Kaitlin Shetler, the gifted exvangelical poet and provocateur who writes the “Poems for the Resistance” series, recently raised the question of why progressive Christians still bother with Christianity (as opposed to becoming agnostic or atheist humanists). Shetler did so on a series of Facebook posts: here, here, here, here, and here. (Shetler also collected all the posts into a Substack article here.)
Though I would consider myself more of a post-evangelical or liberationist Christian than a progressive one, I don’t think Shetler would make those distinctions. Regardless, here are my thoughts on why I continue to use the label “Christian”:
1. Jesus’s ethics and praxis are the primary motivation for my life.
My ethics and praxis are primarily informed by and inspired by Jesus. I say “primarily” because there are certainly many other people who inform and inspire my ethics and praxis as well—the Jewish prophet Isaiah, Lao Tzu, Thich Nhat Hanh, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Gustavo Gutiérrez, Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz, Janet Pais, Cindy Wang Brandt, and so many others. But Jesus remains my most significant influence, even today.
2. I believe in Jesus’s message and project.
I believe Jesus’s “message,” or “project,” was liberationist. As a fellow liberationist, I believe his message and I believe his message can transform our world for the better. While there are many other people throughout history who have similarly advocated for liberation, I don’t find them as compelling. Even leaving aside the potentially magical Christian claim of Jesus being fully God and fully human, Jesus is unique, especially in his fusion of political and spiritual liberation with child advocacy and protection. I believe that fusion is the key to creating a just, kind, and loving world—what I believe is “The Kingdom of God.” Until we stop denying children their rights, we will never see the Kingdom that Jesus proclaimed.
3. Seeing Christianity used to empower and liberate people brings me personal hope and healing.
I find great personal meaning and healing in reclaiming my childhood faith and finding ways to invert the stories and doctrines I grew up with so that they are empowering rather than abusive. That means I keep coming back to the Bible, time after time, to wrestle with it and understand how it can be used to both abuse or empower. I totally understand that this is not for everyone who grew up in an abusive Christianity. Some people need to walk away, burn bridges, and never look back. That is okay. Not everyone needs to sift through the ashes of their childhood religion to find a phoenix. But I need to. I have to. Because I know it exists and I know it can help a lot of people. It won’t help everyone, and it may not be a cure to all our ills, but I believe in harm reduction, not magical cures.
4. Allowing American evangelicalism to define Christianity will only put vulnerable people in greater danger—and I don’t think American evangelicalism is the definition of Christianity.
Because I am aware of how the Bible can be used to abuse people, especially children, I refuse to let other Christians be the sole voice and interpreter of the Bible and the meaning of Christianity. I don’t believe anyone has a monopoly on religion. No one has the right to claim they, and only they, understand religion—whatever that may be or however that is defined. As the Jewish prophetess Miriam asks in Numbers 12:2, “Has the Lord spoken only through Moses?” The implied answer is no, God speaks through many people. God even speaks through children, like the young child prophet Samuel in 1 Samuel 3. So, I am not going to simply walk away and let white evangelical Christians in the United States pretend like they are the only definition of Jesus followers—especially when so many vulnerable people are stuck in those communities, thinking their communities reflect divine order.
5. Because I am an apatheist, I am more interested in making the world a better place than defining who is or is not a Christian.
While I still consider myself a Christian, I am also an apatheist. I am neither a theist nor an agnostic nor an atheist nor an antitheist. Being an apatheist means I am apathetic about religious debates like Shetler’s. This is because, at the end of the day, whether I am right about Jesus or white American evangelicals are right, it will not change my ethics or praxis (see my first point). I will continue to fight for a more just, kind, and loving world. I will fight for that because that’s what I believe is right and good. And I would rather spend my energy fighting for that world than telling people who can or cannot be in the Christian club.
6. For me, what’s most important is who you are as a person and how you act, not what you say you believe.
I don’t believe Shetler’s solution of humanism is adequate for liberation anymore than I believe Christianity is adequate for liberation. Neither is adequate. Both Christianity and humanism have deficiencies because both systems are created and sustained by many different and imperfect human beings who say one thing but often do the very opposite. What I am seeking—political and spiritual liberation—can only come about by the hard work of breaking abusive chains and cycles and going back to the basics, like the Golden Rule. So I keep going back to Jesus and ethics, not metaphysical belief systems.
7. I believe Christianity, like all religions, is more than just a belief system that’s either true or false, magical or real.
I don’t believe that religions are just metaphysical belief systems. Religions are much more cavernous and complicated than that. I have written my thoughts on this elsewhere years ago, but the idea that religion can be reduced to propositional beliefs (regardless of whether those beliefs are “magical” or not) is a very evangelical view:
To the evangelical culture, religion is either Christian and thus true or pagan and thus untrue. This proves a stunted understanding, however, because religion is neither one nor many truth-claims which one can either affirm or reject. Religion is no doubt a phenomenon which entails truth-claims. But it also entails much more. Religion is a complex totality of human and other elements, only one element of which is the sort of truth-claim that one can package into propositions.
I disagree with this evangelical—and evidently, exvangelical—reductionism. (This is also a common argument from antitheists.) Religions are much more than true or false. Yes, they often make true or false statements, but humans do that, too, and we understand we cannot just be reduced to the words we say. Religion is similarly multifaceted.
Conclusion
Having said all that, I want to reiterate that I don’t think there is only one right way to be an exvangelical. Not everyone has to be a Christian apatheist like me. We all have different paths and part of walking away from evangelicalism is learning that people having different paths is okay. It’s not just okay—it’s beautiful. Human beliefs are as diverse as humanity itself, and I find that diversity to be a work of art. If Shetler and other survivors of evangelicalism find hope and healing in raging against the tepidity of progressive Christians, I am not threatened by that. The tepidity of progressive Christians is often nauseating and they compete with evangelicals with their tolerance for abusers (e.g., John Howard Yoder, Bill Hybels, Tony Jones, Tim Whitaker, etc.).
I just think we also need a more complicated understanding of religion—one that is not reductionist like many evangelicals and some exvangelicals make it out to be. Whether you are religious or not, a complicated understanding of religion is important because, without it, we will miss many opportunities to partner with and work alongside many of the diverse marginalized communities seeking liberation today.