Post-Evangelicals.

Decades ago (yep, it’s decades now) I was a regular follower and commenter at Michael Spencer’s blog Internet Monk. It doesn’t exist anymore, but it has an archive site now. It was my first real exposure to what Michael called “post-Evangelicals.”

Lemme back up and remind you “Evangelical” has multiple definitions. There’s the Evangelical movement, which is about making an individual decision for Jesus, plus his atonement for our individual sins, the bible’s authority, and evangelism. There’s cultural Evangelicalism, which is really just mainstream Christian culture in the United States. There’s political Evangelicalism, which is about coopting Evangelicals to get votes. And there are people who insist these aren’t three different things, but one and the same. Michael was among them.

Michael was a schoolteacher at a Baptist boarding school in Kentucky, who went through a period of deconstruction. I’m not sure how much of it was triggered by his wife’s decision to become Roman Catholic. It upset him, but he tried to make peace with it; she’s still following the same Jesus after all. It certainly obligated him to reexamine his own beliefs. He came to the conclusion he was most definitely Christian, but couldn’t approve of cultural Evangelicalism. So what did that make him? Well, not Evangelical. Post-Evangelical. Whatever that meant; Michael was still figuring it out.

Michael died in 2010, and Chaplain Mike Mercer ran the blog for another decade before retiring it in 2020.

So, post-Evangelicalism. For Michael, it meant dismissing popular Evangelical culture and politics, because it’s too often pure Christianism. (Michael called it “churchianity.”) It meant getting back to the basics, and the basics are of course what Christ Jesus teaches. Michael sought what he called “a Jesus-shaped spirituality”—like me, he figured Jesus is his religion. So if it helps you follow Jesus, keep it; if it doesn’t, don’t. And Michael figured Evangelicalism doesn’t.

Podcaster Blake Chastain coined the term “exvangelical” to describe ’em. It’s certainly more clever than “post-Evangelical.” But both terms are a rather wide catch-all for people who decided enough was enough, and stepped away from American Evangelicalism. And sometimes Christ Jesus too.

Varieties of post-Evangelicals.

Post-Evangelicals aren’t one homogenous group. Like I said, they’re people who figure they’re not Evangelical anymore. Chaplain Mike accurately describes it as a “prophetic critique” of what American Evangelicalism has become after Americans set aside the Evangelical movement in favor of the cultural and political stuff.

Mike, and New Testament scholar Dr. Scot McKnight, identified a few different strains of post-Evangelicals. I identified a few more.

I should point out that while I don’t consider myself post-Evangelical—I’m still very much part of the Evangelical movement—I agree with post-Evangelicals about critiquing and rejecting the cultural and political stuff which calls itself Evangelical, so I sorta fall into one of these categories.

So here’s my list.

1. EX-CHRISTIANS. They left both Evangelicalism and Jesus; they don’t believe in him anymore, or never really did. Or they still believe what Evangelicals taught ’em about Jesus, and simply can’t see any way to follow this version of Jesus.
2. THE UNCHURCHED. They still want to follow Jesus, but want nothing to do with Evangelicals, and don’t wanna join any non-Evangelical churches. So they’re going it alone. Which isn’t safe.
3. THE “EMERGENT.” The emerging-church movement began as a backlash to American Evangelicalism; these are people who wanna follow Jesus, but not as Evangelicals. (Or not as conservative Evangelicals: They’re liberal in either their politics or theology.) Some are still trying to figure out what that looks like. Others have simply become liberal Evangelicals.
4. NEW EVANGELICALS. Some post-Evangelicals have created their own churches which reject cultural Evangelicalism, but embrace everything else in Christendom—including the Evangelical movement’s principles of individual conversion, atonement, bible, and evangelism. So they’re Evangelicals. But they’d never, ever call themselves that. (A lot of them are Calvinist—unaware Jean Calvin kinda started the Evangelical movement.)
5. THE DISSIDENTS. (This’d be my group.) These folks still go to, and even lead, Evangelical churches. But we freely critique cultural Evangelicalism when it’s not following Jesus. And some of us recognize the difference between the culture and the Evangelical movement, and still promote the movement.
6. THE APATHETIC. Like the dissidents, they still go to Evangelical churches, but they’re not really trying to change them. They just put up with all the stuff they don’t like, and grumble about it, but do nothing. They’ve quit, but they simply haven’t walked out the door. (Yet.)
7. NEW CATHOLICS. Or new Orthodox, new Anglicans, new Lutherans—basically the post-Evangelicals who decided to join non-Evangelical churches. They discovered Jesus is still living and active in those churches, so they’re following him there.

If you know of other stripes of post-Evangelicals which don’t fall into those categories, let me know. I’m pretty sure all of ’em fit in there somewhere.