Looking for Answers

Reflecting on the phenomenon of "exvangelicalism," I'm convinced we have a few things to learn...

Photo by Franck on Unsplash

Recently, I was doing some research on the “exvangelical” community on Tik Tok. I know. I know. It’s probably the last thing you’d want to spend your time doing. But that’s why I get paid the big bucks.

The first question you might ask, after wondering why I’d subject myself to such a chore, is, “What is an ‘exvangelical’?” Good question.

An increasing number of younger Christians are exiting evangelical Christianity. These kids were raised in Bible-believing (by and large) churches. They “prayed the prayer” and were baptized.

Then they encountered objections to their faith. Now, they are loud and proud on social media, sharing their reasons for “deconverting.” These are the ex-evangelicals.

Many Christian apologists react to these stories with scorn. Frankly, a number of these “exvangelicals” are posting content that indicates their “deconversion” was rooted more in a hunger for social acceptance than actual questions and doubts. So they seem easy to discount.

On the other hand, I believe many of these stories are worth heeding and understanding. I’m hearing young adults provide thoughtful, probing reasons for their departure from the flock. And in those anti-testimonies, we can learn a few important things.

First, it is important to recognize that each person is responsible for his or her decision to walk away from Jesus. It’s a tragedy and a betrayal of Jesus’ blood, shed for us all. Every believer is warned against allowing the Holy Spirit’s fire to grow cold. Each Christian is called to steward their relationship with the Father who loves them and sent His Son to save them. But the journey to the point of departure has many factors. Some of them provide a warning to us.

In these stories, I saw a common thread: They were raised with Biblical content but not a Spirit-filled connection. Many of the stories I heard seemed to indicate spiritual lives that were defined more by doctrinal knowledge than first-hand encounter with the Lord.

In other words, they had a form of religion but had not been ushered into the presence of the Father. God was a conceptual idea they had been taught. The Bible was a list of ideas that “Christians” believe. The Gospel was a message about going to heaven when we die.

These young people, it seems, may have been introduced to a religious system rather than the Kingdom of God. And therein lies the challenge for modern church.

For far too many, Christianity makes sense as long as it’s claims on our belief and behavior require little sacrifice and provide a sense of wellbeing. We’re willing to nod our heads to the doctrines as long as they don’t conflict with our day to day. We’re willing to follow basic Christian morality until we aren’t.

But this system of religious observance is much harder to maintain in a society set against it. As the culture drifts further past post-Christianity and into paganism, the idea that we would keep believing certain things because they are written in an ancient book seems increasingly silly to so many. The idea that we must choose between “the God of the Bible” and our sense of the Universal Divine is, in so many minds, a false dilemma.

Because we have allowed the Gospel of the Kingdom to be reduced to a religious system, much of the Christian world is going the way of most dogmatic systems in the contemporary culture. In the age of the self-defined Individual, the idea of submitting to a “system” is nearly unintelligible.

But Jesus did not preach a religious system. He announced a supernatural reality. It was the reality that the Kingdom of God is here. That we could enter into it. That we could be filled with the Holy Spirit and do the things that Jesus did, knowing the Father as Jesus knew him.

It’s possible to deny a set of ideas. It’s much more difficult to deny the existence of a real Person we have encountered.

In my twenties, I believed the answer to the rapidly expanding exodus of young people from the church was to do a better job teaching Christian worldview. I spent years studying philosophy, theology and history at various academic institutions. Those years were followed by even more time learning to translate this truth into understandable arguments and doctrines that could be explained in a compelling, hopefully inspiring way.

While I certainly do not deny that the content of our faith is critical, I have come to believe that it is powerless to “save the next generation” on its own. It is like a beautiful sports car without an ounce of gasoline.

The Word without the Spirit is dead.

Christianity, without the supernatural, is religion.

It is ironic that the only movement in history that actually has the power to connect humanity to God has, in many cases, become just another competing religion. We set up our ideas and arguments. We teach our morality. We provide our account of what one must believe to end up in a good afterlife.

But none of these things are the center of our faith.

At the beating heart of the Gospel is a message of encounter. The salvation Jesus preached was not about things far off, at the last breath or end of time. It was salvation from a life without God. It was salvation from the power of Satan and sickness. It was salvation to encounter, relationship, friendship with God.

Unless we transmit this reality—and experience it ourselves—I think we will need to prepare for many more exvangelicals. While they are not blameless, I find it hard to blame them for abandoning a Gospel of words only. After all, that’s not the Gospel Jesus preached.

Thankfully, many believers are experiencing Holy Spirit’s fire here and now. A new generation of young adults are emerging. They are a generation of Word and Spirit.