Ex-Evangelical Apologetics: Are Leavers Broken and/or Just Giving Up?
Brad revisits the idea that exvangelicals are just broke and giving up on faith. He responds to an interview at the Remnant Radio with Skillet's John Cooper.
Topics discussed:
Do non-Evangelicals allow culture to shape them, while Evangelicals allow Scripture to be the formative influence?
Is Truth all or nothing?
Why are Evangelicals so upset when exvies "share the Gospel" of their deconstruction?
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It's good to see you, Brad.
Good to see you, too, Dan.
And we have some updates about our seminar.
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Not only because it's our first seminar, but because I know you're an amazing teacher and whoever signs up is going to have a great experience.
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We talked about this last week, but people have There are people who wanted to do sort of a deeper dive something a little bit more formal than what we can do in the podcast We say it's like a it's like a college class without all the bad stuff.
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What's up, y'all?
Welcome to Straight White American Jesus.
My name is Brad Onishi, our Socialist Partnership with the CAP Center, UCSB, and today I wanted to just spend some time on a good old rebuttal to folks who continue to badmouth those who are deconstructing and those who are ex-evangelicals.
And so it just seems like a lot of Christian leaders and figures and luminaries and celebrities just can't stop.
They feel this need to talk about us ex-evangelicals.
So I haven't done one of these in a while.
I wanted to do this.
I had somebody reach out, Michael Taylor, who listens to the show, and say, hey, can you listen to this and watch this and do that?
So basically, I want to respond to an interview with John Cooper, who's the lead singer of Skillet.
Some of you will know who that is.
Here he is right here.
Skillet is a pretty famous Christian evangelical band.
Some of you out there will have memories of listening to their albums.
He was on a radio show, a YouTube show called the Remnant Radio, and on there he talked about ex-evangelicals and why You know, they're the worst thing ever.
And this all started with a Facebook post that he made back in 2019, and that Facebook post made a lot of rounds, and I just think some of the points in the post are worth talking about, and then what he said just like a month and a half ago is worth talking about.
So, in the post, titled, What in God's Name is Happening in Christianity?, John Cooper says a lot of things, but he first says, okay, I'm saying it because it's too important not to.
What is happening in Christianity?
More and more of our outspoken leaders are influencers who were once faces of the faith are falling away, and at the same time they're being very vocal and bold about it.
Shockingly, they still want to influence others as they announce that they are leaving the faith.
Okay, I have no idea why that's shocking, that they would want to influence others.
The whole idea of being evangelical is that you know the truth and you want to tell others about it.
When we have folks like former worship leaders, former authors, former pastors that believe they have now come into a different understanding of the truth, it kind of makes sense, John, that they'd want to tell people about it.
He says, I'll state my conclusion then.
I'll state some rebuttals and so and so.
He says he doesn't disagree with anyone outside of Christianity, but these people, these former youth leaders, these former worship leaders, these former whoever, who are in the faith, he has to talk about them.
So, first thing he says is, we must stop making worship leaders and thought leaders or influencers or cool people or relevant people the most influential people in Christendom.
I've been saying that for 20 years, and we're in a dangerous place when 20-year-old worship singers are our source of truth.
Okay, that may be true, and I understand what you're getting at there, that you're kind of putting young people in a place of influence, but, you know, Martin Luther talks about the priesthood of all believers.
The idea of the Protestant Reformation is built on the idea that every person is a priest of the Almighty God, and that if God has spoken to them, they have the ability to convey that truth to everybody else.
So, you know, everybody seems pretty happy when young people are, quote, on fire for God and spreading the gospel and being, you know, local missionaries or leading Bible studies or playing music that they think glorifies the Almighty, and yet when they step away, There's a situation where it's, well, we can't look to them for influence.
And it's kind of hard to have this both ways, because not only do churches elevate 20-year-old worship singers, but they make 20-year-olds and 22-year-olds and 25-year-olds into Pastors.
I was a pastor by the time I was 18, and so we can sit here and say that they're too young for this, but honestly it doesn't really track, right?
So that's probably just not a good excuse here for what's going on.
He says in the next paragraph, okay, Why is that stunning?
that the seemingly most important thing for these leaders who have lost their faith is to make such a bold new stance.
Why is that stunning?
Evangelicalism is based on being a Jesus freak, on making bold stances, on telling everyone who will listen about your truth.
We were trained for this.
If you're trained in evangelicalism, you're trained to make bold statements and to tell as many people as you can about the truth.
I mean, you're basically saying, I'm surprised that they're doing everything we trained them to do.
I'm surprised they're acting in the ways that we have trained them to act for as long as they've been part of the Church and part of the evangelical culture.
That's just a really weird thing to say you're stunned by, okay?
Basically saying, I've been living and preaching boldly something for 20 years and led generations of people with my teachings and now I no longer believe it.
Therefore, I'm going to boldly and loudly tell people it was all wrong while I boldly and loudly lead people into my next truth.
I'm perplexed why they aren't embarrassed.
Well, I don't know, John.
When people convert at age 20 or 30 or 40 from something else, secular humanism, as I'm sure you like to talk about, or another faith, another religion, whatever, what do we do in evangelical culture when someone does that?
We get them on stage to tell their testimony.
Am I right?
They say, you know, I used to live in sin.
I used to do this and I used to do that.
Guess what now?
I'm boldly and loudly telling you I'm here to tell you how Jesus saved me.
Again, the person who's leaving the faith and trying to tell others about why they're leaving the faith is doing exactly what they have been trained to do.
They're doing the thing that they supposedly are supposed to do.
I don't understand why that is shocking.
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