Child of God

“Millennials want to be known by what we’re for, I said, not just what we’re against. We don’t want to choose between science and religion or between our intellectual integrity and our faith. Instead, we long for our churches to be safe places to doubt, to ask questions, and to tell the truth, even when it’s uncomfortable. We want to talk about the tough stuff—biblical interpretation, religious pluralism, sexuality, racial reconciliation, and social justice—but without predetermined conclusions or simplistic answers. We want to bring our whole selves through the church doors, without leaving our hearts and minds behind, without wearing a mask.

I explained that when our gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender friends aren’t welcome at the table, then we don’t feel welcome either, and that not every young adult gets married or has children, so we need to stop building our churches around categories and start building them around people. And I told them that, contrary to popular belief, we can’t be won back with hipper worship bands, fancy coffee shops, or pastors who wear skinny jeans. We millennials have been advertised to our entire lives, so we can smell b.s. from a mile away. The church is the last place we want to be sold another product, the last place we want to be entertained. Millennials aren’t looking for a hipper Christianity, I said.

We’re looking for a truer Christianity, a more authentic Christianity. Like every generation before ours and every generation after, we’re looking for Jesus—the same Jesus who can be found in the strange places he’s always been found: in bread, in wine, in baptism, in the Word, in suffering, in community, and among the least of these. No coffee shops or fog machines required. Of course, I said all this from the center of a giant stage equipped with lights, trampolines, and, indeed, a fog machine. I’m never entirely comfortable at these events—not because my words are unwelcome or untrue, but because I feel so out of my depth delivering them.

I’m not a scholar or statistician. I’ve never led a youth group or pastored a congregation. The truth is, I don’t even bother getting out of bed many Sunday mornings, especially on days when I’m not sure I believe in God or when there’s an interesting guest on Meet the Press. For me, talking about church in front of a bunch of Christians means approaching a microphone and attempting to explain the most important, complicated, beautiful, and heart-wrenching relationship of my life in thirty minutes or less without yelling or crying or saying any cuss words. Sometimes I wish they’d find someone with a bit more emotional distance to give these lectures, someone who doesn’t have to break herself open and bleed all over the place every time someone asks, innocently enough, “So where have you been going to church these days?”… 

~ Rachel Held Evans, Searching for Sunday: Loving, Leaving, and Finding the Church

“When you’re aware of your history and how the Bible, for instance, has been used to justify things like slavery, you start to ask yourself if we’re still using the Bible to justify violence, cruelty, and exclusion of LGBT or to justify some of the racism or other things that plague our society…. There’s so much security in thinking of America as this Christian nation, founded upon Christian principles that justified all of our decisions and makes us feel better about our patriotism and allegiances. I think there’s a security in thinking of Christians as people who have always been in the right. Then you can be assured that you are also, presently, in the right.

That’s a dangerous way to look at it because there are few things more dangerous than someone convinced they are always right, or that their people or their country or their religion has always been in the right. Most of us are a mix of sinner and saint and most of our religions are a mix of good and evil and that’s just reality. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with acknowledging that.

What was so powerful about the Gay Christian Network conference was just worshiping with a whole room full of people, many of whom had been kicked to the curb by the church. They were being church with one another in a way that I had never experienced before. There was so much grace and forgiveness and room for people coming from different experiences and convictions. It wasn’t just because they were gay, but because there was so much grace. You’re with people who have been hurt by the church and yet still want to be part of this community, to gather around the table and break bread. They still want to confess and tell the truth, heal and anoint.

I wrote that LGBT people have a lot to teach Christians about sexuality and culture, but also how to be decent Christians. I had already committed to being a good ally, but what the conference changed for me is that I am not looking to people like Justin [Lee, founder of the Gay Christian Network] or other leaders in the LGBT community to be just teachers to me about sexuality. I’m looking to them to be teachers about what it means to be a Christian. It’s hard to storm out of your church because you don’t like how the worship is going when you know people who have stuck with church even when they’ve been called horrible names and treated terribly. That challenges me.

I do and I always will (have hope for Christianity). I get frustrated sometimes and I get angry and cynical, but I still believe that there are healing properties in breaking the bread of communion together, in baptism declaring that someone is a beloved child of God. I still think there is power in anointing the sick and acknowledging that suffering can be holy. In all of these sacraments, I still feel like they are important and they pull us into community and that community is important. All the theology and all the stuff we’re supposed to believe and all the politics and drama makes it hard sometimes, but at the end of the day, there’s still something powerful about those sacraments and a community coming together to practice them…”

~ ~ Rachel Held Evans (born 1981) is an American Christian columnist, blogger and author. Her first book, Evolving in Monkey Town, explores her journey from religious certainty to a faith which accepts doubt and questioning; the title is based on the Scopes Monkey Trial. Her second book, A Year of Biblical Womanhood: How a Liberated Woman Found Herself Sitting on Her Roof, Covering Her Head, and Calling Her Husband Master, recounts how she spent an entire year of living a Biblical lifestyle literally. The book also garnered national media attention for Evans as she appeared on The Today Show. Evans is an Episcopalian. In 2016, Evans published an editorial for Vox lending her support for presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.