Photo by Jared Rice on Unsplash

(A six-minute read.)

I had a fascinating and enlightening conversation with a new friend I made a couple months ago while attending and presenting at the League of European Research Universities theology conference in Finland. On the last night, we had a formal dinner at a fancy restaurant in Helsinki and sitting next to me was a young man from France who’s doing his PhD in philosophy at a Swiss university.

Always eager to meet new people and learn their story, I had a thousand questions for him and he happily obliged, telling me about his background and his research. When we got onto the topic of religion, he admitted he’d grown up in a typical French family that was highly secular. But, he clarified, since starting his graduate studies, he’d discovered a newfound curiosity about Christianity and had been regularly attending various church services—sometimes at Roman Catholic churches, and sometimes at the various Protestant churches of his professors.

He then went on to explain that he was far from exceptional and that there were many young men in France in their twenties and thirties who were similarly exploring spirituality in general and Christianity specifically. There seems to be this growing hunger for God among this demographic, he noted.

Greatly intrigued by this admission and wanting to know more, I asked him what had led to this spiritual shift. “It’s very simple,” he explained. “A lot of us grew up in typical ‘secular’ French families and we discovered that it didn’t deliver what we thought it would. It’s not all that satisfying or fulfilling. And so we’re looking for something more.”

And so it is.

Actually, I told him that a similar phenomenon had been happening in America. And when I sat next to a young lady at the Helsinki airport on my way home, who was from Copenhagen and also at the conference, she told me of a similar reality in Denmark, where she was noticing an uptick in attendance at her Roman Catholic congregation.

Sociologists and other observers have noted that the growth of secularism and the retreat of religiosity has, at the very least, leveled off in the West. People still may not be flocking to churches these days in North America, Europe, or Australia, but they’re at least not exiting them in droves like they were a decade or two ago.

Such a turn has led some to claim that we are now living in a “post-secular age” in the West, which is a term I heard a couple church planters from Canada use recently. Whereas philosopher Charles Taylor famously analyzed how we came to be living in a “secular age” two decades ago, and whereas others have labeled our era a “post-Christian age,” it seems like we’re actually living in a “post-secular age,” with an increasing number of people concluding that secularism isn’t all it’s cracked up to be and that it’s unable to deliver the lasting goods they thought and hoped it would.

I might be tempted to say that I’m not sure we ever really did arrive in a “secular age” (at least if we define “secularism” as that which is totally in opposition to spirituality or religiosity—though Taylor had other definitions in mind as well when he used the phrase). I believe we were at least rapidly moving toward a post-church age or a post-Christendom age. And I’d argue that we still are in many ways.

But in my experience, I’m not sure we’ve ever been in a post-spiritual age or even a post-Jesus age.

Let me explain why I say this.

Over the last decade or so, as I’ve made an intentional effort to spend time with people from all different religious or non-religious backgrounds, one thing I’ve noticed is that it’s really, really hard to find someone who’s an outright atheist (or even agnostic)—people who’ve gone “all in” on a secular/materialist worldview and who have zero interest in some type of spirituality.

In fact, I’ve found just the opposite—and I say this as someone who lives in one of the least-religious states in America (more closely resembling Europe than other parts of America), and, by some measures, the most post-Christian city in America.

What I’ve been intrigued to discover is that, even though there are very few people in the city of Portland (Maine) who attend—or seemingly have any interest in attending—what we might call “traditional” Christian churches (be they Roman Catholic, or mainline or evangelical Protestant churches), there is still a deep hunger for spirituality.

I could tell you about my scientist-neighbor who is deeply steeped in and committed to a naturalistic/materialistic perspective, but who nevertheless finds himself praying—for reasons he doesn’t quite understand—and wanting to believe in the existence of a personal God.

I could tell you about another neighbor who was raised in a strict evangelical home, who has totally deconstructed and thrown that all out, who is eager to take up every progressive political cause she can get behind, but who still believes in God (albeit an admittedly pantheistic version of God).

I could tell you about another neighbor, still, who never attends church, doesn’t seem to have any intention in ever attending church, but who told me she enjoys reading Catholic mystic, Richard Rohr.

Then there’s the other neighbor who told me she really just wants to be a part of a community of love, and was hoping to start attending a congregation that practices Spiritualism in a neighboring town.

Or the other ones who expressed a similar longing—wanting to be a part of some sort of spiritual community, even though they weren’t sure about the existence of a personal God.

Or the other neighbor who, before moving away, regularly led a group of neighbors in Yoga and Hindu meditation.

Then there’s another friend of mine, whom I met on an airplane a few years back when returning to Maine, who doesn’t attend a church gathering anywhere but who practices some sort of Catholic/Zen Buddhist/AA combination of spirituality.

I could cite example after example—and these are only the neighbors and friends whose stories I’ve gotten to know in just the last couple of years. I’m sure for every “post-secular” neighbor who’s communicated some type of spiritual hunger to me, there are two or three others whose stories of spiritual hunger I haven’t yet heard.

This isn’t to imply, of course, that every single “unchurched” person walking around Portland is consciously hungering for some type of spirituality—nor that there are no deeply-committed atheists (to be sure, I’ve had a handful of conversations with unchurched friends and neighbors who’ve said they are spiritually ambivalent, though none who expressed outright hostility).

But the point is that I’m not sure we’ve ever really been in a truly post-Christian age, much less a truly secular one.

Indeed, I’ve noticed that there remains a huge admiration for and interest in Jesus—as a person, as a teacher—especially with the rise of Christian nationalism, when so-called “secular” people keep reminding Christian nationalists that their Christianity doesn’t seem to bear much resemblance to, you know, Christ.

There just seems to ever be this hungering and thirsting for some sort of spiritual reality that exists beyond what our eyes can see. That hungering and thirsting expresses itself in many different ways—and, to be sure, not everyone has a conscious hunger for a personal God that bears some resemblance to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. In fact, very few people seemingly do.

But, for a plethora of reasons, and as the result of various unique journeys, many people I’ve intersected with—again, in arguably America’s most “secular” region—have determined that secularism isn’t the answer and that some type of spirituality is something they long for.

What I’m sharing isn’t anything new—nor all that profound. It’s certainly not a novel observation I’ve come up with. People have been talking about the “spiritual but not religious” crowd for a long time.

But it’s been interesting to me to personally notice and experience it—and I’ve determined that part of my “calling” is to, in very non-threatening and agency-honoring ways, come alongside people and, like Paul on Mars Hill, point to the personal God I’ve come to believe is at the end of those longings (at least he has been for me).

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Shawn is a pastor and church planter in Portland, Maine, whose life, ministry, and writing focus on incarnational and embodied expressions of faith. The author of four books and a columnist for Adventist Review, he is also a DPhil (PhD) candidate at the University of Oxford, focusing on nineteenth-century American Christianity. You can follow him on Instagram, and listen to his podcast Mission Lab.

Photo by Raphael Renter | @raphi_rawr on Unsplash

(A six-minute read.)

I was recently looking at some emails I’d exchanged back in 2021 with a well-known and controversial preacher in my particular faith community. Some friends had forwarded along a few sermons of his, wanting my take on his theology and perspective.

The sermons covered all the major politically-conservative talking points: America—and our denomination—was being taken over by “cultural Marxism”; critical theory was the cause of much of the evil in the world today; the LGBT community had an “agenda” to brainwash our children and take over America; “wokeness” was bad.

Before I get to the body of this piece, let me say two things first:

One, I’m not trying to change anyone’s convictions at all regarding their stance on Marxism or sexuality or gender or wokeness—or whatever. I mean this with sincerity. There is no sleight of hand going on here. I myself am still pretty “traditional” when it comes to a number of cultural issues (though certainly not all of them).

My goal in this piece is simple: to encourage you, as I’ve done before, to simply relate to people as people—rather than threats or projects or monolithic representations of some group they apparently belong to. None of this requires you to change your personal convictions about any theoretical issue one iota.

Two, it doesn’t bother me at all that this particular preacher, and others like him, may have a different perspective than I do on some of these matters. I enjoy a nice, healthy, spirited intellectual debate with people who see things differently than I do.

What bothers me so much is when he—or anyone—paints whole swaths of people with such a broad brush. There is no room for nuance or gray. There is simply a “they”—and “they” all have a singular agenda. Such people are “essentialized” and turned into a lone characteristic or agenda.

Among other things, such an approach then causes adherents to relate to “them,” all of “them,” with suspicion.

Thus, when I encounter one of “them,” I don’t encounter a human, with varied emotions, hopes, and dreams; I don’t encounter someone in whom I recognize the imago Dei (the image of God), or from whom I may have something to learn.

I encounter someone with an “agenda” that I need to be guarded against and suspicious of. I encounter someone who’s a threat and who needs to be avoided or opposed.

For example, with such a mindset, when I encounter someone from the LGBTQ+ community, I generally tend to assume—again, coming from this mindset which paints everyone with a broad brush—that this particular person is especially preoccupied with getting me to adopt their view of sexuality, that they are highly focused on turning the culture away from biblical norms, and that they are trying to erase any traces of the Christian faith.

In short, I relate to them as impersonal ideas rather than complicated human beings who are worthy of love. I stereotype and pigeonhole and essentialize them.

And this was one of the main objections I offered this preacher back in 2021 in our email exchange. And to illustrate my point, I shared a brief story.

I told him of how our son, who was twelve at the time, had become best friends with another boy in the neighborhood. They did a lot together and this kid spent a ton of time at our house.

But early on in their friendship, we discovered that the kid had two Moms—which caused my wife and I to do a lot of reflection on how we were going to relate to the whole situation, based on our own values and convictions.

We ultimately decided that our personal views on sexuality shouldn’t create a separatist mindset within our family—and that it was more important for our family to move toward people than maintain some sort of moral “purity” by distancing from others who thought, believed, and lived differently than we did (which, by the way, is everyone on the planet).

And so that’s what we did, simply relating to people as people—and encouraging our kids to do the same.

One experience, however, stands out in my mind—which I shared with this preacher.

One Christmas season, his Moms invited us—and a number of other neighbors—over to their house to have some refreshments and decorate cookies. We debated whether we should go or not. What was their “agenda”? What were they trying to do? (It was also taking place on a Friday night—and since that is the beginning of our Sabbath, we hadn’t typically done “secular” activities on Friday nights up to that point).

But we ultimately decided for relationship over “purity,” and I took our three kids (my wife stayed home for some innocuous reason which I don’t recall now).

And I’m glad we went. Besides our family, there was only one other kid and his dad. Had we chosen not to show up, they likely would have felt very jilted.

We had an absolutely wonderful time, but there’s one part that stood out to me the most: when we all sat down to eat, one of the Moms said to me, with great respect and deference: “Shawn, I’m sure your family prays before you eat a meal. Would you like to have a prayer for the food?”

I just sat there thinking to myself: this is the “gay agenda”? These are the people trying to obliterate Christian faith in America and “ruin” the family?

On the contrary, there was absolutely zero hostility toward faith—even though neither of the Moms were Christian. There was no “agenda” to get me or my kids to adopt their views on anything.

The only “agenda” was to be human together.

To be clear: I have little doubt that most members of the LGBTQ+ community would love it if all society would adopt their views on sexuality and cease to condemn them for that sexuality.

What human doesn’t want other humans to love and accept them—to assure them that they belong and are not condemned simply for being? That seems like a natural and God-ordained instinct. This isn’t some evil or malevolent “agenda.”

In this regard, they are no different than any other subset of humans—Christians don’t want to be condemned for simply being Christian. Marxists don’t want to be condemned for simply being Marxist. Black and Brown people don’t want to be condemned for simply being Black or Brown. And so forth.

As such, I tend to think that the “gay agenda,” insofar as we can even say there is one, is an “agenda” that is common to all humanity. Members of this community—like the rest of us—simply want to feel seen, known, loved, and accepted. They don’t want to feel condemned for simply existing.

Many Christians, however, seem to think that such a desire from the LGBTQ+ community is somehow sinister and evil—that there are all these members of the LGBTQ+ community in the world who have somehow had a full and unmediated encounter with “God’s truth” about sexuality, and a full and unmediated encounter with the God of love behind that truth, and have instead chosen to live lives of presumptuous, willful, deliberate, and high-handed rebellion.

They’ve made a “deal with the devil,” and consciously, with eyes wide open, chosen darkness over light.

I’m probably exaggerating and straw-manning the concern a bit.

But, either way, I have my doubts about the perspective.

Like the rest of us, I believe that the vast majority of our brothers and sisters in the LGBTQ+ community are probably doing the best they know how—even if, like the rest of us, their understanding of the “best” is perhaps imperfect or incomplete.

Again, acknowledging this doesn’t require a person to change his or her views on sexuality one jot or tittle.

It is, after all, possible to disagree with another person’s convictions, beliefs, or behaviors without ascribing completely impure or rebellious motives to them. It is possible to disagree with them and yet still recognize their common humanity—and that the ultimate things they want are the ultimate things we all want (love, belonging, acceptance, purpose, meaning, transcendence).^[†]

So that’s what I told this preacher—adding that if my neighbors ever came across his broad-brushed characterization of them, they’d probably be mortified and never want their son to hang out with my son again after discovering that we came from the same faith community.

As it turns out, though, I gather they never did come across his reflections—thankfully—because they happily had their son come to church with us each week quite a few times after that (until we eventually moved away).

And when their son asked if he could participate in the “promo” video that our soon-to-be-relaunched church was shooting (just as my kids were), and I asked his mothers if they were fine with that, they said they were totally cool with it because they “trusted” me.

Perhaps you think I’m some stripe of “Universalist” because of these reflections (an idea which I’ve addressed before). Perhaps you think I’m getting too wishy-washy about “sin” or whatever.

I’m not sure about that.

What I do know is that I want to try to think the best of others (though I still have a lot of room for growth in this area), rather than looking at people as threats to be eliminated or bad influences to be avoided.

Any interesting in joining me?

^[†] This probably deserves further reflection in the future, but it seems to me that a bit of this discussion stems from our views on the nature of humans—and whether we believe we are born inherently corrupt and sinful (i.e., “original sin” or “total depravity”) or whether we are born “innocent” and then acted upon by others in ways that mar that innocence. I’m somewhat agnostic about that question at this point, but probably lean toward thinking it’s some sort of balance of the two.

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Shawn is a pastor and church planter in Portland, Maine, whose life, ministry, and writing focus on incarnational and embodied expressions of faith. The author of four books and a columnist for Adventist Review, he is also a DPhil (PhD) candidate at the University of Oxford, focusing on nineteenth-century American Christianity. You can follow him on Instagram, and listen to his podcast Mission Lab.

Photo by Brett Wharton on Unsplash

(A seven-minute read.)

Many Christians believe that critical theory and “cultural Marxism” are the cause of much of what ails the world today.

There is much to say about this, but I just wanted to mention one thing. As I understand it, both critical theorists and the (conservative Christian) critics of critical theory basically agree on at least something: what critical theory essentially is and its basic agenda.

I’m not anything close to an expert on the subject, but as I understand it, critical theory—among other things—seeks to uncover the ways in which those in power have tried to maintain their power and keep the lower classes (the “proletariat,” in Marxian terms) subjugated. Critical theorists thus utilize an interpretive lens of suspicion, assuming that the actions of the powerful are frequently lined with the intent to maintain their power. Thus, even actions that might appear “good” on the surface are laced with ulterior motives—all in attempt to keep the oppressed in their state of oppression.

Christian critics have also rightly observed that standing behind such assumptions is a belief that the world can be divided into oppressed and oppressor classes.^[†] Everyone in the world is one or the other—either oppressed or oppressor.

As I’ve thought about all this, it suddenly occurred to me—though this is probably a half-baked idea—that one of the great ironies when it comes to my faith community is that Seventh-day Adventists were, in many ways, the OG critical theorists (perhaps preceded only by the Hebrew prophets, that is).

How so?

From our inception, Adventists have divided the world into oppressed and oppressor classes. We’ve also maintained that there are human forces in the world who hold great power—who are trying to secretly manipulate laws and policies in order to consolidate and maintain that power, and keep others in subjugation. These human forces were in control for 1260 years, enacting their decrees with unmitigated malevolence, and they’re trying to regain such power and control today.

To be more specific, I’m talking about the historic religio-political power of Roman Catholicism and the future religio-political power of eschatological “Babylon”—which is some combination of Roman Catholicism, “apostate” Protestantism, and everyone else who’s not part of “the remnant.” Indeed, immediately prior to Christ’s return, there will be only two classes of people: the oppressed and the oppressor—those who are faithful to God and those who are persecuting God’s faithful.

What’s more, there are many people from my faith community who carry out their own sort of “critical theory” when it comes to the headlines of the day.

The Pope speaks out against injustice? He’s just leveraging the situation to gain more power.

Congress passes a law to protect the environment? They’re just doing it so they can eventually set up a national “Sunday law” which will oppress all Sabbath-keepers.

Almost everything is looked upon with an interpretive lens of suspicion, trying to uncover the real story behind the story and the ways in which the oppressing class is trying to pave the way for further oppression (with Adventists, of course, the great victims of that oppression).

To be clear, Adventists weren’t and aren’t the only religious movement that’s maintained such a perspective. This impulse manifested in a common story across much of nineteenth-century American Protestantism, based on a particular reading of the Bible, which proposed that Christianity became “apostate” soon after the New Testament. And the type of Christianity that rose to prominence within the first few centuries was oppressive and malevolent, persecuting the true followers of Christ and sowing seeds of deception.

Our task now, this story goes, is to “restore” the true Christianity of the Bible and unmask the oppressive forces of false Christianity.

So Adventism didn’t invent this story. But I’d argue that it took this story to new places and utilized it as a part of its “grand” narrative—which Adventists have come to call the “great controversy.”

This “great controversy” narrative is, in many ways, critical theory on steroids. It’s a metanarrative which maintains that standing behind the oppressive forces of the human “Babylon” are the oppressive forces of the devil and his angels.

This, of course, isn’t necessarily unique to Adventists either—but the unique place we take it is that we maintain that the big story is this struggle between God and Satan. And all of human history has been this “war,” this “contest,” between God and Satan over the truth about God’s character. And Satan has used every trick to deceive the world about God—and our task, as Jesus-followers, is to unmask Satan and bring to light the secret ways he’s sown this deception in an attempt to oppress God and his people.

If you want to see this sort of “critical religious theory,” just read Ellen White’s The Great Controversy. It’s a form of “critical theory” from cover to cover.

So why am I pointing all this out?

For one, I share it as an explanation for why I’ve not been extremely bothered by “critical theory.” In many ways, my Adventist upbringing has predisposed me to this kind of thinking. I’ve been told my whole life that the world is heading toward this grand dichotomous crescendo, where there will be only oppressed and oppressor classes. There won’t be a third group. You’re either the oppressed or the oppressor. So choose wisely.

Thus, if I hear this same rhetoric from bona fide “critical theorists,” it’s not a foreign concept to me. Indeed, such critical theorists are sort of late to arrive on the scene.

To them, I simply say, “Welcome.”

I’ve also been told my whole life that there’s been powerful forces at play in the world (and even the universe) that have been subtly and deceptively trying to establish or maintain power. Such forces have even constructed laws that have sought to establish or maintain that power.

So, again, critical theory isn’t a novel idea in my mind.

A few caveats

Of course, the main objection is that the type of oppression and power that critical theorists and Christians talk about are different. Real critical theorists talk about race, gender, sexuality—claiming that oppression revolves around these matters. Christian objections to oppression revolve around religion.

What’s more, many critical theorists are apparently avowed atheists who want nothing to do with God—and are seemingly out to get Christians and destroy Christianity.

There’s much I could say to this objection, but let me offer a few brief reflections.

First, oppression is oppression.

To quote Martin Luther King Jr., “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality. . . . Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”

Second, and somewhat related: throughout human history, many of those who oppressed people on the basis of religion were the same people who oppressed others on the basis of race, gender, or sexuality.

For example, many of those who oppressed Black people in the nineteenth century—many of whom were Christians—were the same people who were trying to enact national Sunday laws and oppress Sabbath-keepers (a point that early Adventists repeatedly made).

It all comes from the same well.

Third, it’s very selfish and un-Jesus-like, I do believe, to be concerned only with my own oppression.

Fourth, if I refuse to speak up on behalf of others who are oppressed, who will speak up on my behalf when I’m oppressed? This is the classic and poignant Martin Niemöller idea.

Sadly, there were lots of members from my tradition—in fact, the vast majority—who refused to speak up on behalf of Jews in the 1930s because they couldn’t see how Jewish oppression negatively affected them or how that oppression fit in with their prophetic charts and timelines.

May it not be so of us.

Fifth, it’s strange to me that, as far as I can tell, most of the critics of critical theory within my faith community are seemingly influenced in their critiques of critical theory by people who they’ve historically considered to be a part of “Babylon.”

This is a weird development to me. It’s not at all a surprise that members of “Babylon” would want to try to malign those who are trying to uncover the ways in which Babylon is trying to maintain its power and be oppressive.

What surprises me is that Adventists, who’ve longed pushed their own sort of “critical religious theory,” don’t side with the advocates of critical theory but with the targets of critical theory.

But we live in strange times—when even the very elect, according to Jesus, can be deceived (see Matthew 24:24).

To be clear: I’m not saying that one must agree with or accept everything modern critical theorists push or promote. Not at all.

Nor am I saying that I’m immune from being deceived myself! I very well could be—and I may be.

I’m simply saying that sometimes the “children of the world” are “wiser” than the “children of light” (Luke 16:8).

And so I want to sit up and listen—and recognize where the Spirit of God is already working.

^[†] When I say that Christian critics have “rightly observed” this, I’m assuming—at this point—that this is a correct observation. I’ve not studied critical theorists enough at this point, however, to confirm whether they do in fact maintain that there are only two groups of people in the world—the oppressed and the oppressors. But my inclination is to think that this “Christian” understanding of critical theory is overly simplistic.

I also believe that I am ascribing more conscious malevolence to those in power than perhaps critical theorists would, since they’d maintain that it’s not necessarily that individuals are consciously trying to establish and maintain power, but it’s structures and institutions that (unconsciously) maintain such power. Nevertheless, I grant the above premises as an assumption throughout the piece for the sake of my larger point, simply taking the understanding of critical theory by Christian critics as a heuristic for my reflections.

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Shawn is a pastor and church planter in Portland, Maine, whose life, ministry, and writing focus on incarnational and embodied expressions of faith. The author of four books and a columnist for Adventist Review, he is also a DPhil (PhD) candidate at the University of Oxford, focusing on nineteenth-century American Christianity. You can follow him on Instagram, and listen to his podcast Mission Lab.

Photo by Zach Lucero on Unsplash

(Note: I’ve been really busy this week so I’m sharing this piece that I had submitted to another publication but had turned down. It’s longer than I’d prefer for this medium and, if I had originally written it for this platform, I would have articulated things a little differently. But, alas, I don’t really have enough time to makes those types of edits at this point—so here it is, as is. I trust you will still benefit from it.)

(A nine-minute read.)

In his recent piece, “The Cult of Pastoral Vulnerability,” Carl Trueman utilizes the resignation of a pastor who openly discussed his struggles “with homosexual temptation” as an opportunity to make a larger point about the tendency among modern pastors to be open about their struggles. While many discussed the theological underpinnings that may have led to this pastor’s “inappropriate relationship,” Trueman comes at the issue from a different angle.

For Trueman, the whole situation is endemic of “the rise of the modern therapeutic society,” which places a premium on authenticity and vulnerability. Ministry in the age of the therapeutic styles the pastor as a “fellow-struggler, whose spiritual battles need to be performed in public,” he proposes. There are problems with such a model, Trueman insists, including the fact that it puts a pastor at risk for “attracting predatory congregants or walking into a honey trap.” It further reflects a sort of neo-Donatism, which supposes that the sacraments are not effective apart from the agent administering them, thus claiming that “experience grants authority.”

To this, Trueman vehemently protests. “No, no, no,” he says. “The minister preaches the word and administers the sacraments. These have an objective validity that does not depend upon the moral or experiential qualities of the man expounding the Bible, sprinkling the water, breaking the bread, and filling the cup.” While there is value in ministry that comes from a place of experience, he clarifies, the experience that has value has to do with external factors of a fallen world, not the struggles that derive from “matters of personal morality and responsibility.”

Thus, the “couple that has experienced infertility or the death of a child,” he explains, “has an informal authority in counseling others facing the same.” But “public performance of vulnerability to sin is not part of the minister’s calling,” since “all” already “know he is a sinner” and they “need no more information than that.” Anything beyond this is a result of our “therapeutic society” and “thus part of the larger cultural problem, not a solution.”

As a way of validating his perspective, Trueman ends by sharing an anecdote from his recent experience, when he heard a friend say that “if she hears another person praising a priest for his vulnerability, she will explode.” Instead, she wanted “a priest who has strong convictions and clear theology.” It is thus “past time we throw out the vulnerability model of ministry,” Trueman ends, “and return to emphasizing the great objective truths of the faith.”

As one of those pastors who frequently choses to apparently “perform” my spiritual battles in public, I think Trueman has overstated his case. I grant that everything can be taken to an extreme—and that, of course, Christian leaders can go overboard with their vulnerability. Not every sermon needs to be a “tell all,” or anything close to it, nor am I advocating for the glorification of sin and temptation in the name of “authenticity.”

But whether Trueman likes it or not, we are living in the twenty-first century and the gospel must be presented in a way that relates to the twenty-first century heart and mind. And for every friend of Trueman’s who will “explode” if she hears another person praising a priest for his vulnerability, I could present five more of my own friends who will explode if a priest or pastor demonstrates no vulnerability and gives the appearance of perfection. Thus, to paraphrase Paul, it seems to me that “to the vulnerable” we must become “vulnerable” (1 Corinthians 9:20-22).

Much could be said to demonstrate the importance of such a claim, but I want to focus on two of the more salient points.

First, it seems to me that Jesus himself demonstrated this type of approach in his own ministry. While it is true that his public discourse did not feature much—if any—personal vulnerability (to the extent that we could suppose that “vulnerability” even applies to the Son of God), we do catch glimpses of it in some of his private reflections, especially during the passion week.

Thus, as he struggled in Gethsemane, with Peter, James, and John within earshot, he cried out that his “soul” was “exceedingly sorrowful, even to death” (Matthew 26:38). Furthermore, Jesus pleaded three times—again, within earshot of his three most trusted disciples—for his Father to take the impending cup of death away from him, demonstrating the genuine struggle he experienced as he faced doubt about his divine mission. Then the next day, as he hung on the cross before drawing his last breath, he cried out in deep anguish, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken Me?” (Matthew 27:46).

It has been a matter of much debate within Christian history as to whether the Father truly forsook Jesus, or whether he simply felt forsaken. Either way, both of these instances—in Gethsemane and on the cross—demonstrate a deep mental anguish that Jesus expressed with great vulnerability, seemingly reflecting some level of doubt as to whether he could fulfill his divine mission or whether it would have value.

Of course, what the Gospels hint at the author of Hebrews seems to make explicit. Again, there’s been much debate regarding the extent to which we can apply the idea, but Hebrews goes to great lengths to insist that we do not have a “High Priest” in Christ who “cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15). The fact that the author has to clarify that Christ’s temptation never led him to sin seemingly points to the level of genuine struggle Christ experienced through these temptations.

What’s more, the author goes on to say that this recognition encourages us to “therefore come boldly to the throne of grace,” knowing that we will “obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (v. 16). In other words, our confidence that we will find a sympathetic refuge in Jesus as our High Priest is based precisely on the recognition that he can “sympathize with our weaknesses” since he was “in all points tempted as we are.” His vulnerability is thus an invitation for us to come into his presence so we can receive the grace we need. And it is that precise vulnerability which encourages us to “boldly” go, realizing we will not be rejected.

Thus, Christ’s vulnerability, and our understanding of his vulnerability, becomes one of the factors in inspiring us to cling to Christ and receive the grace we need. If we did not sense that we had a “High Priest” who could “sympathize” with our weaknesses, who was not “tempted” as we are, we would likely never approach him for the help we require.

This, it seems to me, is what Christ invites ministers to embody as well. Our vulnerability, our acknowledgment of weakness, encourages parishioners to similarly come boldly to receive shepherding from us—not as though our ministry has some sort of ontological power the way Christ’s does, but as those who’ve been called by God to be ministers of reconciliation.

Second, I frequently like to articulate it this way: vulnerability implicitly communicates and demonstrates the sufficiency of the gospel. When I express my weaknesses, my struggles, my temptations, I am implicitly saying that my righteousness is not derived from my perfection but from Christ’s. Grace is not for the ones who have it all together but for those who don’t—which is to say, all of us.

Yes, of course every “well-catechized” Christian, in Trueman’s words, knows this in theory. But as incarnated creatures, theory does not always penetrate our psyches unless and until it is embodied for us—which is the precise reason we partake of the bread and the wine. There is something about embodied acts that make it fully real to us, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer has noted.^[i]

Conversely, when I fail to acknowledge my weaknesses and struggles, I am implicitly communicating the sufficiency of my perfection. I am communicating that grace is only for those who already have it all together. I am demonstrating that only those who lack weakness have a place among the fellowship.

This is, it seems to me, one of the reasons the Apostle Paul demonstrated vulnerability as well, provocatively proclaiming to the Corinthians that he would “most gladly . . . boast” in his “infirmities,” because it demonstrated that Christ’s grace was “sufficient” for him (2 Corinthians 7:9).

Of course, this was the same Paul who, in a long soliloquy, explained to the believers in Rome that “what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do” (Romans 7:15). Talk about vulnerability. Talk about laying his sin out for all to see.

But talk about implicitly communicating and demonstrating the sufficiency of the gospel!

Thus, one of the only reasons Christians today know in theory that everyone is a sinner is because Paul himself vulnerably explained it to us, using his own life as a case-study in sin’s pervasive power.

Again, I understand Trueman’s concerns. But not all of modern Christianity’s ills, as he seems to frequently insist, can be chalked up to “expressive individualism” and the therapeutic. And of all the reasons a pastor might have a moral “fall,” I doubt, as he seems to insinuate, that being too vulnerable is one of them.

Trueman claims that too often ministers today are susceptible to the “performance of vulnerability,” as if vulnerability is simply an act. No doubt for some it is. However, I see no less a danger in the “performance of perfection,” which too many pastors participate in as well. This is when appearances are more important than substance—when charades are more important than truth. And it quite often leads to discouragement in parishioners, disillusionment in the pastor’s family, and hypocrisy and burn-out in the pastor himself.

Simply put, it seems like more damage has been done by pastors who feign the appearance of perfection than those who demonstrate vulnerability.

So while acknowledging anything can be taken to an extreme, it seems to me that there’s a better way.

Over forty years ago, Henri Nouwen wrote a seminal work, The Wounded Healer, which proposed a model of ministry in “contemporary society” that practiced radical vulnerability. Nouwen no doubt influenced a whole generation of ministers to quit the charade of perfection and recognize the power and effectiveness of honest and authentic ministry.

His words are apropos here. “Nobody escapes being wounded,” he writes. “The main question is not ‘How can we hide our wounds?’ so we don’t have to be embarrassed but ‘How can we put our woundedness in the service of others?’ When our wounds cease to be a source of shame and become a source of healing, we have become wounded healers.”^[ii]

In my own experience, this has proved fruitful and beneficial. I frequently have parishioners—and those who are considering faith—tell me that they find it refreshing to encounter a religious leader who is open about his struggles. Indeed, I had one congregant tell me years ago that my only sermons that connect with and makes sense to her are the ones that are filtered through the crucible of my own struggle and experience.

It was a lightbulb realization for me—and one that has guided my ministry ever since. But rather than serving as a mandate to “perform” ministry in a way that expressed inauthentic vulnerability, it was actually the permission I needed to genuinely pursue ministry in a way I had always wanted to.

“Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:10).

^[i] See Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Christian Community (New York: HarperOne, 1954), 116.

^[ii] Henri Nouwen, Bread for the Journey: A Daybook of Wisdom and Faith (New York: HarperOne, 1997), July 8.

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Shawn is a pastor and church planter in Portland, Maine, whose life, ministry, and writing focus on incarnational and embodied expressions of faith. The author of four books and a columnist for Adventist Review, he is also a DPhil (PhD) candidate at the University of Oxford, focusing on nineteenth-century American Christianity. You can follow him on Instagram, and listen to his podcast Mission Lab.

Photo by Daniel Tseng on Unsplash

(A six-minute read.)

I just drove back on Sunday from our annual pilgrimage to Nova Scotia, where my family has owned a place for over five decades. It’s about a ten-hour drive one way, so I got a lot of podcast-listening in.

This time, I listened to a bunch of stuff on the history of critical theory, trying to gain a better understanding of the topic. Most of the reflections were critical of critical theory—from a great lecture, delivered in 1992 (long before critical theory was maligned for its connections with critical race theory), by Princeton professor Michael Sugrue; to very partisan, disparaging, and reductionistic reflections from Voddie Baucham (who seemingly believes that critical theory is the origin of most of the social ills that plague America today); to some very even-handed analysis from Lutheran theologian Jordan Cooper.

I’m not going to write on critical theory today, though perhaps I’ll return to it in the future.

What I did want to reflect on, however, is the underlying assumption that pervades many Christian critiques of it. I couldn’t figure it out for the longest time as I was listening, but I just sensed that there was something subtly going on that I couldn’t put my finger on. Even Cooper’s fair-minded analysis, as much as I appreciated it, seemed to be characterized by this assumption.

And then it suddenly hit me after I got home: many Christian critiques of critical theory, and the social justice movement that came in its wake, feel anxious about critical theory’s threat to and attack on Christendom.

Christian critics of “critical theory” rightly note that critical theorists want to challenge and upend current power structures.

But the “power structure” these Christians are most anxious to preserve is Christendom.

What I mean by “Christendom” (as opposed to “Christianity”) is a bit of a continuum. In its most extreme manifestation, Christendom expresses itself in nations where “Christianity” is the state-sponsored religion. This was large parts of Europe in the Middle Ages and in its Reformation days. One was essentially automatically a Christian by virtue of being born and civil law functioned as a kind of Christian equivalent to “Sharia” law, enforcing Christian orthodoxy and morality through the power of the state.

In its softer forms, seen during much of America’s early history, Christendom functions as a kind of “civil religion.” Though Christianity is not officially state-sponsored, the cultural milieu—through its myths, rituals, and symbols—reflects and reinforces a broadly Christian moral and social order. The majority of the population identifies as Christian, and cultural expectations and social pressures reflect that.

Through a series of events (both political and cultural), the end of America’s Christendom era really began in earnest in the 1960s, after enjoying perhaps its high-water mark in the 1950s (though it’s still pervasive, I’d say, in the so-called “Bible Belt” of America, where Christianity is as much a culture as it is a choice).

And I find that many—perhaps most—conservative Christians in America, especially those who are politically active, greatly lament that development. And they long for a return to the “golden days” of Christendom in America.

This is one of the main reasons they have so much anxiety about philosophies like critical theory. Critical theorists, apparently borrowing many of Marx’s materialist and godless assumptions, supposedly want to replace the cultural values of Christendom, serving instead as an all-encompassing “worldview.”

Now, let me make it clear: I’m not saying I’m in favor of state-sponsored Marxism. Nor am I saying that “critical theory,” insofar as I have an adequate understanding of it, is the best path forward.

But what I am saying is that I applaud and appreciate and resonate with its underlying concerns and the problems it was apparently trying to solve—including the abuses and failures of the Christendom project.^[†]

Put plainly: while many conservative Christians lament the death of Christendom, I say “good riddance.”

While many conservative Christians want to see a revival of Christendom, I say “death to Christendom!”

Why?

Because I don’t find much overlap between Christendom and Christ.

Christendom, in many regards, wants the goods of Christianity (or at least what it perceives to be the goods of Christianity) while making the Christ of Christianity optional.

Christendom wants prayer in public school but is less excited about providing free lunches there.

Christendom wants the “nuclear family” portrayed on TV but is less excited about paid maternity leave.

It was Christendom that brought us awful versions of God—of God requiring payment so he could be happy with us, of God torturing the wicked in the flames of hell for eternity, of God predetermining who would be consigned to those eternal flames according to his own sovereign and immutable will.

Thus, again, I say, “death to Christendom!”

Such an attitude has been the historic view of those from my faith tradition. We’ve long viewed Christendom as either the “little horn” of Daniel 7-8 or the “Babylon” of Revelation. And we’ve long been suspicious of Christians who traffic in Christendom rhetoric.

We’ve therefore historically perceived it as one of our missions to call people out of “Babylon,” rather than identifying with the grievances of Babylon and trying to join forces with them to reestablish Christendom.

That’s why I’ve never been too worried about movements that are seemingly “secular.” They are, from where I sit, rejecting Christendom and their false versions of Christ. But they are not necessarily rejecting Christ (who remains incredibly popular today).

Obviously, I think they probably overshoot their mark, but I view them as less of a threat than bad and coercive versions of Christianity.

Indeed, as I wrote in my very first Substack piece in 2021, I think “bad religion” is worse than “no religion” (I’m aware, of course, that the absence of more explicit forms of “religion” seemingly creates a vacuum which “secular” forms of religion then try to fill—since humankind apparently cannot escape “religion” altogether, try as we might).

So when Karl Marx rejects “Christianity,” I understand. When New York City elects a non-Christian mayor, I can sympathize.

Christ, as a person, remains wildly popular. Christendom, as a social vision, rightly does not.

Would I wish that heterosexual couples were the only couples portrayed on the TV shows my kids watch? Sure.

Would I prefer that movies depicted Christians as heroes rather than villains? I guess.

But I better not be outsourcing my kids’ spiritual formation to pop culture anyway.

(It’s telling to me, by the way, that when we modern Christians criticize pop culture for promoting non-Christian values, we usually don’t mean the glorification of wealth and the comforts of a middle-class existence that it subtly promotes—which seems to be at odds with biblical Christianity just as much as any aberrant views of sexuality.)

And Christianity has historically thrived the most, and Christians’ spiritual formation has been the healthiest, when it was not mirrored in a nation’s cultural or political institutions. Indeed, my understanding of the biblical story has always taught me that Christianity went off the rails when it became the state religion. And it is the healthiest, and most authentic, when it is a dissenting and minority presence.

As I wrote last April:

This is the truth of the matter, as it always has been throughout the history of Christianity: Christianity flourishes and grows when it suffers—when it allows itself to be the object of persecution.

Conversely, Christianity languishes and gets bastardized when it seeks to be the agent of suffering and persecution, using revenge and control as its instruments of choice.

So, yes, I think there are things to criticize about “secular” worldviews, including critical theory, but their assault on Christendom is not one of them. (It’s also surprising to me that fellow members of my faith community are adopting such critiques of these “secular worldviews” wholesale without recognizing or spitting out the Christendom assumptions that lie behind such critiques.)

In my opinion, the sooner we can fully bury Christendom, never to rise again, the better.

^[†] Two caveats here: first, from everything I’ve gleaned so far about “critical theory,” at least from those who treat it with some level of fairness, it actually wasn’t “Christendom” (or any version of Christianity) that “critical theorists” were primarily consciously reacting to at all. It was actually totalitarianism—manifested in Nazi Germany and then in Soviet-style Marxism—that greatly bothered them and they were thus trying to solve.

Second, and somewhat related to that, they were thus seemingly less concerned with theology and more concerned with epistemology—that is, their major concern was with the epistemological assumptions of modernism, which, in their minds, had produced totalitarianism. How could the Enlightenment produce someone like Hitler, they thus wondered? The apparent “godlessness” of their project was not necessarily a goal but a byproduct of their agenda.

Such a context is rarely noted by “popular” Christian critiques of critical theory, however, which tend to be highly reductionistic and simplistic.

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Shawn is a pastor and church planter in Portland, Maine, whose life, ministry, and writing focus on incarnational and embodied expressions of faith. The author of four books and a columnist for Adventist Review, he is also a DPhil (PhD) candidate at the University of Oxford, focusing on nineteenth-century American Christianity. You can follow him on Instagram, and listen to his podcast Mission Lab.

(Photo credit: me.)

(A four-minute read.)

Eight days ago, ICE killed a 25-year-old man from Colombia in my home-state of Maine. It was the second time in a week that ICE killed a Latino man (the other was a 52-year-old Mexican man in Texas who’d been in the United States for 35 years). Neither man had criminal records, and both were seemingly hard-working men who were contributing positively to American society (not that these facts are reasons for why they shouldn’t have been killed). Neither were also apparently the original targets of ICE.

The killing in Maine, which took place just a few blocks from where I’d gotten coffee with a friend a few days before, happened only a few hours before I was ready to publish my newsletter last week—so I didn’t have time to write something up then. I’m also on family vacation this week, so I won’t say much now.

But I did want to say this: one day, everyone will have always been against this.

I borrow this phrase from Omar El Akkad, an Egyptian-Canadian-American journalist who tweeted in 2023, in the wake of Israel’s ongoing assaults on Gaza, that “one day, when it’s safe, when there’s no personal downside to calling a thing what it is, when it’s too late to hold anyone accountable, everyone will have always been against this.” Two years later he turned the tweet into a book (though I’ve not yet read it).

I think the same is true of what we’re presently witnessing in America with ICE’s assault on migrants.

One day, when the history books are written about this era, everyone will claim that they were always against the brutality of ICE and the president who ordered that brutality.

Everyone will say they were opposed to the inhumane “detention centers,” the thuggery of an untrained ICE taskforce, the indiscriminate deportation of non-criminal migrants to foreign prison camps, the killing of innocent lives (some of whom are US citizens).

Think about it. It suddenly occurred to me the other night that I can’t think of an example in world history where a government that carries out a campaign of aggression—which includes the killing of its own citizens—toward a mostly-innocent population comes out looking good. Indeed, governments in such circumstances are rarely—if ever—the good guys in history books.

So, yes, I do believe in being on the “right side of history.”

That is one of the reasons—though certainly not the only or primary reason—that I decided to exercise my democratic right to protest. A day after Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero was murdered in Maine, I joined about 400 persons in Monument Square in Portland to protest his killing and to demand that ICE get out of Maine. My wife and friend Nathan also went.

I don’t know what protests accomplish. I also don’t agree with every “chant” that crowds scream at them.

But I do know that I want to stand up for human rights, to honor human dignity, to recognize the imago Dei in all, to demand the justice that the Bible requires.

Some from my faith community might be alarmed that I would choose to spend my time on such “worldly” pursuits and concerns. I should be spending my time proclaiming the soon-return of Jesus, which is the ultimate solution to human suffering and injustice. I should focus on warning the world of God’s impending judgment.

I don’t think these pursuits are mutually exclusive of course. In fact, the soon-return of Jesus, as my friend Kevin Burton has persuasively demonstrated, might actually be one of the biggest reasons why we protest the violation of human rights.

I also don’t know if Jesus will return within the next fifty years. But I’m quite persuaded that fifty years from now, whether we’re in heaven or on earth, we will all agree that we should have said and done more when it comes to the unjust treatment of fellow image-bearers. Love is always present truth.^[†]

A few months ago, when I was doing some side-research on the Civil Rights era, I asked my dad if he knew of many people from our faith tradition who marched with Black Americans. He thought of a few, he said, but not many.

I then asked him if he wished he had said and done more, perhaps even attending protests and marches. Yes, he said, in retrospect he wishes that he had.

And so today, in 2026, I protest.

^[†] The term “present truth” is a very popular Adventist term, introduced years before we were even a denomination, that denotes particular biblical truths that are especially relevant and important for specific moments in history. It’s often “code” for our unique theological emphases—like the seventh-dayness of the Sabbath, the truth about what happens when a person dies, our traditional interpretations of the “end times,” etc.

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Shawn is a pastor and church planter in Portland, Maine, whose life, ministry, and writing focus on incarnational and embodied expressions of faith. The author of four books and a columnist for Adventist Review, he is also a DPhil (PhD) candidate at the University of Oxford, focusing on nineteenth-century American Christianity. You can follow him on Instagram, and listen to his podcast Mission Lab.

Photo by Craig Curtis on Unsplash

(A five-minute read.)

If I had my way, there’s a phrase I’d delete from every Christian’s vocabulary.

What is it?

“The Bible is clear.”

Or some variation thereof.

It’s a phrase that comes up frequently in “conservative,” self-proclaimed “Bible-believing” Christian circles.

It’s often employed as a way to settle a debate or end and argument—or at least it seems so in the mind of those who use it.

In fact, however, it seemingly does the opposite. Instead of settling an argument, it prolongs it, nudging the discussion towards grounds other than Scripture itself.

I don’t know that anyone has ever surrendered their perspective because their opponent suddenly pulled “the Bible is clear” card, as though that phrase was enough to convince a skeptical opponent.

For example, I’ve never witnessed such an exchange:

Person A: “Tuesday is the Sabbath.”

Person B: “No, it’s not.”

Person A: “The Bible is clear that Tuesday is the Sabbath.”

Person B: “Oh, you’re right! Thank you for putting it in those terms.”

When a person says that the Bible is “clear,” or that a passage of Scripture is “plain” or “obvious,” or some variation thereof, I generally tend to think that such arguments are born out of insecurity, frustration, or ignorance. They are trying to overwhelm their “opponent” through force of words rather than strength of evidence and/or argument. They’ve run out of ways to convince their opponent(s) so they try to overpower them with rhetorical force. They are not really making an argument but offering an assertion with no evidence.

I think it may also be a way to avoid the uncomfortable feeling of potentially being wrong. Putting my perspective in such bold and dogmatic terms has a way of addressing my own insecurities and assuring myself that I am, in fact, right—despite my inability to convince others of my perspective (and when I’m insecure, my ability to convince others goes a long way in helping me feel secure).

So why am I so bothered by this phrase and the accompanying rhetoric and attitude?

For a few reasons.

First, saying “the Bible is clear” actually undermines our ability to continuously grow in our understanding of Scripture. If the Bible is “clear” (on a particular point), then there’s nothing more we can do to come to deeper or further understandings on it. It essentially discontinues additional probing because we’ve exhausted its meaning.

Second, saying “the Bible is clear” often prevents our ability to interrogate our own interpretations of it, conflating what the Bible says with our interpretation of what the Bible says. In other words, more than just making the Bible infallible, we end up making our interpretations of the Bible infallible. And this is, I’d submit, extremely dangerous—and nothing a humble, honest Christian would likely want to do (especially Christians of the Protestant variety who think we should ever be reforming).

As historian Justo Gonzalez has written, “The notion that we read the New Testament exactly as the early Christians did, without any weight of tradition coloring our interpretation, is an illusion. It is also a dangerous illusion, for it tends to absolutize our interpretation, confusing it with the Word of God.”

Third, saying “the Bible is clear” tends to turn those who disagree with us into “heretics” and/or “imbeciles,” thus undermining the type of Christian unity Christ prayed for. After all, if an interpretation of Scripture is “clear” and yet someone disagrees with it, it means they’re being either intentionally obstinate (and/or evil) or they are too stupid to see what is “clear.”

Do we want to implicitly communicate that and/or reflect that posture?

Similarly, we are thus essentially saying that people are rejecting the Bible, and not just our interpretation of the Bible, when they reject what we say is “clear.”

To clarify my own position: I’m not saying, nor wishing to imply, that all interpretations of Scripture are equally valid. I’m not calling for complete interpretive pluralism. I do believe there are more faithful and less faithful readings of the Bible, just as there are more faithful and less faithful readings of this piece I’ve written (or any other piece of literature).

And we should ever seek to come into more faithful readings of the Bible.

But there are not, nor do I believe there ever will be, perfect, infallible, and final readings of Scripture, as though fallible human beings will ever exhaust a passage’s meaning or perfectly grasp it.

All our readings will be, at best, provisional and incomplete.

Neither am I saying that we should always feel insecure about our convictions regarding God as a result, constantly anxious that we can’t know anything about him. That we, as finite and fallible human beings, can never come to perfect, infallible, or final understandings of God doesn’t mean we can’t come to reliable and well-grounded understandings of him.

But that’s where faith comes in, rather than indubitable certainty.

So what would I suggest as an alternative articulation?

How about this?

“The Bible seems clear to me . . . ”

That communicates a level of confidence in our reading of the Bible while implicitly acknowledging that our perspective is limited and open to revision. It also recognizes that interpretation is going on. It thus leaves room for growth and doesn’t anathematize anyone who disagrees with us.

This doesn’t mean, again, that we should never take hard stands or draw lines in the sand over readings of the Bible. And sometimes fellowship apparently needs to be broken because people persist in troubling, dangerous, and unsafe readings of Scripture (and behaviors).

But such moves shouldn’t be because others have rejected some sort of “infallible” interpretation we suppose we’ve come to; but because our viewpoints are so contradictory that to remain in fellowship with one another would be confusing, counterproductive, and harmful.

As always, there’s much more I could say on this (like tracing out the history of this phenomenon). And I have said more in the past—to the point that I sometimes think I sound like a broken record on this topic (you can read those reflections here and here and here—and sort of here). It’s sort of what I’m studying for my doctorate.

But that’s all for now.

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Shawn is a pastor and church planter in Portland, Maine, whose life, ministry, and writing focus on incarnational and embodied expressions of faith. The author of four books and a columnist for Adventist Review, he is also a DPhil (PhD) candidate at the University of Oxford, focusing on nineteenth-century American Christianity. You can follow him on Instagram, and listen to his podcast Mission Lab.

Photo by Kevin Lanceplaine on Unsplash

(A six-minute read.)

Last week, as America’s 250^th birthday was approaching, I told my wife that I was experiencing a little ambivalence about the momentous occasion. After all, it seems like such a wonderful accomplishment and reason for celebration—but it also feels like this “experiment” we call the United States is on the shakiest of grounds these days, moving with great speed toward an undoing of its claimed vision.[*]

To me, the subject actually touches on a larger conversation that I’ve been curious about for a while—and one that I’ve been thinking about writing on for well over a year but haven’t gotten around to.

But here it is: I’m searching for a “theology of borders.”

It may seem like a simple concept, but it’s actually been a little tricky because I haven’t come across anyone who’s done work on it (in the limited research I’ve done).

What I mean is this: I’m curious about what a Scripture-informed attitude should be when it comes to the existence, protection, and honoring of national borders.

It seems to me that many Christians take it as a given that national borders are either sanctioned by God or, at the very least, that Scripture indirectly maintains that Christians should fully honor national borders as a part of their duty to honor those in governing authority.

I don’t know that to be the case though—because I don’t know what a Scripture-informed “theology of borders” might actually propose (if anything).

Please note what I’m not saying: I’m not saying, right out of the gate, that the existence, protection, and honoring of national borders is wrong, sinful, or evil. It may be. It may not be. I simply don’t know because I don’t know what—if anything—a Scripture-informed “theology of borders” might say about that.

The Bible, at least from my cursory recollection of various passages, doesn’t have much to say explicitly about the idea. I know there are a few isolated passages that some have cited in defense of more nationalistic attitudes.

For example, Deuteronomy 32:8 notes:

When the Most High divided their inheritance to the nations,
When He separated the sons of Adam,
He set the boundaries [borders?] of the peoples
According to the number of the children of Israel.

In the New Testament, Paul said to the Athenians that God

has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries [borders?] of their dwellings, so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us (Acts 17:26-27).

As far as I can tell, those are the only two passages in the whole canon of Scripture that go anywhere close to explicitly addressing anything that approximates the subject of national borders.

Are you ready to build a whole theology on these two passages, though? Some people might be.

Of course, there are other passages in Scripture that would seemingly implicitly address the question—and we’d want to bring those passages into the conversation. But I just don’t know that anyone has really done a rigorous examination of the topic to this point (this piece and this piece are some of the only materials I’ve come across that explicitly address the question, but I wouldn’t necessarily call them “rigorous”).

Of course, you may not be surprised to learn that the bulk of my curiosity is prompted by questions regarding immigration. There’s a lot of discussion about “open” and “closed” borders, with many people expressing incredulity regarding anyone who may even hint at being favorable to “open” borders. It seems to be a given for many Christians that the idea of “open borders” is akin to violating the Ten Commandments, as though advocating for “open borders” (which, it should be noted, I’ve never heard anyone advocate for anyway) was some sort of grave sin.

Such arguments have left me wondering about the assumptions of the existence of borders to begin with. Never mind discussions about “open” or “closed” borders. What about their existence at all (I recognize that having completely “open” borders is effectively the same as not having a border at all)?

Do I, as a Christian, whose primary “citizenship” is in heaven (see Philippians 3:20), have some sort of implicit obligation to acknowledge or protect my national border at all costs?

That’s not automatically obvious to me from a theological perspective.

Again, I’m not saying anything for or against borders at this point. I’m saying I simply don’t know because I’ve personally never done a rigorous examination of it from a Scriptural perspective nor have I come across anyone else who has.

But preliminarily, these are a few of my initial thoughts, based on a cursory thinking about the story of Scripture:

1. I’m not sure God is opposed to the existence of national borders, per se, but neither has he necessarily “ordained” modern borders (e.g., I’m not sure it was due to God’s eternal design that the border between the United States and Canada goes along the 49^th parallel as opposed to, say, the 48^th or 50^th parallel).

2. I think it is good and fine and acceptable to acknowledge and honor national borders, so long as doing so doesn’t lead to unhealthy and bigoted nationalistic chauvanism and/or protectionism, or cause me to violate higher values of God’s kingdom.

In some ways, this connects to larger questions about pacifism and military service, but I think I should therefore, at the very least, be very slow to use violence—potentially violating the sixth commandment—to “protect” my border.

Also, while not advocating for completely “open” borders, I think I should be very hesitant to be so fixated on protecting my border that it causes me to ignore the legitimate humanitarian needs of my neighbors outside my borders. Loving my neighbor as myself is a higher Christian calling and responsibility than protecting my border.

I realize this viewpoint may seem very politically simplistic and sophomoric, but, from a Scriptural perspective, it is quite clear to me that loving my neighbor as myself—and serving her or his legitimate needs—is a Scriptural mandate, repeated frequently throughout Scripture, whereas protecting or preserving my border or nation is a lot less clear to me from Scripture.

So if I must make a choice between the two, I’m going to go with what is more clear to me from Scripture rather than less clear.[†]

3. It seems to me that, in light of all this, how I relate to borders is more of a political question than a theological one. This is probably incredibly obvious. But I think recognizing this allows me to see the relative importance of questions regarding borders (or anything political).

Again, it is fine to hold any particular political conviction, so long as those convictions do not come into conflict with my higher theological calling or convictions.

This all means, it seems to me, that reasonable, spirit-filled people can therefore differ on such political questions, and we don’t have to anathematize anyone for taking a different political stance, so long as that political stance doesn’t lead to a violation of larger theological principles (e.g., I don’t think any “reasonable, spirit-filled” person could ever take the “political” stance that slavery is fine or that the mistreatment of foreigners is acceptable).

4. This all connects to another gap—at least in my particular faith community: we are missing a larger Adventist “political theory” or “political theology.” Most of the “politics” that my faith community does is ad hoc or implicit (partly, I believe, because we are premillennialists). I don’t know of anyone who has done any systematic reflection on how Adventists should relate to and navigate politics, though.

Perhaps someday I can get to that too.

In the meantime, what do you think?

[*] I do think there is plenty of blame to go around, but, as I’ve already addressed indirectly before, I think the present occupant of the White House is taking the country in a direction that the “founding fathers” would have been mortified by.

[†] I also realize there is probably a difference between my personal responsibility and a nation’s corporate responsibility (ie., I may have a responsibility to help my neighbors on a personal level, but that doesn’t mean a whole nation does). But, among other things, I was intrigued to note recently that in Matthew 25, when Jesus tells the parable of separating the sheep and the goats based on how they treat the poor and suffering, the judgment is not in regard to individuals but in regards to nations (see Matthew 25:31-32), seemingly pointing to the idea that God apparently holds whole nations responsible for the way the suffering are treated, and not just individuals.

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Shawn is a pastor and church planter in Portland, Maine, whose life, ministry, and writing focus on incarnational and embodied expressions of faith. The author of four books and a columnist for Adventist Review, he is also a DPhil (PhD) candidate at the University of Oxford, focusing on nineteenth-century American Christianity. You can follow him on Instagram, and listen to his podcast Mission Lab.

Image by Michal Jarmoluk from Pixabay

(A six-minute read.)

I was scrolling through social media a few weeks ago when something my friend posted caught my eye. She described how she’d been in an accident and then attributed it to the devil and his minions. “The enemy tried to take me out,” she said, “but I’m still alive.”

I don’t know the circumstances of her accident. I have no idea about the details.

But it gave me pause because I’m a lot less likely to ascribe events to spiritual forces—either good or evil.

Indeed, since seeing my friend’s post, my family and I have suffered two catastrophic events—our car was totaled and my dad had a massive heart attack (a so-called “widow maker”)—and I haven’t once thought about the devil’s involvement in either event.

Such an attitude has stood out all the more because my dad’s heart attack came at a ten-day church event where there were other fairly serious catastrophes, and I heard numerous people saying that the “devil” was really at work because he’s upset about all the good things happening.

I just thought to myself, “Really?”

I don’t share any of this as a way of boasting or flexing my enlightened muscles.

In fact, it’s more confession than conceit.

Indeed, all these developments have made me realize that I’m too modern, too secular, too buffered.

Charles Taylor’s buffered self

This idea of being “buffered” comes from philosopher Charles Taylor, in his magnum opus A Secular Age. Taylor famously tried to trace the history of how the world—especially in the West—became “secular,” going from a strong sense of contact with the divine to a certain amount of distance.

Two ways he frames the distinction are between the “porous” self and the “buffered” self, as well as the “enchanted” and “disenchanted” world.

The “porous self,” he explains, “is vulnerable, to spirits, demons, cosmic forces.” There is significant contact between the spirits and humanity, and one therefore frequently ascribes one’s circumstances to those spirits.

Have a stomachache? Demons gave it to you.

Hear a neighbor’s door constantly flapping at night? Evil spirits are haunting you.

Narrowly miss out on having a tree fall on you? God and his angels protected you.

It rained on the exact day you needed your crops to be watered? Ditto.

This is the way those living before the Enlightenment largely thought, according to Taylor. Just about everything in life was ascribed to some sort of spiritual force. The world was full of enchantment, full of the divine and those opposing the divine.

Since the dawn of modernity, however, humanity has become “buffered.” There is a “boundary” between spiritual forces and humankind because we now know about the laws of physics.

The stomachache may be due to the bad pizza we ate last night rather than malignant forces. The cancer we overcame may be because of the chemo we received rather than God’s healing intervention.

As Alexander Pope said of the scientific revolution, “Nature and Nature’s Laws lay hid in night: God said, Let Newton be—And all was light.”

Newtonian physics gave us a key to unlock the door that led to a modern room buffered from the spiritual realm. We suddenly realized that it had been physics all along and not divine forces that had been interfering with the universe.

In some ways, then, the modern self is a lot less vulnerable because she or he knows how to take the necessary steps to protect the self, enjoying the marvels of modern scientific discovery. Life is thus a lot more controllable rather than being susceptible to the whims of spiritual forces.

It should be noted that just about everyone in the West—even the most spiritually inclined—is therefore “secular” in some ways. We are all “buffered” on some level and realize that there isn’t an evil spirit hiding behind every bush.

Some, of course, are more “secular” than others.

And that’s where my challenge lies.

I have to admit that I’ve become very “buffered.” These days, I’m hesitant to ascribe much to the spiritual forces of the universe—at least when it comes to specific developments. There are many reasons for this, but I don’t know the mind of the “gods” (or God) and which events are the result of spiritual interference. That seems too risky and too presumptuous a move.

Take my dad’s heart attack a week ago as an example. Some were quick to claim that it was (at least partially) the result of the devil trying to mess with our church event. I’m a bit ambivalent though. I’m more inclined to think that it was the result of bad genetics and some poor lifestyle choices.

The same goes for his recovery. A lot of people have been praying for him. I fully acknowledge that’s likely a factor, but I’m perhaps more inclined to attribute it to the amazing medical care—including the defibrillator they used on him when he “coded” on the operating table—he received from Maine Medical Center.

Of course, I recognize that it doesn’t have to be one or the other. I also don’t—and can’t—live in a completely disenchanted world. In fact, more and more people are recognizing the limits of a “disenchanted” and completely “buffered” world and are looking for “re-enchantment.”

I just had one such conversation with a young man two weeks ago when I was in Finland for the League of European Research Universities theology conference. It was a PhD student in philosophy from France, and he was explaining to me that though he was raised in a typical secular French family, he had been really exploring spirituality lately—attending Roman Catholic mass and even some Protestant church services. And he said this was becoming more and more common for other young men in France.

When I asked him why this was so, he said, without hesitation, that they’d all discovered that the secular life hadn’t delivered what they had hoped for and wanted. It hadn’t delivered the goods. They are therefore looking for a re-enchanted world—which was one reason that he’s especially drawn to ancient expressions of Christianity, which tend to do a better job of giving a sense of enchantment through ancient rites and rituals.

So the “buffered” self and the “disenchanted” world can take us only so far. We need and want some sense of the divine. We crave the assurance that the world is infused with the spiritual (which is also a reason that, in addition to renewed interest in ancient forms of Christianity, like Roman Catholicism, there’s been an explosion of interest in “earth-based spirituality” like Wicca and paganism).

But I continue to have some ambivalence about the degree to which I ascribe particular events to spiritual forces. I’m hesitant to attribute good outcomes in my life to the favor of God, and even more hesitant to attribute bad outcomes to evil forces.[†]

Again, I’m not saying this is a good thing, nor is this to imply that I don’t pray for God’s intervention in specific situations (nor do I deny that there are evil forces pursuing their sinister agendas in the universe).

I’m just being honest about where I am, admitting that I am, as the product of a modern secular world, not sure how to put it all together.

[†] There’s also a bit of “theodicy” going on here as well, which similarly became a pronounced concern as a result of the Enlightenment. The modern world wants to make sure that God comports to our expectations of fairness and equity rather than arbitrariness. So if the good things that happen in my life are because of God’s favor, what does that say for about all the bad things that happen in someone else’s life?

For example, if I miss my flight because of a flat tire on the way to the airport, and the flight crashes, should I praise God and assume that he wanted me to miss the flight to spare my life? What about all the others who made the flight? Did he not care about them enough to give them a flat tire also? And if that’s the case, what does that say about his character and love? So this is, again, another reason why I’m hesitant to speak with any certainty about the involvement of spiritual forces in the world, claiming to know how and when they may or may not be responsible for specific outcomes.

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Shawn is a pastor and church planter in Portland, Maine, whose life, ministry, and writing focus on incarnational and embodied expressions of faith. The author of four books and a columnist for Adventist Review, he is also a DPhil (PhD) candidate at the University of Oxford, focusing on nineteenth-century American Christianity. You can follow him on Instagram, and listen to his podcast Mission Lab.

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

(A six-minute read.)

A couple weeks ago, the Southern Baptist Convention once again passed a resolution—overwhelmingly—that essentially reaffirmed the denomination’s stance against women serving as pastors or even preaching to anyone other than females. I won’t go into all the details of the resolution, but something that Al Mohler said caught my attention.

Mohler has been the long-time president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and, as a very outspoken opponent of women in ministry, served as one of the chief architects of the resolution. And one of the statements he made about the developments caught my attention.

“There’s a great line that divides liberal and biblical evangelicalism, and you can see it on this very issue,” he noted, before adding that “the trajectory of liberal denominations is clear.”

The timing of Mohler’s reflections were ironic, coming when I was already thinking about covering this topic based on a conversation I had a few days before.

In that conversation, an acquaintance had described his journey into our particular faith community, having grown up in a different tradition. He recounted how, after coming into Seventh-day Adventism, he was disappointed to encounter—in the churches he attended, the Adventist schools he enrolled in—expressions of the faith that weren’t Bible-based. They were instead liberal and progressive.

Both his and Mohler’s perspective seemed to be aligned: to be biblical means to be conservative. It certainly doesn’t mean to be liberal or progressive. There is, in Mohler’s telling, “liberal” evangelicalism, or “biblical evangelicalism.” To be “liberal” is not to be “biblical,” and to be “biblical” is not to be “liberal.” The two do not—and seemingly cannot—occupy the same theological space.

In this piece, I will not be attempting to claim that Christianity, and the biblical text upon which it is based, aligns fully with the most progressive agenda you can imagine. Please don’t read me as saying that.

But I would like to make the argument that at various points throughout the history of Christianity, including at its founding, those who claimed to be the most “biblical” often considered themselves to be some stripe of “liberal.” And they almost certainly would have been mortified to be labeled “conservative.”

Indeed, one doesn’t have to go too far back in the history of Christianity to encounter such thinking.

In fact, just a few weeks before Mohler’s remarks and my acquaintance’s reflections, I was amused to repeatedly come across this very rhetoric in the Christian Palladium, which was one of the main publishing arms of the Christian Connection.

The Christian Connection was an association of “Christian” churches in the northeastern United States, founded by Elias Smith and Abner Jones in the early nineteenth century. They were self-proclaimed anti-creedalists, skeptical of traditional systems of theology (including trinitarianism), and largely egalitarian.

And two out of the three founders of Seventh-day Adventist Church, James White and Joseph Bates, were Christian Connectionists—as was Joshua V. Himes, who arguably did more to spread Millerite Adventism than anyone else.

In the opening pages of the first issue, published in 1832, the editor, Joseph Badger, explained his vision for the paper:

We are dissenters from the corruptions the church has accumulated in the wilderness. Its unscriptural creeds and doctrines—its cruel and oppressive government—its unholy and proscriptive spirit—its fanatical and superstitious ceremonies—its worldly show and empty parade—its unwarrantable pretensions and unnecessary divisions, we shall endeavour to expose in a prudent manner, and show unto our readers “a more excellent way.” We shall endeavour to take the medium between the extremes of blind fanaticism, and cold formality; and, in all cases, the holy scriptures shall be the man of our counsel, and we shall use every exertion in our power, to persuade our readers to be enlightened, rational, liberal, charitable, kind, experimental, and practical Christians.

Notice: with the “holy scriptures” serving as the basis of their views, they hoped to persuade readers to be “liberal” Christians.

In the same issue, another writer urged the editors to “raise the banner of pure and liberal Christianity,” and to “defend it against” those systems which “may have a tendency to enslave the human mind.” Another praised a Connectionist elder for being “a firm supporter of liberal Christianity.” Yet another article referenced a church in Pennsylvania that consisted of “a large and respectable body of liberal men.”

I could multiply the examples ad infinitum. Over and over again these Christian Connectionists proudly considered themselves to be the great promoters of “liberal Christianity.” And they arrived at such a place not despite their reverence for the Bible but precisely because of it.

Such was the case with most nineteenth-century Christians who claimed to be the most committed to the Bible—including those in my own faith community. They felt that biblical Christianity led to liberalness rather than conservatism. Indeed, as I said above, they largely would have been mortified to be called “conservative.”

But what did they mean by “liberal”?

Mostly, they considered themselves “liberal” in relation to the narrow theological lines that had been drawn over the span of Christian history. They wanted the right to interpret the Bible for themselves, without feeling constrained by thousands of years of tradition and creeds. As Adventist co-founder James White said in 1861, all the traditional churches had set “stakes” in the ground and “barr[ed] up the way to all future advancement.”

They thus wanted the liberty to think for themselves and move wherever the Bible directed them.

They were also liberal socially in many ways. They allowed women to preach and demanded that slaves be emancipated, which were two very progressive stances (one republished article in the Advent Review and Sabbath Herald in 1858 spoke critically of the “conservative, pro-slavery or doughfaced churches” that failed to ever pray for the liberation of slaves who were “bowed under the cruel opressor’s [sic.] yoke”).

To state it again: many “biblical” Christians in nineteenth-century America would have been absolutely mortified to be called “conservative.” Conservatism, to them, was anathema.

And yet so many Christians today think it is the pinnacle and point of biblical Christianity.

Of course, three quick caveats:

First, this isn’t to imply that “biblical liberals” in the nineteenth century had no doctrinal boundaries or theological convictions. They did.

Second, sometimes that meant their liberalness was actually more aspirational than actual. That is, though they claimed to be liberal, this liberalness was often directed outward and not applied inward. They thus wanted to be liberated from other people’s traditions and creeds but often ended up setting up and establishing their own (“liberty for me but not for thee”).

Third, there was—and always is—a “spectrum” of liberalness (just as there is a spectrum of conservatism). And just as the Christian Connection referred to themselves as “liberal Christians,” so did the Unitarians. Both used that moniker (and there was dialogue and even some union between the two for a period of time).

But the type of “liberal” Christianity that the Connectionists espoused and the type that Unitarians espoused had some significant differences—especially in their relation to the Bible. While the Connectionists were unapologetically biblicist in their orientation, the Unitarian relation to the Bible was a lot more ambiguous, and they never claimed to be strict biblicists. Unitarians gave a lot more priority to reason, essentially putting it on an equal plain with the Bible.

So when I’m talking about—and affirming—a type of “liberal Christianity,” I’m talking about a liberal Christianity that is firmly rooted in the story of Scripture, believing that the Bible is the primary (though certainly not the only) means by which God has and continues to communicate with humankind.

In fairness, I suspect that the Al Mohlers of the world are largely reacting to a version of “liberal” Christianity that seemingly downplays the importance of Scripture. Though, on some level, that’s also hard to know because conservatives often insist that, by definition, anyone who’s “liberal” (or at least “not conservative”) must necessarily, by definition, not take the Bible seriously.

So my point: to truly be “biblical” is to be, in many senses, “liberal.”

I’ll end with two quotes from Ellen White, the most influential historic voice in my faith community. The first one is from 1889; the second from 1892. In them, she made it clear that biblical Christianity and conservative Christianity are contradictory partners (she very rarely—if ever—spoke positively of conservatism):

Whenever the people of God are growing in grace, they will be constantly obtaining a clearer understanding of His word. They will discern new light and beauty in its sacred truths. This has been true in the history of the church in all ages, and thus it will continue to the end. But as real spiritual life declines, it has ever been the tendency to cease to advance in the knowledge of the truth. Men rest satisfied with the light already received from God’s word and discourage any further investigation of the Scriptures. They become conservative and seek to avoid discussion.

The second quote:

There is no excuse for any one in taking the position that there is no more truth to be revealed, and that all our expositions of Scripture are without an error. The fact that certain doctrines have been held as truth for many years by our people, is not a proof that our ideas are infallible. Age will not make error into truth, and truth can afford to be fair. No true doctrine will lose anything by close investigation.

And all the people said, “Amen”?

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Postscript: As it turns out, I just returned from Europe, where I was attending the biannual theology conference for the League of European Research Universities. It was held at the University of Helsinki in Finland, and I was one of about 100 attendees, consisting of mostly PhD students and some theology professors, from 24 of Europe’s leading universities. I was one of five PhD/post-doc students representing Oxford, and I presented on my research.

The conference was so refreshing and invigorating. And, among other things, it was probably the first time—at least since I was an undergraduate—that I had spent time immersed in European Christianity (though even when I did it as an undergraduate, I was essentially only with my own Seventh-day Adventist tribe). What I found so refreshing is that European Christianity is not caught up in all the “culture wars” of American Christianity. There is less extremism.

And, regarding the point of the above piece, it is not at all strange for a European Christian to be both socially/politically liberal and yet affirming of the basics of orthodox Christianity. In fact, I think most European Christians would find the social/political conservatism of many American Christians to be quite baffling.

In America, however, it seems like one has to choose between either being “biblical” and socially conservative, or being “unbiblical” and socially liberal. No such false dichotomy seems to exist in Europe though.

Below is the picture of most of the participants, from our “farewell dinner” on the last night.

Shawn is a pastor and church planter in Portland, Maine, whose life, ministry, and writing focus on incarnational and embodied expressions of faith. The author of four books and a columnist for Adventist Review, he is also a DPhil (PhD) candidate at the University of Oxford, focusing on nineteenth-century American Christianity. You can follow him on Instagram, and listen to his podcast Mission Lab.

Photo by Terren Hurst on Unsplash

(A five-minute read.)

Over the course of my ministry, I’ve had a number of opportunities to pastor much larger congregations. I don’t say this to brag or boast, but to simply give context for what I’m going to share—and to let you know that I practice what I preach.

But whenever such opportunities present themselves, I always think to myself (among other things), Why would anyone in their right mind ever want to pastor a big church? It doesn’t make sense to me. It sounds like something that would crush my soul.

As with most occupational fields, pastors typically want to “climb the ladder.” And usually “climbing the ladder” consists of progressively pastoring bigger and bigger churches.

You start with a church of 50 and then maybe a few years later you get a church of 150. And then 300 and then 700 and then 1,000. And maybe even someday you’ll find yourself pastoring the equivalent of a “megachurch” in my denomination (i.e., a church that is connected to some sort of Seventh-day Adventist institution—like a hospital or university—since that is essentially the only place we have really large congregations).

That is the “pastoral dream.”

For me it sounds like a nightmare.

I’m sure there are many reasons for my distaste for the idea, including the fact that I’m a Millennial (and, from what I understand, Millennial/Gen Z pastors are less interested in “climbing” the pastoral “ladder”).

But more than anything, I like—and feel fairly convicted that the story of Scripture promotes—ministry that entails intimacy, connection, and vulnerability. I want to know the people I lead and I want to be known by them. I don’t want to stand on a stage and perform for the “nameless” masses. That feels inauthentic and—to some degree—transactional.

Don’t get me wrong: I’ve pastored some very small churches that had very big dysfunction.[†] So “small” isn’t automatically better.

But I would much prefer leading a church of 40 or 50 committed, happy, and healthy followers of Jesus than a church of 400 or 500 (even if those 400 or 500 are committed, happy, and healthy as well).

Why do I say this?

Again, for the above reasons: intimacy, connection, vulnerability.

I’d also add discipleship.

I don’t think the original intent of Christianity was to be obsessed with trying to figure out how to get as many people as possible into a room together. That seems to be one of the great metrics of Christian “success” today though. We are infatuated with numbers. So much of our determination about whether a program or event was “successful” is based on how many people showed up (we’re always obsessively asking the question, “How many people were there?”).

And so often pastors judge their self-worth and effectiveness based on the same thing.

But drawing a larger crowd can often be hallow for many reasons—including the fact that you start to feel like you must keep performing to get the crowd to keep coming back.

The intent of Christianity is not to draw a crowd though. The intent of Christianity is to connect people—to Christ, to themselves, to one another, to the world—in a way that helps them become more fully human. It is to ground them and form them and shape them and move them in love.

And I generally tend to think that the larger the group is the harder it is to pull that off. For many reasons.

I also tend to think that our current cultural moment—at least in the West—has a greater appetite for smaller over bigger. Small is the new big. Small has more cultural cachet.

Though you’ll certainly still find plenty of people who go to megachurches, I think you’ll find even more who are done with performative Christianity (in all senses of the term “performative”).

Ellen White, my favorite theologian, was thus perhaps prescient on this point when she wrote in 1900 that Christ’s “work was largely made up of personal interviews. He had a faithful regard for the one-soul audience.”

The “one-soul audience” is where the good stuff happens (a three- or four- or twelve-soul audience ain’t so bad either). It’s where real life happens. It’s where we can truly know and truly be known.

Very little of that can really happen by being a face in the crowd. Unfortunately, though, that’s generally the primary spiritual diet for most Christians—showing up to a room once a week and passively sitting through a program. Rinse and repeat.

Granted, I realize that being a face in the crowd is the safest place for a person sometimes. Getting vulnerable and personal and intimate isn’t always, well, safe. So I’m not saying there’s no place for a larger gathering.

I also like to sing with a bunch of people. That, to me, is the greatest value of a larger crowd. There’s a reason many people get electrified by being at a concert.

But being in a large crowd can’t serve as our primary—and especially not our only—spiritual diet. And yet so often it is.

If I had my way, Christian organizations wouldn’t be allowed to have regular gatherings (“church services”) that have more than 50-80 people in attendance. Maybe no more than 25-30.

And no Christian organization would be allowed to build a “church” that seats more than that (it’s funny how much the size of our physical spaces influences our attitude as to whether we think a program was a success or not. Even I hate to have only 25-30 people show up for a program in a room that holds 250-300 [or even 100], when I’d feel perfectly content to have 25-30 people in a room that holds . . . 25-30 people).

And no Christian would ever be able to ask again, “How many people were there?” That’s largely an irrelevant question which doesn’t reveal much.

So, again, give me a group of a dozen (or two or three) Christ-followers who are committed to the way of Jesus any day over a larger group that’s committed to being a crowd.

[†] My apologies to any former members of mine who are reading this—though I suspect that if you’re reading this, you are already well-aware of the dysfunction. And you are probably well-aware that I may have contributed, or been the main cause of, that dysfunction.

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Shawn is a pastor and church planter in Portland, Maine, whose life, ministry, and writing focus on incarnational and embodied expressions of faith. The author of four books and a columnist for Adventist Review, he is also a DPhil (PhD) candidate at the University of Oxford, focusing on nineteenth-century American Christianity. You can follow him on Instagram, and listen to his podcast Mission Lab.

(Photo credit: me—of Oxford University, March 2022.)

(A seven-minute read.)

Two quick stories and then a list.

First story: five years ago, during my first trip to Oxford for my doctoral studies, I ended up getting together with a couple younger graduate students at a coffee shop. I had met them at Oxford’s Graduate Christian Forum a couple nights before and they seemed interested in hearing more about my journey and getting a little inspiration from an “older” pastoral figure.

One of them was from China and the other from Germany, and we all had unique faith-journeys—and all of us, in our own distinct ways, were trying to figure out how to navigate spirituality in a high-pressure academic setting.

I don’t remember how it exactly came up, but at one point, one of them, looking for a little inspiration from a more seasoned Christian, asked me why I was so confident in my faith. And I remember telling them something along the lines of, “You know, I believe in the message of Christianity as much because I want it to be true as because I know it’s true.”

I’ll never forget: they just looked at me with a bit of befuddlement and disappointment. Apparently, my answer was flimsier than they were hoping for.

But that’s what I could offer them.

That leads to—and reminds me of—story two. I just came across it again in my prayer journal the other day, but about 18 months before that encounter at Oxford, I had written a list of about fifteen “doctrinal” points that I felt like I could say I “believed.”

Such an endeavor reflected—and continues to reflect—my ongoing journey of sorting through my faith. Some would call it “deconstruction,” but that term sometimes seems too strong or trendy—though I’d unequivocally say that if you’re not continuously “deconstructing” then you’re not growing.

As finite creatures who are trying to understand an infinite God to greater degrees, we had better be continuously coming into new insights about the divine, or discarding older understandings of God that were immature, or coming into fuller perspectives about ideas that were (and will always be) incomplete.

All this is building up to a point: I’m going to share a list with you today. It’s something I’ve been meaning to do for a while. Originally, I had thought about sharing a list of “beliefs” about which I continue to have a high degree of confidence. I was going to point out that it was a list of “beliefs” and not a list of “indubitable certainties,” noting that I’m saying “I believe” rather than “I know” (my Latin isn’t exactly at a graduate level, but it would be the difference between credo—from where we get the word “creed”—and scio—from where we get the word “science”).

Instead, however, I’m going to frame it as “I hope,” or “I wish” (spero in Latin, rather than credo). These are metaphysical ideas that I hope are true. They are chapters in a transcendent story that I’d love to organize my life around—convictions and desires that I’d be hard-pressed to give up because they speak to my heart, give meaning and structure to my life, and provide me with hope.

They are, in many ways, desires that I’m willing to be “wrong” about, because life would lose a lot of meaning if I surrendered them—which doesn’t mean they are necessarily “true” in some Enlightenment-defined, scientific way, of course (though I also have a fair degree of confidence that they do correspond to the reality of the universe—though that’s a discussion for another day).

So without further ado, I want to share my list—which is always a work in progress—of the bedrock metaphysical “beliefs” that I hope are true and around which I seek to organize my life. There are—I guess—21 of them right now.

1. I hope that there is one God who governs the universe with perfect, self-giving, and steadfast love. He is personal and plural, one God consisting of three persons, comprised of a small community that created the universe—not from necessity but from love.

2. I hope that Jesus is the ultimate revelation of who this God is, and that the cross is the pinnacle of his divine self-disclosure.

3. I hope that the Spirit is God’s ongoing connection to humanity and creation, drawing all things toward truth, beauty, healing, and love.

4. I hope that I’m a part of a glorious story, where God and his love are the center, and that the story is building to a grand crescendo where we will live forever with God and one another in perfect fellowship, harmony, and love.

5. I hope that God, reflecting his character of love, created this universe and world through his sovereign power, rather than through death and destruction.

6. I hope that God has created the universe in such a way that it operates by laws—physical, moral, spiritual, social—that provide safety, security, consistency, and harmony if maintained and honored.

7. I hope that God has created the universe to be full of beauty, diversity, uniqueness, and splendor.

8. I hope that the universe operates from a place of rest rather than restlessness, and that God has embedded into its rhythms a time for regular—weekly, even—refreshment, rejuvenation, recreation, and connection.

9. I hope that the brokenness and sin which sadly characterize our world were a departure from the story God originally intended for us—the result of the free choices of his creatures, rather than a divine plan which he unilaterally ordained.

10. I hope that the Bible is, in ways I don’t fully comprehend or understand, the primary—though not exclusive—way that God revealed and continues to reveal his story of love to us.

11. I hope that God’s love for us is not determined by our ability to hustle or perform—though I also hope that his love for us is dynamic, reflecting the unique qualities and actions that we humbly offer him and the world.

12. I hope that our “salvation,” whatever that term exactly means, comes to us as a gift rather than a reward—the result not of perfect human performance but of divine grace.

13. I hope that Jesus really rose from the dead physically, and that because of this miraculous act, all that go to sleep committed to his love will also raise from the grave one day at his return.

14. I hope that God will one day fully set this world—and universe—back to a place of harmony and peace, characterized by unending justice, mercy, and compassion.

15. I hope that the ultimate fixing of the world is not entirely dependent on humanity’s abilities or wisdom—which are limited and imperfect, at best—but on God’s merciful rescuing.

16. I hope that there is a people (or “people,” without the article) who, in humble and unassuming ways, continuously catch on to God’s story to greater degrees, and who try to align themselves more fully with his character of love, seeking to be agents of justice, mercy, and reconciliation in the world.

17. I hope that God will someday mercifully unmask and expose all those who’ve used his name to exploit and abuse others.

18. I hope that Jesus will return someday soon, to rescue the planet before it self-destructs, and that he ultimately finishes the projects of love that his creatures have begun by the power of his Spirit.

19. I hope that God’s self-giving love will someday be fully vindicated and affirmed by all the universe’s creatures, eliminating the likelihood that selfishness, violence, exploitation, or abuse will ever rise again in the universe because all have deemed God and his ways to be fully trustworthy and wise.

20. I hope that God will mercifully bring to an end the existence of all who, no matter how long they are given a chance, will never embrace his love—rather than torturing them forever.

21. I hope that God will make his home with us on this earth for all eternity—and that the longings I constantly feel in my heart will reach their grand fulfillment by being in his presence forevermore.

Of course, these aren’t the only theological, spiritual, or religious things I hope are true. Nor are they the only things I think are true.

There are other things I hope are true, but the evidence I've seen so far doesn't make them seem likely (e.g., I would hope that everyone, in the end, will choose God and his love, but that’s not looking very likely based on the evidence I’ve witnessed thus far).

So, again, what I hope for and what might actually be are not necessarily the same thing—though I believe what I shared on the above list has a high likelihood of reflecting current or potential reality.

Also, this is one of the problems with “creeds”: they often conceal as much as they reveal—since we could endlessly parse what specific terms mean or don’t mean.

Thus, much of what I wrote in the list is carrying a lot of freight, pointing to larger meanings that are evident to me—but, taken at face value by others, may not necessarily be as obvious (e.g., with #8, the keen reader would probably understand that I’m talking about a weekly Sabbath [and as a Seventh-day Adventist, I mean the Sabbath on Saturday]).

But all that aside, what do you think?

What would you add or take away from such a list?

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Shawn is a pastor and church planter in Portland, Maine, whose life, ministry, and writing focus on incarnational and embodied expressions of faith. The author of four books and a columnist for Adventist Review, he is also a DPhil (PhD) candidate at the University of Oxford, focusing on nineteenth-century American Christianity. You can follow him on Instagram, and listen to his podcast Mission Lab.

(A three-minute read.)

I want a house with a crowded table
And a place by the fire for everyone
Let us take on the world while we’re young and able
And bring us back together when the day is done

A couple nights ago, my two oldest children (Camden and Acadia), along with their school choir, sang these words. I had never heard the song, entitled “Crowded Table,” before. It was originally written and performed by the country music group, The Highwomen, whom I’d never heard of before either.

But it was beautiful. Watch the performance above (also, if you want to see another rendition of it, performed by a more seasoned choir, with a more professional recording, go here).

There are parts of the song that are perhaps overly sentimental and sappy, but I love it all.

I love these words, which my young friend, Miguel (whose parents are the super talented worship leaders at my church), sang as a solo:

If we want a garden
We’re gonna have to sow the seed
Plant a little happiness
Let the roots run deep
If it’s love that we give
Then it’s love that we reap
If we want a garden
We’re gonna have to sow the seed

And I love these lines from the bridge:

The door is always open
Your picture’s on my wall
Everyone’s a little broken
And everyone belongs
Yeah, everyone belongs

Again, perhaps a little sappy.

But I just love the idea of a crowded table—where people from all walks of life are sitting together, eating, laughing, exchanging ideas, sharing the deepest and most authentic parts of who they are with one another.

I love the idea that the table represents a place of belonging. We may disagree with each other, but we can still belong to each other and sit at the table together.

After the concert, I told Acadia that it gave me an idea for a name. As we’ve slowly been trying to build community out of our home in Portland, with the idea of starting a “church,” I’ve thought a bit about a name. I’ve always loved the name “The Table,” but I recently discovered that a congregation in Portland already exists with that name.

So I’ve thought about other variations of the name “The Table.” I’ve thus thought of “The Open Table,” or “The Common Table.”

But now I like the idea “The Crowded Table.”

Of course, we may be a long way away from worrying about a name. But I can also dream (my youngest child, Winnie, sang a wonderful solo earlier in the concert for the song “A Million Dreams,” so I was inspired from all angles).

Such a name presents a beautiful picture of what God’s kingdom is all about. So often he used the imagery of a table, a meal, or a feast to represent his kingdom (and then frequently embodied that imagery himself). And I can imagine his table being crowded because he wants everyone there (as I’ve written about before, The Chosen did a great job of capturing this imagery in a beautiful way).

One time, Jesus told a parable about a great wedding feast, where a king invited a bunch of guests. After the initial invitees didn’t show up, the king told his servants to go to the “highways, and as many as you find, invite to the wedding [feast]” (Matthew 22:9).

He wanted a crowded table.

Of course, sometimes it’s nice to have an uncrowded table. Sometimes it’s nice to have just one or two people there, so we can have nice, intimate, and vulnerable conversation. That’s also good.

The point is, the table—crowded or uncrowded—gives us the imagery of God’s heart. It tells us that God longs for mutual connection, love, openness.

And I long for it too.

I want a house with a crowded table
And a place by the fire for everyone
Let us take on the world while we’re young and able
And bring us back together when the day is done

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Shawn is a pastor and church planter in Portland, Maine, whose life, ministry, and writing focus on incarnational and embodied expressions of faith. The author of four books and a columnist for Adventist Review, he is also a DPhil (PhD) candidate at the University of Oxford, focusing on nineteenth-century American Christianity. You can follow him on Instagram, and listen to his podcast Mission Lab.

(Photo credit: me.)

(A seven-minute read.)

As much as I love reading and writing, and exploring the deep caverns of theological, philosophical, historical, and political ideas, I consider myself to be a “missionary” first—which is why, among the various hats I wear, I’m a “church planter,” attempting to start a new congregation in one of America’s most secular cities.

But here’s the deal: by most “objective” measures, I’m not a very good or successful church planter. We’ve been at this thing for almost two years now and on a “good” week we will have 8-10 adults meeting in our home on a Friday night.

Part of that is by design. We’re attempting a “home-based” model that intentionally eschews the church-as-performance/church-as-a-program model. We’re instead pursuing small, intimate, personal, organic.

And we don’t really have any interest in just providing another religious program for Christians who are disillusioned or bored with their current congregations. We’re trying to really focus on connecting with and drawing in those who are spiritual orphans—people who aren’t already consciously committed to Christ or participating in a spiritual community.

Part of it is also circumstantial. Starting a new congregation is just one of the many hats I wear. I also pastor an existing congregation thirty minutes away, and the congregation sits on the campus of a large(ish) Christian school where I have some responsibilities (as does my wife, who is a teacher and vice principal there). This isn’t even to mention my doctoral studies, which take up a lot of my time and attention.

But part of our limited “success” to this point is—I’m convinced—due to the fact that I’m also insecure.

I say this because, though my family and I have developed a lot of meaningful and mutually-edifying relationships with people who aren’t already committed to Jesus, I do a pretty bad job of inviting them into more conscious participation in God’s story and the life of faith.

In fact, this has been the case ever since we had our “missional rebirth” ten years ago. Over the last decade we’ve cultivated many deep, rich, and vulnerable relationships with people from all walks of life and religious (or non-religious) persuasions. We’ve had many conversations that are open and honest about faith and spirituality.

And yet, over the course of that time, I think there’s only been one or two instances of people who’ve chosen to consciously and intentionally respond with some sort of commitment to the spiritual “ask” I’ve invited them into (and I can’t say that anyone, that I’m aware of, has gone from having no conscious faith at all to fully committing to apprenticeship to Christ).

This is fairly discouraging to me.

Granted, I know there are many, many reasons why this might be the case—many of which are probably at play. It’s not like I can figure out the exact “formula” to get people to say “yes.” And even if I could, I wouldn’t want to anyway.

But I know I can also do a better job of asking—saturating it with less insecurity and more (humble) confidence.

Let me give you an example.

Instead of confidently saying to someone, “Hey! We have a spiritual gathering at our house on Friday nights and we’d love to have you join us if you’re ever interested. Would you like to come sometime?”

I say, “Hey, I don’t know if you’d be ever interested in joining us, but we have this spiritual gathering at our house on Friday nights. You’re welcome to come, but no pressure at all. It may not be your thing.”

See the difference?

Again, I’m not saying that if I develop a little confidence that suddenly we’ll have to start turning people away from our home gathering.

But I recently realized that the type of invitation I’m most likely to respond to—in whatever context—is one that’s delivered with confidence (which is different than pushiness) rather than sheepishness.

There are various factors at play of course—like a fear of rejection.

More than anything, though, I realize that my greatest insecurity is that I have a crippling fear that people will conclude that I’ve had ulterior motives our whole relationship—that I’ve had a conversionist agenda and I view our friendship as transactional.

Of course, I think it’s healthy to recognize this cultural reality at play. Many people—especially in post-Christian contexts—have been burned by conversionist versions of Christianity. They often assume that Christians—especially the pastor dude who lives next door and is trying to start a new church—are simply out to convert them.[†]

This reality is almost always in the back of my mind. I essentially assume that everyone I meet or spend time with thinks that that’s what I’m up to (especially when they learn I’m a pastor).

And I thus go out of my way to apologetically make it clear—either explicitly or implicitly—that that’s not what I’m up to. And my sheepish, apologetic invitations likely reflect that fear.

But here’s what I realized the other day: so what if they think that? Who cares? What does it matter? And who cares if they pull away from our friendship as a result?

I can’t control what other people think! And I can’t control what other people choose to do!

As long as I’m clear, in the integrity of my heart, that I’m not consciously trying to be transactional, that’s all I can “control.” How people respond is up to them.

And even if they choose to never talk to me again, or they try to avoid me on the sidewalk at all costs in the future, that doesn’t detract from my value. My worth isn’t dependent on me leading anyone into faith or being a “successful” church planter. I could utterly fail and that wouldn’t make me any less valuable.

So why should I be insecure about inviting? My security and value aren’t based on other people’s perceptions of me or whether I ever start and lead this super cool, hip, and outside-the-box missional church.

My security and value are based on being the beloved son of God.

One closing illustration.

A number of years ago my wife developed a close relationship with a fellow stay-at-home-mom whom I’ll call Jane. They got together for lots of playdates and I’d occasionally hang out with them as well. She didn’t attend church anywhere, but she seemed open.

My wife, however, wanted to take it very slow and didn’t want to be too “aggressive” in pushing faith. I wholeheartedly agreed.

However, at the same time that my wife was hanging out with Jane, and having frequent spiritual conversations with her, Jane was also spending a lot of time with another woman whose husband was starting a new church in the area. And every once in a while, Jane would tell my wife that this other woman kept inviting her to check out her husband’s new church. And every time she shared this, she always sounded annoyed and perturbed.

But guess what happened?

Jane eventually went to that church. And went again. And again. And again. Until she even started teaching kids’ classes there.

To this day, from the best I can tell (we no longer live in that area), Jane seems to consider that one of the most pivotal experiences in her spiritual journey, which continues to this day—and, from what I can also tell, that woman is still Jane’s closest spiritual mentor and confidante.

What’s my point? Should I just annoy people to death with my spiritual invitations?

Definitely not.

But, with Paul, I don’t want to be “ashamed” of the gospel. It is, after all, the power of God.

Admittedly, I consider myself to be “deconstructing” my faith on many levels. I am also deeply turned off by consumeristic, attractional, transactional, and Christian supremacist versions of faith.

But my heart has been gripped by God’s story, and the love embodied in Jesus makes the most sense—rationally, emotionally, spiritually, politically, socially, relationally—of anything I’ve encountered. So inviting people into explicit conversations about and commitment to Jesus shouldn’t be something I’m insecure about.

And I don’t want it to be anymore.

[†] This probably deserves its own post, but I must admit that one of the other factors likely also at play is that I myself am very turned off by conversionist approaches to faith. It feels too much like “Christian conquest.” Combined with a belief in soteriological inclusivism—which doesn’t require a conscious decision for Christ for eternal salvation (while also not assuming everyone will be eternally “saved”)—and a growing conviction that living a life of love, justice, and compassion matters as much as “getting saved,” I admittedly feel a little sheepish about traditional evangelism at times. And even admitting that I might be at all interested in or focused on something that hints of “leading people to Jesus,” or that I call myself a “missionary,” makes me feel like I’m going to lose “cred” with my deconstructing, doubting, or secular progressive friends. But here I am.

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Shawn is a pastor and church planter in Portland, Maine, whose life, ministry, and writing focus on incarnational and embodied expressions of faith. The author of four books and a columnist for Adventist Review, he is also a DPhil (PhD) candidate at the University of Oxford, focusing on nineteenth-century American Christianity. You can follow him on Instagram, and listen to his podcast Mission Lab.

Image by Janusz Walczak from Pixabay

(A five-minute read.)

I wonder if one of the ways in which the American gospel has been neutered is that we’ve lost the sense that there’s a judgment day coming—when we will all have to stand before the judgment seat of Christ and give account of our actions committed and actions neglected.

I’ve been reminded of this once again as I’ve been reading through Kevin Burton’s new book, Apocalyptic Abolitionists: How Millennialists Helped Abolish Slavery and Reform America.

Kevin argues that many nineteenth-century abolitionists, who accounted for only one or two percent of the American population (please take note of that percentage), were propelled by the sobering conviction that Christ’s millennial reign was fast approaching (or had already begun). Such a thought, these millennialists repeatedly noted, called for solemn reflection on how God would relate to Americans’ stance toward slavery.

Kevin provides two examples from two early Black abolitionists (both from Boston).

David Walker, in a pamphlet entitled, An Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World, issued this dire warning in 1829: “O Americans! Americans!!” he wrote, “I call God—I call angels—I call men, to witness, that your DESTRUCTION is at hand, and will be speedily consummated unless you REPENT” (emphasis original).

Similarly, Maria W. Stewart struck an apocalyptic chord in 1833. “Who among you will strive to meet me at the right hand of Christ?” she asked. “For the great day of retribution is fast approaching, and who shall be able to abide his coming? You are forming characters for eternity. As you live so you will die; as death leaves you, so judgment will find you.”

Such ominous and foreboding reflections no doubt challenge our twenty-first century ears.

Yet this was standard fare for nineteenth-century Christians (and even more so for Christians prior to the nineteenth century)—which my own research has repeatedly reminded me of as well. They regularly spoke of God’s wrath and his impending judgment. They unapologetically reflected on the destruction of the wicked and the end of the world.

Thus, Elias Smith, in his 1805 sermon, The Day of Judgment, Revealed by the King of Glory and His Servants, imagined the judgment day when, according to the Book of Revelation, every person will have to stand before God and give account of all their actions recorded in God’s cosmic books. “When these books are opened,” he insisted, “every person standing before the judge, must give account for himself, or own every thing he has thought, said, or done that is wrong.” Indeed, he further explained, “[m]en will there give account for every idle word they have spoken.”

In light of this solemn reality, Smith surmised that it would be “more tolerable for those who had not had the gospel preached to them by the ministers of Christ at the day of judgment, than for those who have, if they disbelieve it.”

Of course, these nineteenth-century thinkers weren’t producing such convictions out of thin air. They had plenty of biblical fodder to support their beliefs.

After all, the Apostle Paul—the great expositor of the gospel and the message of God’s boundless grace—regularly issued such dire warnings. Writing to the Corinthians, for example, he famously insisted that “we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.” It was in the light of this “terror of the Lord,” he further explained, that inspired him to seek to “persuade men” (2 Corinthians 5:10-11).

In other words, God’s impending judgment significantly animated Paul’s evangelism.

Yet Paul was merely echoing what Jesus himself had frequently repeated of course.

Thus, when Jesus instructed his disciples to wipe the dust off their feet if a city didn’t receive them, he cautioned that it would be “more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for that city!” (Matthew 10:15).

Sodom and Gomorrah were, of course, destroyed by fire from heaven.

Elsewhere, he soberly warned that “there is nothing hidden which will not be revealed, nor has anything been kept secret but that it should come to light” (Mark 4:22).

One of the great challenges is that the “American Gospel,” influenced and shaped by many different theological strands (whether the prosperity gospel, Moralistic Therapeutic Deism, or popular versions of Calvinism), has a hard time computing the idea of an impending judgment where we must give account of ourselves to God for every deed done or every deed neglected.

I understand of course. We rightly recoil at the wrathful versions of God that were on offer in the past.

Thus, when Jonathan Edwards, preaching in the eighteenth century, famously (or infamously) talked about sinners being in the hands of an “angry God,” graphically describing how “the pit is prepared, the fire is made ready, the furnace is now hot, ready to receive them, the flames do now rage and glow. The glittering sword is whet, and held over them, and the pit hath opened her mouth under them,” we appropriately shutter.

We also push back against shame-based theological systems that imply our acceptance with God is dependent on our ability to perform and achieve. Indeed, our souls are weary and worn out—and rightfully so, I’d submit—from rigid, exclusivist, and legalistic pictures of God.

But speaking strictly for myself, I could probably do with a little more “fear” in my theological outlook.

It would probably do me well to ever keep in mind that there is a judgment day on the horizon when I will have to give account of myself to God—not primarily to answer for the little acts of personal piety that I did or didn’t do (what I ate, drank, watched), which gets a lot of the emphasis in more conservative religious spaces, but for how I treated my neighbor.

Recall Matthew 25 and the parable of the sheep and the goats—where Jesus pins the whole judgment on the question of what we did or didn’t do for him in the person of the hungry, the naked, and the foreigner.

And I think the world, and especially the versions of Christianity that are wielding the most influence on the political landscape in America right now, would do well to remember this also. Especially since, according to Peter, judgment begins with the “house of God” (1 Peter 4:17).

So let me get “political” here for a second: it seems to me that the world would be in a much better place if its leaders ever kept in mind that someday—perhaps soon—they’ll have to stand before God’s judgment seat and look him in the eye (or try to look him in the eye) and explain why they made the decisions they made—why they bombed the countries they bombed, withheld aid from the groups they withheld aid from, deported the people they deported.

In this regard, we would do well to take a page out of the abolitionist playbook of the nineteenth century, reminding the world’s most influential leaders that they will not escape God’s judgment.

I’m guessing the versions of Christianity that regularly get whispered into Donald Trump’s ear don’t include that dire warning however.

Not that such concerns are exclusive to Trump of course. But he is obviously the most relevant example in my mind—especially since Christianity, or at least versions of Christianity, continues to increasingly wield heightened political influence in America.

Yet it is mostly Christianity without cosmic accountability. It is Jesus without justice. And we are the worse for it.

Again, I don’t want to single Donald Trump out for this. We all need—or at least I know I need—to be frequently reminded of God’s cosmic accountability.

But it seems like the world could really use a prophet Nathan right now, with the courage to say, “Thou art the man.”

Granted, I know President Trump apparently doesn’t think he’ll make it to heaven. But he’ll still have his day before God’s judgment seat—just as we all will. There’s no escaping it—no matter how wealthy we are.

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Shawn is a pastor and church planter in Portland, Maine, whose life, ministry, and writing focus on incarnational and embodied expressions of faith. The author of four books and a columnist for Adventist Review, he is also a DPhil (PhD) candidate at the University of Oxford, focusing on nineteenth-century American Christianity. You can follow him on Instagram, and listen to his podcast Mission Lab.

Photo credit: Tim Putt (from my wedding in 2005)

(A five-minute read.)

I helped teach a class last week for a bunch of high school boys on sex and sexuality. In touching briefly on the sensitive topic of gender identity, I noted that one of the challenges we have societally is the pervasive presence of gender stereotypes and norms.

“For example,” I said, “I happen to like romantic comedy movies. Does that make me a girl?”

A couple of the boys bravely admitted that they also liked romantic comedies.

The next day, while continuing my academic research in the field of apocalypticism, I had another lightbulb moment that strangely connected to my love for romantic comedies.

In his book World without End, historian James H. Moorhead traced the death of postmillennialism—ie., the belief that Jesus would return to earth after a thousand years of peace—within American Christianity.

Toward the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries, liberal Christians in America traded the idea of postmillennialism for a belief in the “open-ended process” of “eternal progression.” They embraced the idea of “eternal becoming over the sense of the End.”

In Moorhead’s estimation, that move had dire consequences.

As he notes:

Erstwhile postmillennialists also lost the sense of a definitive End. They retained the confidence that God was present in the struggles of humanity and was guiding it ever upward—at least they maintained this confidence until after World War I and the onset of the Great Depression. But this process no longer had a clear End, a moment of ultimate completion and fulfillment. The Second Coming was reduced to a metaphor of perpetual improvement. Eternal progression was a goal unto itself, and the human pilgrimage through time lacked a final destination. The old liturgical formula “world without end” received an ironic new meaning.

This development “had immense significance,” he explains, because “the notion of an End addresses a basic need.” Human beings, he goes on to observe, quoting Frank Kermode,

are born and die in medias res [in the middle of things], “and to make sense of their span they need fictive concords with origins and ends.” By setting their lives—whether as individuals or groups—within a narrative having both a beginning and a terminus, they are thus doing more than asserting that time will have a conclusion (though they are affirming that, too); they are asserting that time has a goal or purpose. History is not, in the famous line of Arnold Toynbee, simply “one damned thing after another.”

This is huge in my mind. Humans are born with the innate need and desire for an end (or as Moorhead styles it, an End). We need resolution, purpose, finality. We need to believe that there will, alas, be a grand climax that brings history to its ultimate fulfillment.

In this sense, as I’ve written about before, we are narrative creatures. We are story-shaped people. And every story has a beginning and an end. Every story comes to some resolution.

And we can’t live without that. We can’t exist with the sense that life is nothing more than an endless cycle of progress and improvement, much less with a sense that it is an endless cycle of pain and suffering.

We need, in a word, eschatology—which is the study of “last things,” or how history will all come to a climactic conclusion—in the broadest sense.

Moorhead’s reflections actually provide a larger articulation of what I was getting at a few weeks ago when I said I had “progressed” beyond progressive Christianity. I explained that one of the reasons why I was hesitant to fully align with progressive Christianity is because progressive Christianity seemingly lacks a bigger story in which it situates its ethical vision.

I now realize that part of what I was feeling, and trying to say, is that progressive Christianity lacks eschatology—that is, it not only lacks a story, it lacks a story that has final and ultimate resolution and a final and ultimate End.

It’s just an “open-ended” pursuit of progress that never achieves finality—which is a perspective that is seemingly unsustainable.

The human spirit needs a sense that there is a finish line at some point, that the closing credits will eventually roll. We need to know that the show we’re binging does have a final episode, no matter how much we don’t want it to ever arrive. We need the assurance that there will be a final whistle in the game, that the clock will eventually run out.

Absent that, life feels meaningless, purposeless, exhausting, adrift at sea.

And I don’t think this is only the perspective of an outsider or someone who has always believed in a Second Coming. Moorhead himself writes as an insider, admitting that his work of history is a bit of a “lover’s quarrel,” and proposing that part of the reason that liberal, mainline Protestantism has receded is because of its failure to provide people with that sense of “The End.”

While acknowledging that some Christians can slide into some very dark and dangerous eschatological speculations, he nevertheless recognizes the opposite danger. “[T]he story of mainline Protestant eschatology from the 1870s to the 1920s warns of another peril,” he submits. “It is also dangerous, albeit in a fashion far more subtle, to live without a sense of the End. Time with endless loops and summary courts in perpetual session—a world without End—may exact from the human spirit something as costly as any vision of the Dies Irae.”

So returning to my story at the beginning, why do I like romantic comedies? Because the guy always wins the girl. There is a “happily ever after.” There is resolution, finality, achievement.

Indeed, the word “romantic” comes from the idea of a Roman story, of knights and chivalry and adventure. To be a “romantic” is to be someone who places himself or herself in a grand story where love is alas won.

And we need this on a cosmic level. We need the sense that love will finally and irreversibly be won on a universal scale, where equity and mercy and compassion will be fully brought to their ultimate resolution and achievement. We need to know that there is a narrative “arc” to the moral universe, and that it does indeed bend toward justice.[†]

Truly, we need to believe in these words from the ancient prophet Isaiah:

And in this mountain
The Lord of hosts will . . . swallow up death forever,
And the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces;
The rebuke of His people
He will take away from all the earth;
For the Lord has spoken.

And it will be said in that day:
“Behold, this is our God;
We have waited for Him, and He will save us.
This is the Lord;
We have waited for Him;
We will be glad and rejoice in His salvation.” (Isaiah 25:6, 8-9)

[†] Granted, “The End” of which I’m speaking will, in many ways, simply be the beginning of endless eternity. But that “endless eternity” will be different than the type of “open-ended process” of “eternal progression” that Moorhead speaks about which liberal Christians pursue prior to the return of Christ. Among other things, there will be no more death, sin, selfishness, or injustice to overcome during the “endless eternity” that takes place after the return of Christ. We will also be experiencing the “Beatific Vision,” which is the grand purpose or end for which we were created.

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Shawn is a pastor and church planter in Portland, Maine, whose life, ministry, and writing focus on incarnational and embodied expressions of faith. The author of four books and a columnist for Adventist Review, he is also a DPhil (PhD) candidate at the University of Oxford, focusing on nineteenth-century American Christianity. You can follow him on Instagram, and listen to his podcast Mission Lab.

Photo by Timur Weber.

(A seven-minute read.)

Can I be transparent with you?

Lately, I’ve really been wondering what the point, purpose, and value of theology is.

Like, what good does it produce?

Because, sometimes, it feels like theology produces more harm than good.

First, a definition—and then an example.

What do I mean by the term “theology”?

For my purposes here, I’m fine with a definition based on its literal etymological form. Theology is a compound word, combining two Greek words: theos (God) and logos (word/speech).

So, broadly speaking, I’m talking about words or speech in reference to God. I’m talking about the metaphysical beliefs people have about the divine—the claims they make and the propositional ideas they subscribe to (and usually prescribe for others) in relation to the transcendent.

Let me now give you an example—and a question about whether it produces any good.

The virgin birth. For almost two thousand years, whether a Christian was considered “orthodox” or not was determined—among other things—about whether he or she affirmed and believed that Jesus Christ was born of a virgin (and thus conceived by the Holy Spirit).

To be clear: I affirm this idea. And I’d admittedly be a little concerned if someone who claimed to be a follower of Jesus didn’t believe it.

But in 2026, is belief in the virgin birth of Jesus any predictor of whether a person will love their neighbors?

Or is it any predictor as to whether a person will—say—advocate for the humane treatment of undocumented immigrants?

I’m a bit dubious about that at the moment.

Indeed, there doesn’t seem to be much of a correlation between what one believes about the virgin birth and how they treat undocumented immigrants, to use that example. In fact, there may even be a negative correlation.

That is, it seems to me that quite often the more dogmatically a person believes in and insists upon the idea that Jesus was born of a virgin the more likely they are to be—at the very least—ambivalent about the humane treatment of undocumented immigrants (in my quick research, I couldn’t find any surveys that directly compare these two populations, but this one probably provides some insight on that).

I know this isn’t true across the board! There are—of course, of course—lots and lots of Christians who both passionately affirm the virgin birth and zealously advocate for the humane treatment of undocumented immigrants.

But I’m willing to bet that a larger percentage of people who don’t believe in the virgin birth think we should treat undocumented immigrants with kindness than those who do.[†]

Immigration is just one example.

I could cite a whole number of examples—ones that are less politically contentious—and it would lead to the same question in my mind.

To use another oft-cited example: divorce rates.

Famously, Christians in America apparently get divorced at the same rate as non-Christians (granted, some claim that there’s a much lower rate among people who are “truly” Christian—though that potentially gets us into the “No true Scotsman” fallacy).

So what good is theology when it comes to the success of one’s marriage?

Or shifting our frame of reference, what about happiness and life satisfaction?

Does believing in—and affirming particular ideas about—the divine lead to higher levels of satisfaction and happiness?

Finland would like a word.

In 2025, it ranked atop the charts for the eighth year in a row when it comes to the happiest countries in the world—despite (or perhaps because of?) the fact that less than ten percent of the population regularly attends religious services (compared to, e.g., thirty-six percent in the US) and as many as sixty percent, at least as of two decades ago, don’t believe in the existence of a “personal God.”

Granted, there are a lot of factors that go into a country’s “happiness quotient,” but it at least gives me pause.

So I’m left still wondering: what good is theology?

Caveats, qualifications, and objections

Admittedly, I’m taking a very utilitarian view of theology here. To some degree I’m judging its value based on the degree to which it produces—or seems to produce—particular pragmatic, ethical, and emotional outcomes.

I realize that theology has value apart from that of course. We should affirm ideas based on their ontological truthfulness and not solely on their pragmatic outcomes. We should therefore affirm the virgin birth of Jesus because it’s, well, true, and not simply because believing it is supposed to make people more kind.

But, going back to a series of posts I previously did: what does it even mean for something to be true and truthful anyway? Is something “true” simply because we can rationally demonstrate its logical coherence? Is that what “truth” is?

Or, on the other hand, is something “true” because it’s dependable and trustworthy?

Is it true, in short, because it can be relied upon and produces good fruit (it seems to me that Jesus, the founder of Christianity, said something about this idea)?

Part of my impetus for these reflections, perhaps not surprisingly, is all the wonderful people I have the pleasure of being (literal) neighbors with. Very few, if any—and I’ve gotten to know a large number of my neighbors pretty well—subscribes to anything that seemingly approximates “orthodox” Christianity (I doubt, for example, any of them would affirm the virgin birth—and if they do, they’re probably not all that dogmatic about the idea).

And yet, from my observation, I think a large share of my neighbors probably outlove most Christians I know.

Granted, two things: I don’t live with my neighbors and I’m not around them 24/7. For all I know, they could be dramatically different people when they’re in the privacy of their own homes rather than on the sidewalk or sitting on my couch.

Also, there’s an argument to be made that post-Christian people in the West have benefited from the ethical value-system that Jesus introduced two millennia ago while rejecting the source of that value-system.

That is, they’ve adopted the revolutionary ethic of love that Jesus embodied and initiated, which shaped and formed the Western world for the next two thousand years, even as they’ve denied the metaphysical claims of the man who introduced that ethic of love.

I can see that argument and think it has a lot of merit.

But given that, why does it seem like many non-Christians have implicitly understood and embodied that ethic of love to greater degrees than Christians—who also have access to and have benefited from that same ethic of love (and maybe, at least in theory, to even greater degrees)?

Perhaps this speaks to my larger point: maybe Christians have complicated theology.

Maybe we’ve taken it away from that simple ethic of love that Jesus taught and embodied.

We’ve turned it into splitting hairs over esoteric technicalities of soteriology (ie., the “mechanics” of how a person is “saved”).

We’ve loaded it up with philosophical arguments that focus on minutia, and then fought—sometimes to the death—to defend them (for good or bad, I find myself, in this instance, sounding a lot like nineteenth-century Unitarian minister, William Ellery Channing).

I don’t wish to reduce theology to ethics of course—nor to a simplistic system of beliefs. I’m a big fan of theology—both as an intellectual exercise and as a personal elixir for my soul—and, as I shared recently, I’ve “progressed” beyond progressive Christianity partly because it seemingly lacks a larger story that gives meaning and purpose to that ethic of love Jesus introduced.

But while I believe theology has greatly benefited me in a variety of ways—ethically, socially, intellectually, mystically—I’m less dogmatic these days when it comes to the conviction that subscribing to specific points of theology will necessarily and automatically lead to particular ethical, soteriological, or relational outcomes.

It’s not that simple. We are, after all, a lot more than simply “thinking things” (to stress a point I return to often).

This is not at all to say that I’m giving up on the “evangelistic” enterprise altogether—as though I see no value in encouraging people into greater awareness of and/or commitment to specific teachings about God and the Scriptures I believe he inspired. Not at all.

Again, I’m just not sure that theology, per se, is a sufficient condition to turn people into people of love. I feel like it has for me (I hope!), but I’m not sure I assume anymore that it automatically will for other people.

The bottom line: I’m not ready to throw out theology entirely. I just think we need to make sure that we’re doing it and presenting it within the framework of God’s grand story of love, ever keeping in mind that the whole goal of theology is to shape us into people who love God and love our neighbor as ourselves.

Absent that, the theology we espouse, it seems to me, becomes nothing more than a “sounding brass or a clanging cymbal” (1 Corinthians 13:1).

[†] It occurs to me that I’m very much asking these questions within a Western context which has been shaped by the values of Christianity, even as it has largely discarded the source of those values. Thus, I think I’m probably asking about the value of Christian theology in comparison to a sort of secular humanism—which has been largely shaped by the values of Christianity, while coming to deny its metaphysical claims—when it comes to love.

I’m guessing the value of Christian theology in helping influence people toward love is more apparent in comparison to, say, Hindu or Muslim theology (e.g., I’d think that a Christian living in, say, Saudi Arabia would likely act with greater kindness toward immigrants than a Muslim in Saudi Arabia—nor is it a coincidence, to use another example, that gender egalitarianism developed in societies that have been heavily influenced by Christian theology rather than, say, Hindu theology).

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Shawn is a pastor and church planter in Portland, Maine, whose life, ministry, and writing focus on incarnational and embodied expressions of faith. The author of four books and a columnist for Adventist Review, he is also a DPhil (PhD) candidate at the University of Oxford, focusing on nineteenth-century American Christianity. You can follow him on Instagram, and listen to his podcast Mission Lab.

(Photo credit: me—of the view I usually see when I’m writing in my home.)

(A six-minute read.)

As of my writing this, I have 782 persons who subscribe to this newsletter. I’m thankful for all of you—especially the ones who regularly interact with my work, leaving comments, sending me personal emails, or sharing a piece of my writing with others.

But I’ve been at this for almost five years now. I’m not exactly lighting the world on fire when it comes to the growth of my subscriber list.

Mostly, I’m perfectly OK with that. I write as much to make sense of my own thoughts and feelings as I do to gain followers or change anyone else’s mind.

I’m sure there are many reasons why I’ve not exactly turned into Mark Twain or Jordan Peterson as far as popularity and success goes.

But one of the major reasons, in all likelihood, is because I refuse to pigeonhole myself when it comes to the issues or ideas I address.

And in the age of the almighty algorithm, which rewards writers and influencers who build a single recognizable brand or lane, my approach probably doesn’t travel well.

To be sure, I almost always write about ideas that broadly relate to faith. But that is seemingly the only common thread that is woven throughout my writing these days.

Thus, one week I might write about faith deconstruction. The next week I might write about the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.

Another time I might write about epistemology, followed up the next week by a reflection on my children.

Or sometimes I might put on my historian’s hat and offer a reflection on some obscure historical idea from church history.

Still, other times I might share a reflection on “missional living” and the importance of taking walks in your neighborhood.

Lately, as you’ve perhaps noticed, I’ve been spending a lot more time writing about social justice and politics—much, no doubt, to the chagrin of some and to the great excitement of others.

Admittedly, it has been tempting lately to put all my “eggs” in that basket, especially considering the dire situation I think society is currently in. And it would, per my point above, help me with the algorithm gods.

But I just can’t live that way. More clicks, views, or subscribers aren’t worth my personal freedom and sanity.

I want to have the ability to offer lament in the face of injustice at one moment and marvel in the glory of transcendence in the next.

I want to be able to critique Christian Nationalism in one piece and express longing for the Beatific Vision in the next.

I want to have the freedom to write about the limits and challenges of modern evangelistic methods in one reflection and talk about the freedom and joy of the gospel in another.

I want to be able to write about emotional health and trauma in one breath and talk about apocalypticism in the next.

No doubt part of the reason that the topics I write about are somewhat varied is because I wear a number of different hats—and all of them are important to me.

In no particular order, I’m a pastor, I’m a theologian, I’m a historian, I’m a missional church planter, I’m a father, I’m a husband, I’m a lover of Jesus (I also recently became a dog-owner and I just “retired” from being a junior varsity basketball coach after an illustrious two-year career).

And I want to be able to write from the perspective of any or all of those at any given moment.

Similarly, as I’ve humorously explained to people before, I think I have theological or intellectual ADHD. I very quickly chase after new shiny theological and intellectual objects—which is often reflected in my book-buying and reading habits, which then shows up in my writing habits.

Thus, I will see a new book, get really excited about it, purchase it, read a couple of chapters, see another new book that looks really exciting, buy it, and do the whole thing over again. And then do it over and over and over again (though lately that habit has been quelled a bit since I’m largely boycotting Amazon).

And then I might circle back around to a previous book five or six months—or years—later. (It’s also why, when I go on vacation, I load up my bag with approximately twenty books, much to the chagrin of my wife, because I never know what type of reading mood I’ll be in—only to not read any of them [and, no, I can’t and won’t do a Kindle for many different reasons].)

On top of all this, there’s you—my audience.

Though most of you come from a Christian background, and my faith tradition specifically, I do have quite a few readers who either come from a tradition outside of my own or people who aren’t—and never have been, and probably never plan to be—Christians at all.

I have people who subscribe because they heard me present at a Christian conference one time in Australia, and I have people who subscribe because I see them every day on my sidewalk in my neighborhood, and they’re curious about my faith and perspective.

So I do try to cover topics and write in a way that is accessible to people from a wide variety of faith backgrounds or no faith background at all—though probably with limited success.

So why am I sharing all this today?

I’m not entirely sure.

It’s perhaps because I didn’t necessarily have anything that was alighting my soul this week—at least that I feel prepared to share at this moment (I’ve made some really awesome and exciting discoveries—at least in my mind—in my doctoral research over the past week, but I should probably save those for another day, or keep them for my dissertation so I don’t let the cat out of the bag via this medium).

But it may also be just to let you know that I continue to resist the algorithmic forces that try to compel people to focus on a niche issue.

So if you’re looking for someone who will dump on Christian Nationalists all the time, you won’t find that here (though I will probably do it more than some of you are comfortable with).

If you’re looking for a Christian writer who will stay out of politics, you won’t find that here.

If you’re looking for someone who will only write about the beauty and power and positive aspects of Jesus, you’re in the wrong place (though I will return to the theme often).

If you’re looking for a historian who will only present interesting tidbits from the history of Christianity, I’m not your guy (though I will share some of those on occasion).

If you’re looking for a thinker who only discusses big intellectual ideas and doesn’t share personal anecdotes and reflections, you’re going to be disappointed.

If you’ve read some of my books—especially my most recent one—and are hoping to get fed an exclusive diet of how to live missionally and experience authentic spiritual community, you’ll perhaps get frustrated when I wade into other topics.

When I first started this newsletter, I decided to call it “Reimagining Faith.” I like to think that everything I do write about falls under that broad category.

But perhaps you, dear readers, can tell me whether I’ve succeeded at that. You may even be able to see a pattern to everything I write that isn’t as apparent to me. If so, please let me know what that is. I’m super curious!

Also, I’d be curious to hear what it is you’re looking for through my writing and why it is that you read what I share. Perhaps you’re not as confused or frustrated that I refuse to stay in one lane as I imagine you to be.

Or perhaps you’re just completely ambivalent about the supposed problem I’m describing and simply read the pieces I write each week that pique your curiosity and ignore the ones I write that don’t. And that’s fine.

Of course, I know the types of topics and tone that garner the most reads. It’s not a mystery to me (Substack makes sure, in the interest of producing material that will lead to the most clicks, that that data is available to us).

But, again, I have no interest in limiting my reflections to topics and issues that will lead to the widest readership and the most clicks.

Mostly, to end this rambling piece, I’m probably just documenting my own journey. I write about history, theology, mission, politics, family, church, and more, but it’s almost always couched within the framework of my own journey of discovery—of me, reimagining my own faith, making sense of the world around me and the ideas that challenge, comfort, and convict me.

So if that’s something you’re down with, then please keep reading.

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Shawn is a pastor and church planter in Portland, Maine, whose life, ministry, and writing focus on incarnational and embodied expressions of faith. The author of four books and a columnist for Adventist Review, he is also a DPhil (PhD) candidate at the University of Oxford, focusing on nineteenth-century American Christianity. You can follow him on Instagram, and listen to his podcast Mission Lab.

Photo by Ray Bilcliff.

(A seven-minute read.)

While reading Daniel Walker Howe’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book, What Hath God Wrought, which covers American history from 1815-1848, I had a “lightbulb” moment the other day.

As I’m nearing the end of my doctoral research, I’ve been trying to put all the pieces together and figure out the big argument I’m trying to make about anti-creedalism in nineteenth-century American Christianity. One of the big mysteries to me, and questions I’ve been trying to solve for a while, is why it is that most anti-creedal movements in the nineteenth century became functionally creedal while others didn’t.

For example, both Seventh-day Adventists and Unitarians claimed to be passionately and zealously anti-creedal. But Adventists became functionally creedal, closely policing its theological boundaries, while Unitarians didn’t—to the point that most Unitarians today don’t subscribe to anything that approximates traditional, “orthodox” Christianity (one of my favorite lines I’ve come across about Unitarians, published in Time magazine back in 1983, is this classic joke: “How does a Unitarian begin his prayer? Answer: To whom it may concern . . . ”)

So why the difference?

Both have claimed to be anti-creedal—and yet one group acts creedal while the other essentially doesn’t.

And then I read Howe’s line.

Speaking of American Christianity in the early-nineteenth century, he notes that many were characterized by what he calls a “millennial sense of urgency.”

Of course. That’s it.

Or at least a lot of it.

Simply put, most Protestants in America had a deep belief that time was coming to its grand climax. The thousand-year reign of God (i.e., the Millennium), ostensibly foretold in the Book of Revelation, was fast approaching and humans in general and Christians specifically had work to do—either to help usher in that millennium or to be prepared for its sovereign and supernatural arrival.

I won’t go into all the ins and outs of how Christians related to the millennium, with some thinking Christ would return prior to the millennium (ie., premillennialism), and some believing he would return after the millennium (ie., postmillennialism).

The point is that most Christians, and most Americans in general, had this deep sense of the impending millennium—which produced a particular sense of urgency.

For Adventists, who were premillennialists, the idea that Christ was on the cusp of returning, with all that implied, led to frenzied attempts at preparing the world for his appearing. All the inhabitants of the earth must be warned and invited to receive the preparation necessary to meet their God.

Such a task required two things—at least.

First, it required unequivocal clarity on how a person would be prepared to meet their Maker. In the case of Adventists, that meant hearing and embracing a set of doctrinal propositions and behavioral norms. It meant accepting the seventh-day Sabbath, the truth about death, healthy living, and so forth.

Second, it required clarity on who was or wasn’t adequately prepared, leading to what Mormon scholar Grant Underwood has called “sociological dualism.” This “dualism” essentially divides humanity into the “saved” or the “damned”—or in the case of Adventists, the “prepared” and the “unprepared,” determined by one’s “response to the gospel message.”

So these two realities, among other things, essentially made it nearly impossible for the anti-creedal Adventists to be truly anti-creedal. In light of the imminent return of Christ, there was no time to indulge or tolerate theological or sociological pluralism. Jesus was coming soon and the world needed to be prepared for such an awesome event.

This was all bolstered by John’s Apocalypse anyway, since it seemingly predicted that, in the last days, the world would be divided into two, and only two, classes of people—those who were faithful to God and those who were carrying out the agenda of Satan.

The world was thus involved in a cosmic battle and everyone needed to take sides, post-haste.

Do you know who didn’t believe in an impending millennium—and, therefore, didn’t have any sense of apocalyptic urgency?

Unitarians. They hardly ever talked or wrote about it—and when they did, they were mostly ambivalent about the idea or even gently hostile toward it.

Thus, William Ellery Channing, the most famous and accomplished Unitarian preacher, reflected in 1842, just a few months before his passing, on the excitement that was being stirred up by William Miller’s prognostications about the end of the world in 1843:

There are some among us at the present moment who are waiting for the speedy coming of Christ. They expect, before another year closes, to see him in the clouds, to hear his voice, to stand before his judgment-seat. These illusions spring from misinterpretation of Scripture language. Christ in the New Testament is said to come, whenever his religion breaks out in new glory, or gains new triumphs. He came in the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost. He came in the destruction of Jerusalem, which, by subverting the old ritual law, and breaking the power of the worst enemies of his religion, ensured to it new victories. He came in the Reformation of the church. He came on this day four years ago, when, through his religion, eight hundred thousand men were raised from the lowest degradation, to the rights, and dignity, and fellowship of men [through the Slavery Abolition Act in the British West Indies]. Christ’s outward appearance is of little moment, compared with the brighter manifestation of his spirit. The Christian, whose inward eyes and ears are touched by God, discerns the coming of Christ, hears the sound of his chariot-wheels and the voice of his trumpet, when no other perceives them. He discerns the Saviour’s advent in the dawning of higher truth on the world, in new aspirations of the church after perfection, in the prostration of prejudice and error, in brighter expressions of Christian love, in more enlightened and intense consecration of the Christian to the cause of humanity, freedom, and religion. Christ comes in the conversion, the regeneration, the emancipation of the world.

For Channing, Christ’s return was not imminent because it wasn’t physical. In fact, it had already come—and always comes whenever the love of Jesus is manifested and embodied on earth.[*]

There was thus no need to feel any sense of urgency, and there was no need to pursue the sort of exclusivist theology or sociology that a sense of urgency demanded. Christ’s coming expressed itself in any number of ways, and the triumph of God’s love would inevitably unfold.

There’s more I could say about all this, but here’s my point today: it seems to me that a maximally inclusive ecclesiology (that is, an expression of church that pursues, celebrates, and practices maximum inclusion) and a zealous commitment to the idea of an imminent millennium are mostly mutually exclusive ideas.

Simply put, they are two different paradigms, pursuing two different goals. One seeks to call people into an urgent decision; the other seeks to avoid such confrontations.

To be clear, I’m not sure they are impossible to bring together. I just think it takes a lot of conscious effort to make it work, recognizing that they are an awkward marriage that requires—as with all marriages—compromise.

But apocalypticism, by definition, makes a strong distinction between the saved and the damned, the faithful and the fallen—which is something inclusivity is uncomfortable with.

But here’s the other piece of the puzzle: I’m not sure we want a “maximally inclusive ecclesiology” anyway. And this is perhaps the “good” of the type of apocalypticism I outlined above.

For example, do you know who was unequivocally clear about the evils of slavery in the nineteenth century?

And do you know who was unequivocally clear that slavery should be immediately abolished?

And do you know who was unequivocally clear that people who even had sympathies for enslavers could not be members of the church?

Adventists of course.

And much of this stance, as my friend Kevin Burton will (I believe) argue in his forthcoming book, was animated by their “millennial sense of urgency.”

Jesus was coming soon, they maintained, and you won’t be prepared for his return if you’re holding slaves (or sympathizing with those who are).

On the other hand, do you know who took a long time to embrace abolitionism?

And do you know who, after finally embracing abolitionism, believed not in the immediate abolition of slavery but in a gradualist approach?

Unitarians.

As Howe has also shown in his book The Unitarian Conscience, Unitarians were never in a hurry and they therefore never felt compelled to press their points with too much zeal. They had time and they assumed progress was inevitable. It was thus “easy to procrastinate,” he explains, “when one assumed that the ultimate victory of one’s principles—whether Liberal religion or human liberty—would come about whenever the time was ripe.”

For this reason, Unitarians “lacked crusading zeal.”

So this is the good, the bad, and the ugly of apocalypticism—all wrapped up into one.

It may, negatively, create an unhealthy exclusivism that has little patience or tolerance for diversity—leveraging shame, pressure, and guilt as a means to compel conformity.[†]

But it also, positively, may set boundaries where others are hesitant to set them, inviting people into decision out of a sense of appropriate urgency.

To be clear: I’m not saying apocalypticism is the only way to set these boundaries and the only way to find a prophetic voice in the pursuit of justice today.

But at least in the nineteenth century, it was a key ingredient in animating some Christians—and its absence was pivotal in developing ambivalence in others.

[*] You may detect a hint of anti-Semitism in Channing’s celebration of the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70, but that is a topic for another day.

[†] I have not done, nor do I plan to do, a larger study on this at this point, but my hunch—based on the little research I’ve done so far—is that almost all religious communities, across all the various religions (Christian and otherwise), which are either cults or have high-control, cult-like tendencies, have a strong sense of the apocalyptic/millenarianism as a core feature of their theology/philosophy.

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Shawn is a pastor and church planter in Portland, Maine, whose life, ministry, and writing focus on incarnational and embodied expressions of faith. The author of four books and a columnist for Adventist Review, he is also a DPhil (PhD) candidate at the University of Oxford, focusing on nineteenth-century American Christianity. You can follow him on Instagram, and listen to his podcast Mission Lab.

Photo by Rosemary Ketchum.

(A seven-minute read.)

Conventional wisdom says that pastors and other religious leaders should “stay out of politics,” focusing instead on eternal hope and providing people with a respite from the squabbles and dramas of the world.

At the same time, at any given moment, the people who exist under a religious leader’s spiritual care are probably evenly divided in their political allegiances—so a leader runs the risk of inflaming partisan hostilities and offending at least a significant portion of his or her congregation by wading into political waters.

I largely appreciate such words of caution. And I believe that such “conventional wisdom” probably applies to a large majority of the time and to the vast majority of political issues.

And then there are times, seemingly in very rare moments, when such “conventional wisdom” ostensibly needs to be thrown out the window. The political landscape is such that it would be spiritual malpractice for a religious leader to remain silent.

I think we’re in such a moment right now.

For the last week or so, I’ve been debating whether I should directly address what I’ve been dancing around for quite a while.

When President Trump shared his now infamous and expletive-laden post on Easter morning, threatening the people of Iran with significant destruction, it seemed like a moment to speak up. “Tuesday will be Power Plant Day,” he explained, “and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!!” He then added this demand, “Open the Fuckin’ Straight, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell – JUST WATCH!” He then ended by mocking Islam, saying “Praise be to Allah,” before signing his name.[*]

I’m not sure a lot of commentary is necessary when it comes to this post—other than to point out, again, that the President decided to use Easter morning, the day that Christians around the world, including many American Christians who are devoted supporters of his, were commemorating and celebrating the death and resurrection of the Holy Christ.

Two days later, the President decided to double down on his rhetoric, threatening Iran with genocide. “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again,” he wrote on Truth Social. “I don’t want that to happen,” he tried to explain, “but it probably will.” He then added that it would be “one of the most important moments in the long and complex history of the world,” proposing that “47 years of extortion, corruption, and death, will finally end.” Curiously, he ended the post by saying “God Bless the Great People of Iran!”

These two posts (along with his chief spiritual advisor comparing him to Jesus in a prayer), after years of troubling behavior from the President, got me thinking that it was perhaps time to be explicit about my political concerns. After all, doing so would follow a long line of biblical tradition—with priests and prophets frequently offering blistering critiques of “secular” powers.

Indeed, Isaiah didn’t mince words when he addressed the king of Babylon and the people of Assyria and Egypt.

So, too, Jeremiah and Ezekiel and Amos.

Nahum wrote a whole book against the city of Nineveh—and God famously sent Jonah there to announce impending destruction.

Daniel called out King Nebuchadnezzar for his arrogant rule and oppression of the poor.

And John the Baptist, in the New Testament, confronted Herod about his sexually deviant behavior when he took his brother’s wife (the move, of course, ultimately cost John his life—so would-be prophets beware).

Even the “meek and mild” Jesus called out Herod for being a “fox” (which wasn’t a positive moniker).

I’m not claiming to be a prophet of course.

But my point is that there is abundant precedent in the biblical story for spiritual leaders to address the immoral behavior of secular rulers and nations. There is apparently a point at which immorality reaches such a level that one has a moral obligation to sound the alarm.

This is especially the case when such secular leaders and nations are trafficking in Christian rhetoric, claiming to be doing the will of God and walking in the spirit of Christ.

And it was this precise point that finally set me off yesterday morning.

By Sunday night of this week I had decided to bite my tongue, forgoing any discussion of the matter. After all, the President hadn’t wiped Iran off the map and I had begun to notice that there were quite a number of people—including Christians—who had been previously supportive of the President’s leadership but who were now reassessing their loyalties.

But then I woke up on Monday morning to sight of the President’s latest “religious” post, shared on Sunday night. I won’t describe it. I’ll simply show it—since a picture is worth a thousand words.

On a more mundane level, it made me think of Jeff Daniels’s line from Dumb and Dumber when he says to Jim Carrey: “Just when I thought you couldn’t be any dumber . . . you go and do something like this . . . and totally redeem yourself!”

Though in this case, I thought, “Just when I thought President Trump couldn’t do anything more irreverent, sacrilegious, and blasphemous . . . . ”

It feels like we are daily witnessing new lows—which seems perpetually impossible. And yet on we go.

On a more serious level, the picture leaves me speechless. It is utterly blasphemous. There’s no other way to describe it.[†]

But perhaps it doesn’t leave me as speechless as if I should encounter Christians who just shrug their shoulders or perhaps laugh at Trump’s master “trolling” abilities (or what the kids these days, including my own, call “rage-baiting”). They will likely once again accuse people who express concern of suffering from “Trump Derangement Syndrome.” They will get a kick out of him “owning the libs” (as though that is some sort of virtuous and compelling political platform).

Or maybe, I’m still hopeful, there will be many Christians who finally do recognize the collective actions of the President over the last week for what they are: a bastardization, at best, of the faith they claim to follow—and a mockery of the God of heaven who says he will not be mocked without consequences (see Galatians 6:7) and the Christ who poured out his life in self-emptying love.

I recognize, of course, that the outrage I’m expressing may sound hypocritical, inconsistent, or disingenuous.

After all, where was the outcry from me when previous presidents—especially those on the other side of the aisle—engaged in immoral and un-Christian behavior?

I have no interest in going “tit for tat.” And I have no interest in defending any other president or political leader, especially when I genuinely have no partisan dog in the fight.

If one can’t recognize that the actions of this president, more than any I’ve ever witnessed in my lifetime, have reached a such an insane level of brazen and open mockery of God—often supported, blessed, and celebrated by the very people who claim to be the most devoted followers of Christ—then I’m not sure there is much left that would persuade them.

But that is the point: the reason this behavior, in my estimation, has warranted a level of such open alarm is because of the way this president, and especially those in his cabinet, claim to be pursuing and carrying out the will of God and the actions of Jesus. I’ve never heard any previous American president—again, in my lifetime—make such dogmatic claims.

And I’ve never seen so many Christians zealously supporting a president’s agenda, claiming that he is carrying out the vision of Christ.

And thus the reason to speak up.

I have no delusions that I have some grand platform that will persuade the masses. Neither am I claiming to be above reproach or that I am politically or spiritually guiltless.

I also recognize that the dogmatic tone with which I write here—which is extremely rare for me—may run the risk of alienating people who may otherwise be persuadable.

But there are times and seasons when religious leaders need to throw caution to the wind and, come what may, “call sin by its right name” (in the famous words of my tradition’s most influential thinker).

So will Christians sound the alarm and raise their voices—not simply in response to the way President Trump has so openly blasphemed the name of Christ this time, but the ways in which he continuously and frequently contradicts the actions and ways of Christ as well?

Or are we just going to shrug it off and give him a free pass once again, continuing to make the excuse that he’s not perfect but at least he’s pursuing the right policies (which are supposedly aligned with Christianity)?

We speak of God’s holiness and glory. Some talk of making America great again.

Neither of these things align with the actions of a person who is making mockery of God and making light of human life—all while claiming to be the great champion of Christian values.

Even if one could make the claim that his policies are pure and praiseworthy, we simply cannot separate the policies from the person. Character matters a lot—or at least I was once led to believe that by the religious right—especially in the leader of a nation that styles itself as being comprised of Christians who aspire to export Christianity’s values to the world.

Thus, for the sake of God, and the sake of our witness in the world, it’s high time we as Christians fully divest ourselves of any attachment or loyalty to someone who so openly and defiantly contradicts the teachings and ways of Jesus.

[*] I have chosen to quote the post with its unredacted expletives for maximum effect. If you are a supporter of Trump and you’re bothered by me, as a Christian pastor, quoting him verbatim, I trust you see the irony in that outrage. If you aren’t a supporter of Trump and are bothered by me directly quoting him, I sincerely do apologize! I trust you’ll forgive me.

[†] In fairness, the outrage—even from among some of his most ardent Christian supporters—seemingly reached such a level, that Trump deleted the post by yesterday afternoon. When asked, soon after deleting it, if he was the one who posted it, he said that he was and then claimed that he thought he was simply being depicted as a doctor in the picture, and wondering how the “fake news” could ever come up with the idea that he was styling himself as Jesus Christ. Such an explanation seems to me like giant gaslighting—though even the most generous of interpretations of his explanation leaves us wondering if he is simply duplicitous or he really is that religiously illiterate. Both seem equally plausible—and equally troubling.

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Shawn is a pastor and church planter in Portland, Maine, whose life, ministry, and writing focus on incarnational and embodied expressions of faith. The author of four books and a columnist for Adventist Review, he is also a DPhil (PhD) candidate at the University of Oxford, focusing on nineteenth-century American Christianity. You can follow him on Instagram, and listen to his podcast Mission Lab.