... a response to an article entitled "Here's what's troubling about the exvangelical #LeaveLoud movement"
A lot of exvangelicals have noted that evangelicalists remain stubbornly in their moral and philosophical bubble, even as people have been leaving their ranks in droves in recent years. Rather than looking inward and examining how their doctrine might toxic, they're doubling down on their brand of literalism and conservative morality. The article linked above is a perfect example of this, and I felt the need to break down exactly how and why.
Referring to the growing ranks of "Nones," they note, "these folks haven’t just left the room of denominational preference, they’ve left the house of collective faith." As I explained in my previous blog post, the process of becoming a "None" took a while for me. It wasn't like I just flipped a switch and decided to go full-atheist. It was a gradual process whereby over the course of several years, I examined my own spirituality.
Evangelicalism is very intense, spiritually, emotionally, and relationally. I sought non-Evangelicalist alternatives for each of these aspects of my life, and eventually decided that spirituality wasn't for me. The search for God was proving tedious and pointless. I found emotional and social fulfillment outside of faith settings. I found personal meaning in those relationships, and in rediscovering old hobbies and interests. I didn't need to find God or Nirvana or any such thing. I wasn't 100% happy with everything in my life, but I felt more stable than I had felt since before becoming an evangelicalist.
When talking about African Americans leaving the church, they note that "plenty of our African American brothers and sisters have been neglected or hurt by fellow Christians, either directly or indirectly." It's great that they're acknowledging that it's a thing that's happening, but they express zero self-awareness about the whys or hows of the dynamic.
The evangelicalist church has a serious problem with racism. Most leaders deny that racism is as big a problem as is the lived experience of African Americans. Their responses range from weak exhortations to be color blind ("God doesn't see color!"), or to actively fight against "critical race theory" (whatever they think that means). "Calling out racism is the real racism, actually." They seem utterly uninterested in examining what race problems exist in this country, let alone reckoning with their own role in how we got to this point.
From the article: "Being noisy about joining the 'exvangelicalism' movement is not only a popular thing to do, it’s a way to be popular." This is absurd, and underscores just how little they have actually listened to exvangelicals. First, for most exvangelicals, leaving the church (or "deconstructing") is a gradual process, usually taking months or years. And as a movement, it's barely identifiable as such. There's a label that a lot of us use, but there's no organization to join, no website to sign up for, no PAC to donate to. There's literature, hashtags, and social media, but not really a thing one can "join."
Second, leaving the church is incredibly difficult and painful for exvangelicals. Again, if they would actually listen to our stories, they'd know that. It's not "popular" by any stretch of the imagination. Some folks have garnered a significant audience, but that's true for literally group or "movement." I doubt many exvangelicals are leaving in pursuit of popularity (similar to the sexist "fake gamer girl" dynamic--that women and girls are just pretending to enjoy video games to get guys' attention). Most of us are just random people like me, who left because church doctrine and culture didn't jibe with our reality.
The next paragraph has a lot going on in it, so I'll just copy & paste it here for ease: "Almost without fail, a person leaving a church loud will cite bad or hurtful behavior by the people or leadership at the church. And of course, no one wants to stick around where they are mistreated. However, in a culture that has widely embraced moralistic therapeutic deism, many think that being morally challenged, or anything that falls short of all-out affirmation, counts as 'personal harm.'"
There's a lot to unpack here, and doing so thoroughly could be a whole separate blog post in itself. Basically, this seems to weakly acknowledge the real problem of abuse in the church (see #ChurchToo), the problem of LGBTQ+ people being disaffirmed, but conflating everything in a simplistic way and dismissing it as a mere disagreement of morality.
Of course, this is incredibly insulting to anyone who has been abused by the church, and to anyone who has been pushed out due to their sexual or gender identity. Being misgendered, being told their orientation is an affront to God, isn't just being "morally challenged," it's abusive, bigoted, and actively harmful. This callous, malicious tonedeafness is exactly why people are leaving, and if they'd actually listen to people, might begin to understand that.
Moving on, the article describes another dynamic of church-leavers: "This Gallup poll also points to interpersonal strife as a significant reason for leaving the church. ... people are leaving the house while blaming folks in one particular room." Speak from personal experience, this is both true and incredibly oversimplistic. Yes, I had problems with my previous marriage, and yes, I conflated a lot of that with the church.
However, this is a crucial part of the the evangelicalist experience. Believers are encouraged to "give everything to God." And this includes interpersonal conflict. Why are they surprised then, that when their religion can't solve those interpersonal conflicts, that people give up on the religion? If God can't help me with my most important problems, what good is this whole thing?
And, yes, people should leave the house if they have irreconcilable problems with people in one room. If someone is being abused, you can't expect the victim to have to live with and interact with their abuser constantly. Unfortunately, evangelicalist teachings do encourage exactly this kind of dynamic by emphasizing personal forgiveness and community restoration. Most non-evangelicalist psychologists would instantly recognize this as counterproductive to healing.
The article goes on to caution against conflating personal failures of individual churchgoers with the message of Christianity: "It is first and foremost a commitment to Jesus Christ which, second, involves a set of claims about reality." The problem is, a lot of the harm people experience is exactly because of evangelicalist doctrine, at the hands of people who are committed to Jesus.
Further, many of us exvangelicals have examined this "set of claims about reality," and found them wanting. The claims of Jesus's resurrection, lordship, sacrificial atonement, etc., are apologetical claims which lack good evidence. If the Bible is mostly tall tales (which I've found it is), then the reality is, I don't have to take it, or the evangelicalist church's teachings of it, literally.
The article continues, "The more that the wider culture finds Christian teaching outdated and outrageous, the harder it is to distinguish between the various motivations of those who leave the church, and/or the faith." They almost get it here. There are a lot of different reasons people leave the church. Some of them are related, some are not. Every one of us has or had our own reason or reasons for leaving, and we each have our own tale to tell. If only they'd listen.
Finally, "What is clear is that it is essential, at least for anyone who intends to persevere in the faith, to know what the Faith is. For example, Scripture is clear that followers of Christ should 'live peaceably with everyone, as far as it depends on you.' Anyone who takes that teaching seriously, not to mention the many others that directly apply to our lives within the Body of Christ, will find it difficult to 'leave loud,' or to justify leaving over silly disputes, or to neglect praying for those who have left."
First, everyone who has left the evangelicalist church will find it laughable that any significant number of evangelists make a serious effort to "live peaceably with everyone." This is the same faith tradition that tells its follows not to be "unequally yoked with unbelievers," to live "apart from the world" or whatever.
Finally, the last sentence dismissing exvangelicals' problems as "silly disputes" is incredibly, disgustingly insulting. People have been abused, spiritually, physically, emotionally. They've been ignored, talked down to, disregarded, dismissed. These are not silly disputes, they are real problems that hurt real people in real ways.
They don't get it. They don't listen. I don't think they even want to get it. They have a vested interest, not just in their churches' membership, but their own careers. But it's not too late to let go. I think I've done okay without evangelicalism. I didn't even have to "leave loud" or chase popularity. I just had to find my own path and follow it as best I can. Isn't that what life is all about?
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