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a publication of the Presbyterian Church of America.
In the Church A Growing Hunger for Honesty and Authenticity By Chuck De Groat You have feelings of fear and dread. Your PCA born-and-bred son has gone away to the “big university.” Will it be a negative influence? Will he reject his covenant heritage? He returns home for his first break, and you begin to notice some strange and disturbing patterns. As you ask him about his faith, he’s elusive. At church on Sunday, he seems uncomfortable and irritable. You begin wondering if this is it – the moment every Christian parent dreads. Has your son abandoned the faith? At Sunday dinner, you muster the courage to ask. And his response floors you. Dad and Mom, I’ve got something to share with you. I’m frustrated with church. It doesn’t tackle the deep issues I wrestle with. Here it comes. This is it. You grab each other’s hand. And then he says it. Dad and Mom, what ever happened to the old hymns? My campus director plays guitar, and he’s got all these old hymns that I never hear in church anymore, and they are so relevant to my struggles. And what ever happened to the Lord’s Supper? Man, that’s the good stuff…that’s where I can lay it on the line with Jesus and bring him my fears and dreams. And what ever happened to the Bible? When I was young, I loved hearing the stories and struggles of faith. They reached me. I wish our pastor told fewer jokes and focused on some of the real life stories in the Bible and the church. You don’t know whether to cry or laugh. PCA parents are telling more and more stories like this one. A strange convergence of ancient ways of faith and radically new forms of expression is happening. And it’s happening in ways that might surprise you.
In The Younger Evangelicals (1), sixty-something theologian, pastor, and author Robert Webber describes “a new evangelical awakening” happening primarily among young men and women. It’s influenced and guided by the “young in spirit” who sense the need for an evangelical revival. Webber is one of these leaders. A Professor of Theology Emeritus at Wheaton College, Webber and a cast of “young in spirit” leaders including Sally Morgenthaler, Brian McClaren, Stanley Grenz, and others offer a vision of church bathed in the “historic substance of the faith” lost in the past 25 years of ministry and reset in the “new cultural condition of the twenty-first century.” As advocates of a modern Reformation, these elders of a movement sometimes called “the emergent church” see the hope of evangelical Christianity resting in a deconstruction of modern, Enlightenment methods that led to both radical liberalism and rigid fundamentalism. Traditional evangelicals (1950-1975), they say, embraced the modern worldview with its affinity towards evidentialism, foundationalism and rationalism. Meanwhile “pragmatic evangelicals” who followed (1975-2000) overreacted by abandoning much of the historic substance of faith for an ahistorical, consumer-friendly, market-driven and therapeutic form. Led by mega-church pastors, popular authors, and a band of well-intentioned Christian brothers seeking to re-invent Christianity in a new, relevant form the result was a de-historicized Christianity lacking substance, appealing to its consumers by imitating culture rather than creating it. The new, emerging church (2000-) led by the younger evangelicals involves a re-commitment to the depth and substance of historic Christianity, without the rigid fundamentalism or mindless liberalism that characterized much of the church in the twentieth century. Within these churches one is apt to see a focus on the Trinity and God’s transcendence (“it’s not about me”), a fondness of mystery (“don’t pretend you have all the answers”), a desire for honesty (“don’t make church a show”), space for lament (“I need to know God hears my cries”), the language of story (“don’t give me more principles…show me how I fit into God’s story”), and a craving for community (“size isn’t proof of God’s presence; love is”). The chart below (adapted from Webber’s The Younger Evangelicals, but with some of the author’s own observations) shows the shift with comparisons between traditional, pragmatic and emergent Christianity.
Where is this new movement intersecting with the PCA? And is it a positive junction? We look to the young leaders and the “young in spirit” within the PCA to understand the implications for our own denomination. An Emergence within the PCA? Aspects of this movement can be seen in many forms and places in the PCA. There is a growing hunger for honesty and authenticity. Pastor Shayne Wheeler of All Souls Fellowship (PCA) in Decatur, Georgia notes, “We bend over backwards to make our church a safe place for folks to search for faith. We acknowledge from the pulpit that there are folks out there who are simply unconvinced by everything they have heard about Jesus, but who are desperately looking for a faith that is truly worth believing. We encourage them to search diligently for God and assure them this is a safe place to doubt and question.” Pastor Steve Malone of Red Mountain PCA in Birmingham, Alabama feels similarly. He writes, “The slick packaging of the pragmatists is a turn-off to many younger people who are much more skeptical and wary of manipulation.” Fifty years ago, the “safety” of church might not have been as much of an issue. However, young Christians who came of age during the Swaggart, Bakker, and Tilton scandals are concerned that their church be a place where participants can bring the baggage of their own lives, and where the pastor is real and forthright about his own struggles. In an article entitled “The Gospel and the City,” City Church pastor Fred Harrell summarizes this sentiment: “The Gospel enables you to be known. Be accessible, vulnerable, willing to involve yourselves deeply with people.” (2) Incarnational evangelism Where previous ways of evangelism included techniques designed to convince seekers, the new way is, again, a return to the ancient way – the way of Incarnation. Shayne Wheeler speaks to this desire to “embody” the life of Christ in culture: “The bottom line is, you can’t just understand your culture, you have to personally become your culture, then worship, preach, and lead out of the reality of who you are. That is the sort of leader people can follow. That is the sort of leader who brings people to Jesus. Drop the formulas and techniques. People see right through them.” This commitment to culture sees the life of Christ manifested not just in conversions, but also in the transformation of culture. Steve Malone echoes this: “You can’t have a hit-and-run approach to ministry. You have to love a place to minister to a place. The people need to become your people. We push for a geographical integration of church, neighborhood, and work. The closer these things are, the more natural it is to live a seamless life. The more distance there is, the more you need artificial props—programs—to create community. Relationships need leisure to develop. That’s why we talk about a long-term commitment to a particular place (2-3 mile circle).” (3) Fred Harrell sees the Gospel manifested in the “Kingdom’s priorities of healing the world’s hurts, being a neighbor to the poor and less fortunate, the oppressed, and those who have been sinned against. As the church lives out the gospel in all areas of life it points to God’s kingdom—the just, joyful, peaceable order that is present now as a result of Jesus’ first coming and will be fully realized when he comes again.” Once again, these young pastors are not inventing new ways, but re-discovering within Christian tradition deep commitments to Gospel ways of living that include justice, soul care, and a desire to see the kingdom come “on earth as it is in heaven.” Finally, there is a clear return to the primacy and significance of Scripture and sacraments within this emerging generation of church leaders. Attend City Church, Red Mountain, All Souls or one of the other young church plants that characterize this emerging ‘return’ to orthodoxy and you’ll notice some curious things. You’ll notice a formal liturgy chock full of responsive readings, confessions, and creeds. You’ll notice a commitment to the sacraments, manifested in a frequent—often weekly—celebration of the Lord’s Supper. Each of these pastors will attest to a personal and cultural hunger for transcendence, for mystery, for deep engagement on an existential level with the Trinity. You’ll notice the word preached with a prophetic and honest edge, not showy but deeply engaged in the story of Scripture and the ongoing story being told in our midst. Steve Malone emphasizes the importance of the preached word: “We affirm a high commitment to the Word and to preaching. I think this is critical. Immerse yourself in the Scripture and believe it on behalf of others. Immerse yourself in your community. Know them. Anticipate their responses to the Word. Speak their language. I think that we put too much emphasis on application, though. People can make their own connections, and we need to leave space for that. So I avoid things like: ‘Here are the seven things you need to take home today’. There should be a humility in preaching that shows that we believe certain things, but don’t understand everything, and we realize that people don’t agree with us and that’s all right. We never hide who we are (everything about us says we’re Christian), but we can talk about our distinctives gently and humbly.” Steve also thinks the job of a prophet is honest preaching. He notes: “Tell how it is, tell how it should be, tell how it will be. We should speak bravely about the fallenness of the world. Don’t sugarcoat it. I think we should be a little iconoclastic. Then, we talk about the tension of who we are and who we should be. But also we need to announce that the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Jesus is coming! He is showing up for his people. He is setting things right!” This new brand of prophet expects seekers to be present, but does not intend to create an appealing show to woo them to faith. Instead, these preachers speak the language of the seeker in a way that invites dialogue and engagement on an emotional and intellectual level. Where pragmatics reduced the frequency of the Lord’s Supper to avoid turning off potential seekers (among several reasons), younger evangelicals of the PCA see the Lord’s Supper as the ultimate moment of evangelism and engagement, as the Gospel is enacted before the eyes of the seeker. Where pragmatics tell entertaining stories to attract and keep attention, this new generation of prophets tell prophetic stories of God’s redemptive work in and through the saints – past and present. The Word of the Lord endures forever Clearly, there is much to applaud in the work of the younger evangelicals in the PCA. However, these pastors are wary of trends, recognizing that movements come and go but that the gospel remains. Pastor Craig Higgins of Trinity PCA in Rye, NY, offers a balanced assessment, noting, “I think the transitory nature of modern American life—and the now widely perceived shallowness of the pervasive culture—leave people longing for something that is more permanent, more rooted. To demonstrate that the Christian faith is both ancient and relevant is a powerful apologetic. However, we need to be careful. I’ve had parishioners younger than me speak of how much they resent having anything—including church—‘marketed’ to them. They resist being pigeonholed, and often don’t like being segregated by ‘age & stage.’ Authenticity is important; relationships need to be genuine. This is where I think much of the trendy ‘emergent’ stuff is a disaster. It’s simply a new way of marketing the church—the church with sofas.” (4) Nevertheless, a spirit of semper reformanda characterizes many young leaders of the PCA. Harrell, Malone and Wheeler have paved the way for the work of PCA pastors Bart Garrett in Berkeley, Brad Staton in downtown Orlando, Frank Taylor in West Tampa and others who embody the kingdom values of the saints who have gone before them. There is much to learn from these young pastors, and there is much to pray for as they break through to areas that are highly urban, largely homosexual, un-churched, and suspicious of Christians. It is the hope of each of these men that they would faithfully embody the sufferings, death, and resurrection of Christ in a way that impacts souls and the communities where they serve. In time, the term “younger evangelical” will fade. But the important work that is going forward will remain as we join these men in Christ’s timeless prayer: Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
### (1) Robert Webber, The Younger Evangelicals (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2002). I freely quote Webber throughout this article, and utilize a modified form of his valuable comparison chart to further clarify the differences between models. (2) Fred Harrell’s very important article “The Gospel and the City” can found at www.redmountainchurch.org . Fred is the pastor at City Church (PCA) in San Francisco. The quotes attributed to him come from this article. (3) Thanks to Steve Malone, pastor of Red Mountain Church (PCA) in Birmingham, Alabama for allowing us to interview him. Visit the church website at www.redmountainchurch.org . (4) Thanks to Craig Higgins, pastor of Trinity Church (PCA) in Rye, N.Y. for allowing us to interview him. Visit Trinity Church’s website: www.trinitychurch.cc .
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