The New Evangelical
Brittaney Kiefer
Last February, more than 200 people gathered at the Hilton Hotel in Boston’s Back Bay neighborhood for the grand opening of Reunion Christian Church. In a conference room where rows of chairs replaced pews, a casually dressed crowd sipped cups of coffee or listened to the alternative rock playing over the speakers while they waited for the service to begin. Hank Wilson, the 33-year-old pastor of Reunion who shaves his head and prefers jeans to a suit and tie, does not fit the stereotypical image of a church pastor. And the sermon title he announced that morning may have surprised newcomers as much as his eyebrow piercing. The title was “Christian No More.”
In his 25-minute sermon, Wilson told the crowd that he wanted them to stop practicing the religion of Christianity and rediscover what it means to follow Jesus Christ.
“So much of the church’s focus has become the very things that [Jesus] spoke out against – an institution with its hollow rituals and meaningless traditions,” said Wilson.
Since that sermon, Reunion has consistently drawn a large crowd to its weekly services. At every service, you can’t help but notice that hardly a gray head is in sight. Most of Reunion’s attendees are under 30.
Reunion’s young constituency can be partially explained by the fact that Boston is itself a youthful city. With more than 100 colleges in the Greater Boston area, the city is filled with students and young professionals. But Wilson thinks there is another reason for the number of young attendees at Reunion.
“We’re artistic, and we tend to speak to a socially responsible-minded crowd,” said Wilson.
The appeal of a church like Reunion to young evangelical Christians is not unique to Boston. The image of a staunch Republican who is engaged in the culture wars is not an accurate depiction of many young evangelicals across the country today. Many are disillusioned with right-wing politics and are yearning for a renewed focus on social justice and authenticity in the church. They are the future of the evangelical movement, and their ideas about what it means to live as a Christian suggest that they will take the movement in a radically different direction.
Lauren Frazier, 19, is a sophomore at Southeastern University, a Christian college in Lakeland, Florida. Recently, she complained about some of her professors who were “pushing a Republican agenda” in class.
Her complaint is a far cry from the political opinions she shared with many of her Christian friends three years ago. Frazier and most of the members of the church she attended in rural Florida rallied around the Republican Party during President George W. Bush’s campaign for re-election. During the campaign, the church’s pastor often praised Bush from behind the pulpit, where just a few feet away a tall American flag cast a shadow over the congregation.
Since the 1980s, evangelical churches like Frazier’s have been hotbeds of right-wing activism. Beginning with Ronald Reagan’s presidential campaign, conservative Christian organizations like the Moral Majority, the Christian Coalition, and Focus on the Family have mobilized millions of voters for the Republican Party. Their movement was driven by what they saw as the decline of the traditional family, and their battle cries were against the legalization of abortion and same-sex marriage. During the 2004 election, many in the movement saw Bush, who spoke out against abortion and same-sex marriage and once called Jesus Christ his favorite philosopher, as a defender of their moral values. As a result, evangelicals accounted for a third of Bush’s votes that year, according to the Pew Research Center.
“There was a time when evangelical churches were becoming largely and almost exclusively the Republican Party at prayer,” Marvin Olasky, the editor of the evangelical magazine World, told the New York Times Magazine in October.
Now a younger generation of evangelicals is moving away from the right-wing activism that inflamed many of their elders. In 2001, 55 percent of young evangelicals identified themselves as Republicans, but now that number has fallen to 40 percent, according to polls by Pew. This shift away from the GOP may be largely due to disappointment with the Bush administration; Pew reported that Bush’s approval rating among young evangelicals has fallen from 87 percent to 45 percent over the past five years. Frustration over the war in Iraq has also widened the gap between the Republican Party and many in the evangelical community.
“How many innocent people were murdered?” said Ben Siemon, 25, about the Iraq war.
A different war may also be responsible for the young evangelicals’ reluctance to identify with the GOP: the culture war waged by the religious right. A few days after Sept. 11, 2001, the Rev. Jerry Falwell, who founded the Moral Majority, became notorious for his assertion that “the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle” were partially to blame for the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington. During the 2004 election, some evangelicals spoke of the race between Bush and John Kerry as a “spiritual battle,” according to the New York Times Magazine. The political call to arms issued by leaders of the religious right has alienated many young evangelicals from their cause.
“[Young evangelicals] are just really, really tired of abortion politics- the in-your-face, aggressive politics,” said Rob Moll, an associate editor of Christianity Today.
“Now when people think of Christians, they think of people picketing outside of a Planned Parenthood,” said Danielle Towne, a graduate student at Suffolk University and a member of Reunion. “It hurts me to think of that.”
Today the future of the religious right looks uncertain. Founders of the movement have died or are approaching retirement; Falwell died in May 2007. Pat Robertson, the founder of the Christian Coalition, is 77, and James Dobson, the founder and chairman of Focus on the Family, is 71. Young evangelicals seem reluctant to pledge allegiance to any political party, and more identify themselves as independents, according to Pew. Many of them now name leaders who avoid political battles as their greatest influences.
Leaders like Donald Miller, a 35-year-old Christian author and speaker who has grown increasingly popular in young evangelical circles. In his 2004 book Searching for God Knows What, Miller wrote: “As a Christian, I believe Jesus wants to reach out to people who are lost and, yes, immoral—immoral just like you and I are immoral; and declaring war against them… is only hurting what Jesus is trying to do.”
The advertisements in the subway for Reunion Christian Church read: “Church for the Rest of Us.”
“We want people who read it to think, ‘Oh, it’s for people who don’t like church,’” Wilson said.
People who dislike church may indeed be pleasantly surprised at a Reunion service. On a typical Sunday, Reunion’s attendees might watch a YouTube video, hear a Dave Matthews Band song, or watch a clip from the popular television series “Arrested Development.” A band covers old hymns with electric guitars, drums and a keyboard. Members might hear a reading of a short story or poem while they take communion. Reunion’s leaders use these elements of pop culture to point to the message of Jesus.
“We don’t want to be at war with culture,” Wilson said. “Our job is to deconstruct culture, and hopefully we offer the gospel as the reconstruction.”
Not present at Reunion’s services is any mention of partisan politics. There isn’t a pulpit either, and Wilson’s preaching style is candid and conversational.
“[Reunion] is the first church I’ve felt comfortable bringing many of my friends to, and I often have,” said Jay Carbonneau, a student at Northeastern University.
As more young evangelicals become disillusioned with the religious right, they are turning to churches like Reunion that are, as Carbonneau said, “very real.” According to Robert Webber, the author of The Younger Evangelicals, “What the younger evangelical is after is authenticity.” To many in the generation, the politics and traditions associated with Christianity have taken on a negative connotation.
Siemon is an intern at Church of Park Slope in Brooklyn, New York and a budding pastor, but he hesitated to name his intended vocation. “I hate the title,” he said. He said Church of Park Slope appeals to him because “Everything’s stripped down; there’s nothing flashy about it.”
Jason Santiago, a recent graduate of Ozark Christian College in Missouri, shies away from political discussions and shares Siemon’s desire for transparency in church leaders.
“He’s very fresh,” said Santiago of one of his evangelical influences. “That’s what people want. [Evangelical] leaders are seeing that they need to change because what they were doing wasn’t working.”
The markers, craft supplies and Bibles were laid out on the table at 11 a.m. when a group of neighborhood children wandered in from the cold. For the next hour, six college students showed the children how to make Christmas ornaments out of paper plates. As the children colored and giggled during the Bible lesson, the troubles of their neighborhood, plagued by poverty and crime, seemed distant. During the last activity, one of the boys wrote the first two lines of a poem: “I love Jesus because he made us. Every day he gives me hope.”
Nathan Griffith, a Boston University graduate student and member of Reunion, smiled widely when he read the boy’s poem. Griffith’s desire to bring hope to one of Boston’s poorest communities drove him to start the children’s program at Quincy Street Missional Church in Dorchester. Griffith, 24, has since moved to the neighborhood, and under his leadership, the program has flourished.
“We have to keep in mind the opportunity we have to effect change for people who are pushed to the side and marginalized,” he said.
Many young evangelicals share Griffith’s passion for social action. According to Webber, “The younger evangelicals are primarily committed to the plight of the poor… They realize the old story must be lived out.” In their search for what it means to be authentic followers of Christ, young evangelicals are paying attention to a new generation of leaders who are focused on bettering the world.
Rob Bell, the founding pastor of Mars Hill Bible Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan, is one of the most influential voices in young evangelical circles today. In his book Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith, Bell wrote: “Jesus’ desire for his followers is that they live in such a way that they bring heaven to earth… As a Christian, I want to do what I can to resist hell coming to earth. Poverty, injustice, suffering- they are all hells on earth, and as Christians we oppose them with all our energies.” Bell and his congregation are involved in service projects in their community and around the world to alleviate poverty.
In his “Christian No More” sermon, Wilson echoed Bell and urged his congregation to “bring heaven here.” The leaders of Reunion say generosity is one of their church’s core values. Besides their partnership with the church in Dorchester, members of Reunion regularly volunteer with a halfway house in Roxbury and an organization that serves the homeless.
“I hope people from Reunion go on to be world changers,” Wilson said.
Given the evangelical movement’s reputation for right-wing activism, the younger generation’s emphasis on social justice may be surprising. But historically, evangelicals have been leaders in progressive causes like the abolition of slavery, women’s suffrage and the civil rights movement. Now that leaders like Bell and Wilson are speaking up, it seems that the future of the movement will more closely resemble its politically progressive roots. Many young evangelicals say their concern for social justice will influence their vote in the 2008 election.
“I think younger evangelicals are going to support [a candidate] with a humanitarian stance,” Siemon said.
For now, Democratic candidates have the most appeal to young evangelicals who, like Carbonneau, want to know how the next administration will “deal with poverty in a very real and tangible way.”
This is not to say that young evangelicals have lost their concerns against same-sex marriage or abortion. Pew found that 70 percent of young evangelicals favor “making it more difficult for a woman to get an abortion,” and they are more pro-life than their elders. But according to Moll, “They’re pro-life in the way of finding caring families for babies or giving support to mothers who feel their only option is abortion.”
Partisan politics no longer seem reasonable to many young evangelicals, and abortion and same-sex marriage have taken a backseat to social justice issues. According to Tim Hawkins, the director of Reunion’s collegiate ministry, “We don’t put our hope in those methods anymore. We realize that people are what matter.” Young evangelicals are weary of the old battle, and they are taking up a new one: “Love God and love people—that’s what we’re called to,” Santiago said.
For Griffith, that means walking down to the church in Dorchester every Saturday morning when he could be studying or catching up on sleep. It means jumping rope in the street, playing catch and teaching the neighborhood boys how to make the perfect snowball.
Works Cited
Bell, Rob. Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2005.
Carbonneau, Jay, 12/1/07
Cox, Dan. “Young White Evangelicals: Less Republican, Still Conservative.” The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. Sept. 28, 2007.
http://pewforum.org/docs/?DocID=250
Frazier, Lauren, 11/23/07
Griffith, Nathan, 11/20/07
Hawkins, Timothy, 11/28/07
Kirkpatrick, David. “The Evangelical Crackup.” The New York Times Magazine. Oct. 28, 2007.
Miller, Donald. Searching for God Knows What. Nashville, Tennessee: Thomas Nelson, Inc., 2004.
Moll, Rob, 11/29/07
Santiago, Jason, 11/21/07
Siemon, Ben, 11/21/07
Towne, Danielle, 11/20/07
Webber, Robert. The Younger Evangelicals: Facing the Challenges of the New World. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Books, 2002.
Wilson, Hank, “Christian No More,” 2/18/07, www.reunionboston.com/faith/messages
Wilson, Hank, 11/29/07
http://archives.cnn.com/2001/US/09/14/Falwell.apology/, “Falwell apologizes to gays, feminists, lesbians,” Sept. 14, 2001.
Works Consulted
Buttry, Stephen. “Candidates focus on Christian beliefs.” Des Moines Register. Dec. 15, 1999.
Claiborne, Shane. The Irresistible Revolution. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2006.
Cox, Harvey. “Old-time religion.” The Boston Globe. July 9, 2006.
Goodstein, Laurie and Luo, Michael. “Emphasis Shifts for New Breed of Evangelicals.” The New York Times. May 21, 2007.
McGrew, Joshua, 11/21/07.
http://www.bhcc.mass.edu/inside/54, “About Boston.”
