Completed versus exploring

Some thoughts from a recent read

I bounced up the street to get some Sumatra coffee for us early this morning. I also ordered a couple of bagels but explicitly said merely to slice them as they too often get hard if they have been heated long before consumed. The woman at the cash register nodded while the lady behind her went into execution mode. The coffee was superb but I was disappointed when I got the bagels; nothing earth shattering but they were both sliced and heated.

The woman in execution mode completed the order by taking it to the logical conclusion she assumed she was hearing since 90% of her work would tell her to do these steps. Midway through my mother’s dementia torture, it was painful to converse with her as she would complete sentences by what she expected was the course of the chat rather than what the interlocutor actually said. She had my younger niece engaged just because she started seeing a fellow (she married a much nicer guy and not even met him when this instance occurred). It was so hard.

All of us do this, to some degree. I am struggling to stop completing people’s sentences because my daughter has pointed out this is a method of shutting people down which certainly was never my intent.

The tendency to assume we know what people are thinking melds perfectly with the book I just finished yesterday. As my son just texted me, my judgment of it being the best book I have read in years is indeed high praise as I meant. If you are looking for a thread of understanding of the chasm between much of evangelical America and non-evangelicals, take the time to digest Tim Alberta’s, The Kingdom, The Power, and The Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism.

Alberta dissects with grace and knowledge as an evangelical himself the march American evangelicals underwent to reach a point where they finish sentences of those they disagree with by positing a persistent sense of victimization. They have convinced themselves that American greatness as they define it is the ultimate objective of their faith and their lives rather than an afterlife as Christian theology has so long preached. Son of a respected and well-educated scholar who also served as a Southern Baptist minister in ‘down river’ Detroit, Alberta is hardly from the outside ‘enemy’. While his father earned divinity degrees, Alberta clearly studied Christian texts in some detail in his own life before becoming a journalist for The Atlantic. He spoke in detail about use of terminology, rituals, and those who have turned religious practice on its head as a political movement rather than a spiritual one.

What makes Alberta’s study invaluable was his willingness to and success in engaging the major figures in the mega-churches, the Southern Baptist leadership, and educators currently closely aligned with Republican politics. He quotes, in detail, what he says were conversations with many individuals who surprisingly admit in private their doubts about the politisation of congregations yet who continue their public embrace of the commercialism and political affiliation. Alberta frequently labels this hypocrisy and notes it stokes the sense of being left aside (pun intended) by contemporary American society. This is unsurprising but his helps explain why the average parishioner is left unknowing of the inconsistencies in an era of focus on politics In churches rather than Christian theology as long practiced. Clearly the author himself struggled to understand some of the parishioners’ reactions to blame their ministers for not being political enough, to match the narratives these folks hear daily on their preferred political networks. But we are in an era of more spontaneity in preaching and fewer connections to understanding the theology. As one foreign evangelical noted, Americans don’t really know their Bible well or deeply. Unspoken was a slap that Americans are too superficial about faith.

You may ask why this worth your time. I found Alberta’s willingness to hear out the specifics of many contemporary evangelicals quite worthwhile to understand why they see themselves under constant, unrelenting assault by forces they assume are at work because they no longer analyse stories or information but use the political shorthand BOTH sides us about the other. That shorthand or code is a variation of my mother hearing my niece dated someone so she assumed, in her fading analysis, that she knew where that narrative would end.

This is not a gotcha book to assault evangelicals, though some will bridle at it. He revisits many people, seeing how changes occur—and some congregations are seeing unthinkable evolutions of late—in their congregations. He names names, meaning he must have recorded interviews, amazing in light of some of the conversations he cites. He rarely—perhaps three times-usesthe term Christian nationalism though it is certainly part of the evangelical movement in many places. Some of his most scathing assessment is about how the churches treat those who challenge sexual abuse.

In an era of people talking past each other’s thoughts to finish the other person’s sentences, often wrongly or without any data, this is worth a read. Actions create consequences. If we are going to sustain our nation, we truly have to understand assumptions of others to recognize the fears that motivate them. And Alberta makes clear the evangelical movement today is far from certain of the future, regardless of some of its bravadura and clownish figures.

Thank you for reading today’s column.i welcome any and all rebuttals, thoughts, suggestions. Fire away as I do not have all the answers but want to hear your thoughts, no matter who or where you are.

To complete a wonderful day, some needed colour. Yes, I love hibiscus.

Be well and be safe.

Tim Alberta, The Kingdom, The Power, and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism. New York: Harper, 2023.