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...
Attempting to make sense of the present and the past in light of faith and reason.