I have been thinking a lot about the divergence in the rhetoric and the reality around the evangelical church and had a recent breakthrough. I became a scholar because that was one of the highest callings according to the evangelical community of my youth. Para-church evangelical organizations such as Summit Ministries , the National Christian Forensic and Communications Association , and publisher of my primary high school curriculum all encouraged cultural engagement. I repeatedly heard that my generation, those of us at these events and reading these books, were called to be leaders who would reshape our world in light of the Christian gospel. For example, during a Teen Pact weekend retreat in Alabama in 2001, I remember Tim Echols inviting those of us at the event to stand up if we felt God's calling to serve in elected office sometime in the future. I stood (along with around a dozen others), willing myself to believe that I would someday be a member of the Senate (the Pr...
In the past few weeks I've been reminded of Frank E. Peretti's This Present Darkness (1986), an evangelical horror novel that tells the tale of a demonic attack on a small town. Much of the plot revolves around the effort of a cult-like New Age group that attempts to purchase a small college in the town to take it over for a demonic horde. The heroes, a local newspaper reporter named Marshall Hogan and a pastor named Hank Busche, gradually piece together the plot. One narrative element that has stuck with me over the last twenty years is what happened to both men as they began to cause problems for the conspirators: demon-possessed women falsely accused each of sexual assault. Within the story, this works out since both men meet in jail, team-up, and eventually defeat the forces of darkness. I am troubled by the way in which Peretti deployed spurious charges of sexual misconduct as a go-to tool for demons to interfere with those fighting for truth and Christianity. Part of ...