Rachel Held Evans recently posted a blog entry on her website which is receiving a lot of attention. Entitled The Scandal of the Evangelical Heart, it’s worth reading and pondering I’ve come to a lot of the same places as she has – it’s been by different routes for me.

Many churches, at least in the Western world, resemble a three-legged stool with underpinning legs of faith, culture, and politics. A major shift in any of the three causes the organization to tilt, dumping people off the edge. Yes I know Christ is supposed to be the one foundation of the church yet it’s rarely found. Sometimes (maybe frequently) we emphasize the sameness in culture at the expense of unity in faith.

The major shifts are occurring in culture now that we are at the end of the Enlightenment (or modernist) era. The modernist thinking fed into our theology and the same skeptical eyes questioning how we do things also question what we know about theology. These shifts are redefining how we “know” and understand (epistemology), and tie impact is as great as the shift from Medieval to Enlightenment thought.

Now we’re asking different questions and our Evangelical mindset doesn’t know how to answer them. Maybe there isn’t an answer. Maybe things don’t fit into a systematic approach. Maybe our church leaders respond like the friends of Job, trying to place blame when there isn’t a place for blame.

The mainline denominations don’t have it any better – they tend to be more politically liberal but they’re undergoing the same challenges as Evangelicals. That’s why I don’t think shifting politics doesn’t have a major effect on the issues Rachel explores.

So what should we do? The only meaningful response that I can see is to follow Christ and let him been seen, heard, touched and felt in our lives. Rachel catches the essence in the key passage from her blog post:

The bravest decision I’ll ever make is the decision to follow Jesus with both my head and heart engaged—no checking out, no pretending.

We follow Jesus – no other. How that works out in each of our lives will be different. We’ll be forced to live in ambiguity, there are no solid answers save one – WE FOLLOW JESUS.

If you want more background about the shifts in thinking and culture plus an exploration of ways forward, why don’t you pick up a copy of my new book, Good Faith Hunting. It’s written about baby boomers since they are the cusp generation that is leading us into new territory (whether they like it or not!). It’s applicable to all age groups since all of us undergo faith transitions and we wonder if we are weird or have we “lost our faith” when we ask questions. It’s available from the publisher, Wipf & Stock, now and will be available shortly on Amazon, or for Kindle and Nook.