowness. May we makr known Christ the complex to those for whom an erroneous simplicity no longer suffices. May we keep known the simplicity His love, His care, His leading, His bringing through the things most difficult. Amen.

Faithfully,

Christian