By April Oddo | Reporter
As a frequent churchgoer who was born and raised in a strong conservative household, I never imagined I would be writing this article. From being raised in the evangelical church to having the entirety of my academic experiences stem from a Christian education, it’s all I knew — and all I thought I could possibly know. So with all of that being said, here I am, writing about what changed inside of me and what has led me to come to the opinions I hold about evangelicalism.
I am a Christian; however, I am fully willing to comment on the contradictions of the modern church. This is not an article putting down the Christian faith; it’s an article challenging those who claim to be a part of it. The hard truth is that the gospel has become a product that evangelicals are desperate to sell, although they forget to consume it themselves. It’s a simple concept: Accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, and eternal life is granted to you.
Although most people stop there, I consistently found myself wrestling with this principle: Why would a loving god create millions of people knowing that a large portion of them were doomed for an eternity in hell? This question haunted me, challenged me and ultimately led me to really question the mindset I had adopted from the evangelical church.
If there’s one thing I’ve discovered throughout my journey as a believer it is that heaven is not essential to what it means to be Christian. We are so focused on getting people out of hell that we have completely forgotten to live in accordance with what we believe. Although the answer to my question remains unknown, I found that my logic began to shift. Rather than using hell as a tactic to scare people into attending church, why aren’t we just focusing on the benefits that come with a life of purpose and love? Why aren’t we concentrating more on our personal relationships with God?
In modern America, church has become a business, and religious beliefs have become political. The church is too focused on the spread and not focused on existing and experiencing the relationship themselves, let alone acting in accordance with the doctrine it preaches and expects others to follow. I would have to argue that the way the modern church has assorted political affiliation with Christian values is incredibly detrimental to the message of the gospel as well.
Although I’ve typically been a firm supporter of conservative economic initiatives, the Republican Party’s propaganda specifically targeted to tailor the morals of its religious voters made me question the authenticity of the party. In 2016, many people voted for former President Donald Trump because of their Christian label but lacked the ability to defend their political ideas. I find that a common misconception among members of the evangelical church is that they have created labels on what it means to be a true conservative. Political ideology has nothing to do with who you pray to on Sunday. The narrative has shifted from conservative political values to Christian conservative values.
There’s nothing wrong with having consistent morals, but to use your religious beliefs as a credible source to defend who you voted for strays away from what is best for the general population, not just what is best for your church. I spoke with Dr. Thomas S. Kidd, associate director for the Institute for Studies of Religion at Baylor, to get his take on the church’s involvement in American politics.
“At least since the 1950s, white evangelical Christians have tended to gravitate toward the Republican Party for a variety of reasons, including anticommunism, the pro-life movement (particularly starting in the 1970s) and other issues,” Kidd said. “What changed in 2016 is that evangelical Christians were faced with a choice of a presidential candidate, Donald Trump, who seemed to violate traditional evangelical beliefs about personal morality, marital fidelity, etc. Obviously most self-described white evangelical voters stuck with Trump in 2016 and 2020, apparently choosing public policy concerns over personal attributes.”
I’ve noticed that there is a certain stereotype that comes with what a Christian should look like or act like. Specifically on Baylor’s campus, it seems that anything outside of a cookie-cutter, bubbly, Pine Cove goer and frequent coffee drinker does not meet the criteria for being Christian. Modern Christianity avoids and evades difficult topics and the realities of life by focusing on rules, doctrines and dogma. These rules we are taught to follow in church are ways for people to avoid the reality of the strong questions we hold. As a matter of fact, it’s more centered around exclusion, misunderstanding and othering.
Christians serve a God who was defeated by death. He was stronger after He dealt with the weight of death and meaninglessness by dying on the cross. God had to go through death so that He could ultimately conquer it and resurrect. So, how can we model this? You can never have faith until you truly see how meaningless the world is — to accept its meaningless and to do the illogical thing by choosing to live anyway. Experience the bad in this life. Experience the bad on this planet. It’s OK to talk about it. God felt meaningless, abandonment, death and misery. There’s a certain amount of purposelessness that is very real and heavy. It’s worth confronting. You can construct purpose by creating and seeking it, but to get to a point to do that you have to push and wade through a lot of meaninglessness in faith.
So with that being said, I challenge the evangelical church and its members to pose themselves with a few questions: Am I a model of what I believe, or am I a follower of a trend that’s culturally comfortable? Do I love others, or do I love those who best fit my belief system and religious practices?
