David Brooks: The Dissenters Trying to Save Evangelicalism From Itself

[brooklynite]

New York Times

Think of your 12 closest friends. These are the people you vacation with, talk about your problems with, do life with in the most intimate and meaningful ways. Now imagine if six of those people suddenly took a political or public position you found utterly vile. Now imagine learning that those six people think that your position is utterly vile. You would suddenly realize that the people you thought you knew best and cared about most had actually been total strangers all along. You would feel disoriented, disturbed, unmoored. Your life would change.

This is what has happened over the past six years to millions of American Christians, especially evangelicals. There have been three big issues that have profoundly divided them: the white evangelical embrace of Donald Trump, sex abuse scandals in evangelical churches and parachurch organizations, and attitudes about race relations, especially after the killing of George Floyd.

Thabiti Anyabwile pastors the largely Black Anacostia River Church in Washington, D.C. “It’s been at times agonizing and bewildering,” he says. “My entire relationship landscape has been rearranged. I’ve lost 20-year friendships. I’ve had great distance inserted into relationships that were once close and I thought would be close for life. I’ve grieved.”

Tim Dalrymple is president of the prominent evangelical magazine Christianity Today, which called for Trump’s removal from office after his first impeachment. “As an evangelical, I’ve found the last five years to be shocking, disorienting and deeply disheartening,” he says. “One of the most surprising elements is that I’ve realized that the people who I used to stand shoulder to shoulder with on almost every issue, I now realize that we are separated by a yawning chasm of mutual incomprehension. I would never have thought that could have happened so quickly.”

[True Blue American]

1. I lost dozens of friends when

I left a Southern Baptist Church, including one close friend that I had helped her through her husbands death and helped her get out and do things again. They all blamed me for deserting them. Such hate from the pulpit, it was awful.

But I make friends easy so made new ones. I was very active.

[Mopar151]

3. "Hate from the pulpit."

Is part and parcel for many evangelical sects. The "License to hate" is a strong recruitment tool for the bad ones.

[TheRealNorth]

4. Why practice inner reflection....

And "practicing what you preach" when you can go blame and hate others.

[walkingman]

2. I'm not surprised at all. Growing up in the Deep South during the 1950's

it was obvious that the Church membership was complicit in all of the nastiness that occurred during the Civil Rights movement. Their values were in no way good or Holy. I think the political/church relationships were promoted by the likes of Reagan, Billy Graham, Jerry Falwell, and all of the other religious leaders of the day. It just got worse and worse and became the gold standard of values in the 90's. The GOP uses their nastiness to attract evangelicals to the ballot box.

Surprised - not at all. People like Trump speak their language and no wonder many white evangelicals consider him the "Second Coming".

[Casady1]

5. If Brokks would watch Betty Bowers

then he would know much more about the evangelicals.

[quixotic1]

6. The hardest aspect of this...

...is when the divide happens in your own home.

Relationships go astray in so many ways. And it's heart-breaking (and demoralizing) to live through when you realize that you have no power to shape or influence the direction.