After the mess that was 2020, we had such high hopes for 2021. Were our expectations met? Phil and Skye look back on the year when the evangelical empire dug in its heels. Those opposed to #MeToo and Black Lives Matter responded by labeling empathy a sin. Voices advocating for women and people of color within the SBC left the denomination. The Salvation Army reversed course on racial sensitivity, and female scholars faced a backlash for exposing Christian nationalism and patriarchy. Will 2022 be any different, or will the sorting of the entire culture into Red and Blue tribes continue? And how wide will the rift between classical and cultural evangelicals get?
Then, the president of Barna Group, David Kinnaman, joins Skye to launch a new reoccurring segment—Barna Briefs. Kinnaman reveals brand new data about the state of the church and how the pandemic has revealed wide discontent among churchgoers with their congregations. He also says popular church structures are clearly insufficient for forming mature disciples and new church models are desperately needed. Kinnaman also reveals an alarming number of pastors are ready to leave ministry. Is there a silver lining to all of the troubling data?
News Segment:
0:00 - Intro
4:34 - Looking back and looking ahead https://www.holypost.com/post/438-the-year-that-unveiled-evangelicalism-with-john-fea
9:10 - Stories from 2021: The “sin of empathy” conversation Holy Post episode 472 - https://youtu.be/D_NHhmdss5w?t=2000
12:28 - Was 2021 “The Empire Strikes Back”?
15:47 - Russell Moore and the ERLC Painting Phil references - https://www.metrotimes.com/the-scene/archives/2021/12/12/detroit-artist-jonathan-harris-strikes-a-nerve-around-the-world-with-critical-race-theory-painting
26:02 - Salvation Army and “wokeness”
32:18 - Books from this year Jesus and John Wayne by Kristin Kobes Du Mez - https://amzn.to/3mHdVMx The Making of Biblical Womanhood by Beth Allison Barr - https://amzn.to/3ECopmL
42:01 - The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill podcast https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/podcasts/rise-and-fall-of-mars-hill/ Church Refugees by Josh Packard - https://amzn.to/3pzky5m A Church Called Tov by Scot McKnight and Laura Barringer - https://amzn.to/3z4DJr7
53:06 - Looking toward 2022
Movie Phil references - Don’t Look Up (2021)
Barna Brief with David Kinnaman:
Free download for Holy Post listeners: https://www.barna.com/holypost/
1:02:37 - Interview Start 1:04:12 - Project intro: State of the Church https://www.barna.com/stateofthechurch/
1:05:31 - Digital church and effects of the pandemic 1:17:06 - Growing crisis among pastors 1:22:53 - Mental and emotional impact of pandemic
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Ozians - according to Oz fandom
Non-creedal or non-credible?
(Just catching up on my post-Christmas podcasts). Great stuff, by the way. Love your podcasts.
As someone who grew up in a moderate-complementarian (i.e. husband-headship; no woman pastors; but women actively involved and influential in church and work) and Young Earth context, I think a large part of the issue is hermeneutics.
I the circles I lived in, the assumption was that the plain common sense reading of Scripture was the default unless one had a specific reason to deviate. As the argument went: If a person with little to no Christian background just started reading the Bible, what conclusions would they come to about women ("I do not let a woman teach or have authority over a man") or…
To your point of frustration with Tim Keller, John Piper, and Matt Chandler not speaking up and out against Mark Driscoll.... I have felt a similar way and been disappointed in many respects by their lack of speaking up. But I do wonder if, due to their more personal relationship with Mark, if them not speaking out against him publicly is the more Christ-like response?
We all want things out in the open and we want to be privy to everything but a lot of our work as Christians should be behind the scenes and who's to say they aren't reaching out to him privately and trying to minister to him versus publicly trying to heap coals on his head?…
The difference between the US and the UK on some aspects of evangelicalism is interesting, if that's the right word. We've had some crisis here (in the UK) in ministry and those are still being worked through in the places they happened. But churches are much less twitchy about working across denominations. It was so encouraging when small c conservative evangelicals here made peace with charismatics for example. And no-one bats an eyelid if you swap from Baptist to CoE (providing the church is sound.)
On Josh's point, I wonder if we'll ever move away from the laser focus on marriage? Not that it needs binning, nope, more that churches can elevate being a couple over being single, so that…