Mark's Letters

I feel alone. I have been reading all the stuff online by ex-evangelicals who are “deconstructing” their faith in favor of a faith less traumatic, legalistic, shaming, silencing, and controlling: a more affirming faith—or in some cases, no faith at all. Many comments declare solidarity and cry, “Me too! I also suffered under the tyranny and trauma of evangelical churches!” Without some dishonesty, I can’t join this chorus.

I feel alone because although in the depths of evangelical tradition, I have no trauma. I am missing what seems universal online—trauma and resentment from a childhood in evangelical culture. I was the son of a pastor and attended church twice on Sunday, once on Wednesday and every day during revival services. I also attended an evangelical college. In graduate school at Washington State University, I helped lead an Intervarsity Bible study for graduate students. Although I spent most my life teaching at community college, I taught long enough at an evangelical college for them to ask me to resign (regarding the gifts of the Spirit).

Despite all this, I find myself on the outside of the community of traumatized ex-evangelicals who are helping one another heal. I read about their hurt with sympathy and curiosity. I can only listen carefully. I am in no position to challenge or validate their pain. My mother survived the trials of being a pastor’s wife whose appearance and parenting skills were constantly critiqued by congregations. And then there were the expectations that if Dad was hired as the pastor, mom was part of the package. She was criticized for teaching school instead of being a full-time pastor’s wife and keeping us completely dependent on the meager and sporadic tithes. Yet, I never heard or saw any signs of trauma in my mother.

Nor did I see any signs that patriarchy had robbed her of her voice. The whole community discovered this when she was elected president of the local teacher’s organization. She confronted male superintendents and school board members and nearly led the organization into a teacher’s strike. Mom was articulate, well-read, and loved Jesus and my Dad. She had a keen sense of what was just and ethical. Before the Americans with Disabilities Act, she valiantly defended a male teacher whose job was threatened because of his “poor eyesight”.

Neither as a parent or a pastor, did my father ever shut down questions. In high school when the Black Panthers, Weathermen, and protests were a thing, I could ask him anything without being shut down. I let my hair grow when the Jesus Movement hit the west coast. Although a few people in the local church were critical of my ragged bellbottoms and long hair, Dad asked one question, “Mark, do you love Jesus?” When I said, “Yes”, Dad said, “Then wear your hair how you want.” Well, there went my chance to complain about controlling and legalistic parents.

Another common complaint is that evangelicalism is shallow. Maybe it is/was for some, but that was not my experience. I grew up in a home that was churchy to the core, but well-read and intellectually active. Dad and I discussed the ontology of time and how it is that God’s foreknowledge is or isn’t causative. We argued about different theories about theodicy, epistemology, and eschatology. Mom’s Quaker parents thought, even in the 30’s, that all their daughters should have a college education. Mom taught grade school but her first love was botany—so our whole family grew up knowing the names of plants, birds, and butterflies. We grew up camping and loved all that is natural and wild.

I attended an evangelical college (Northwest Nazarene in Idaho) and found it more intellectually challenging and wide-ranging than my graduate program in English. I took a lot of philosophy and history classes. My junior and senior year I was invited to enroll in Doctor Woodward’s history seminar where we read a stack of challenging books from the left and right of the political spectrum. Because of Doctor Woodward, I was much better prepared to tackle difficult works than most of classmates. Amazingly, I was even more familiar than my secular classmates with the texts of those on the left.

It may be that my lack of trauma is simple because my parents were extraordinary. However, much of what I read online makes evangelical culture seem so toxic that healthy parents could never protect a kid and adult as immersed in it as I was. (And yes, I went to church camps and had fun and went to the altar.) I am aware that I deliberately chose an intellectually challenging course of study in college. Other students may have chosen a narrower and more provincial path. And maybe the Christian liberal arts college I attended was unique.

Nor was I just a mild and compliant kid that did not make waves. Like my mother, I was not compliant. In high school and college, I had conflicts with administrators. I once confronted the college president about his silly censorship of some the plays being staged on campus. I wrote a couple articles in an underground campus newspaper whose editors were discovered and suspended by the college president.

I don’t think it was because I grew up in an idyllic time. My parents lived through WWII and the Depression. I had one brother in the army in Vietnam and one brother marching against the war and then serving in the Peace Corp in Korea. (Strangely and wonderfully, they met up in Japan and had a great time seeing Tokyo.) Comparing the difficulties of past and present is probably a fool’s errand; different times are hard in different ways. In my times, there was certainly more legalism than today. If legalism is part of evangelical toxicity, I was certainly exposed to more of it than most of those deconstructing their faith.

There are probably multiple evangelical cultures, and some may be more toxic than others. Most of the ex-evangelicals I read, however, present their experience of evangelicalism as universal and don’t acknowledge that West Coast evangelicals (me) might have a better experience than a deep south Baptist.

I attribute my lack of trauma to the fact that my parents were the real deal—and lived their faith behind the scene and in the hardest times. So, no matter how many legalistic busybodies or anti-intellectual bigots I encountered, my parents were a spiritual compass that always pointed to Jesus. Had they been hypocrites, I would be a mess, even today. But this would be true no matter what religious tradition I was raised. Hypocrisy is always a disaster for kids–whether in Catholicism, Orthodoxy, or evangelicalism.

It is at this point, I want to let everyone know that I have real skills when it comes to criticizing the church. I was pastor’s kid, so I saw behind the curtain. I saw all the meanness and pettiness of people. I could throw theological and sociological and ethical critiques at the church. Whether they are egalitarian or complementarian, evangelicals have not done enough to protect and value women. We have not been in the fore-front of every battle against racism and antisemitism. Almost all my adult experience as an evangelical has included serving the poor, but here we, like all American Christians, could do much more.

I do not offer my experience as vindication of evangelicalism, but nor do I receive the accounts of trauma as discrediting of evangelicalism. I simply offer my experience as something that is also true. In all areas, it is important for the voices of victims to be heard clearly and fully. And where the trauma is the result of institutional evil or cover-ups, it is important to demand repentance, transparency, and change.

But it is just important to hear from those who were blessed, helped, and nurtured by the evangelical tradition. One reason I am still an evangelical is that in Scripture we have a rudder that can steer God’s people when they drift off course. Any look at the use of Scripture by the abolitionists shows how powerful a force it can be for moving the church away from sin and injustice—even when entrenched in a culture. It is evangelicalism’s high view of the authority of the Bible that I treasure most and gives me hope. If “deconstructing” our faith loses this, we have lost our way and risk losing the Way.