Private Faith Has Public Consequences

There’s a strange irony buried in a lot of modern evangelicalism: We’ve built a version of religion that works beautifully for the individual… and often works terribly for the world those individuals live in.

Christianity as practiced in much of the U.S. has become a highly personalized self-improvement strategy. But it's worth asking if Jesus came to create better individuals who know their purpose and live fulfilled lives. Or was Jesus more interested in transforming communities that impact others we may not even know?

I'd suggest that our answer to this distinction matters. As the author Nate Larkin notes, "While Jesus does offer a personal relationship to every one of his disciples, he never promises any of us a private one."

 Somewhere along the way, evangelicalism perfected the art of the personal benefit. You get:

• a personal relationship with Jesus
• a quiet time (alone)
• an assurance of heaven (for you)
• certainty in (your) correct theology
• a church that meets your needs
• a political tribe that protects your interests

Meanwhile, the world around us absorbs the collective fallout of millions of individuals practicing a highly curated, privately beneficial faith. And to be fair, focusing on the individual is easier. Systems demand reform, but individuals want reassurance.

Evangelicalism often chooses reassurance.

But if you look to the Hebrew prophets, the early church, and to Jesus Himself, you realize they weren't all that focused on reassurance. They were big on reorientation.

They were constantly calling people to widen the frame from “Is this good for me?” to “Does this heal the world God loves?” Jesus was often pressing people out of the personal and into the communal. But much of evangelicalism reversed the polarity. We obsess over personal morality and turn a blind eye to collective harm.

It’s tempting to assume that if a spiritual practice benefits us personally, it must therefore be good. But what if the things we find comforting are the very things deforming our communities? 

That was the critique the Hebrew prophets leveled over and over: You’re doing religion in a way that makes you feel righteous while your society falls apart around you.

I hate all your show and pretense—the hypocrisy of your religious festivals and solemn assemblies. I will not accept your burnt offerings and grain offerings. I won’t even notice all your choice peace offerings. Away with your noisy hymns of praise! I will not listen to the music of your harps. Instead, I want to see a mighty flood of justice, an endless river of righteous living. Amos 5:21-24

Which raises the unsettling question: Is our version of Christianity actually forming us to care more about others?

A faith designed primarily for personal benefit tends to produce predictable outcomes:

• Political choices that protect our group, not the vulnerable

• Certainty that feels good but misreads reality

• Ignorance defended as faithfulness

• Biblical interpretations that reinforce power rather than challenge it

We end up with a Christianity that is very good at helping individuals manage anxiety and very bad at dealing with injustice.

We champion “religious freedom”… but often mean the freedom to disadvantage others. We preach “family values”… while supporting policies that harm actual families. We champion “pro-life”… while ignoring systems that shorten lives. We emphasize “saving souls”… while neglecting the conditions that break bodies and spirits.

Individually, it all feels faithful. But collectively, it isn't working. And this is exactly how we end up with a Christianity that confidently declares itself the moral center of society while actively destabilizing it.

As Walter Brueggemann wrote:

Quite clearly, the one thing the dominant culture cannot tolerate or co-opt is compassion, the ability to stand in solidarity with the victims of the present order. It can manage charity and good intentions but it has no way to resist solidarity with pain or grief. 

The problem with much of evangelicalism is that we've found ways to make religion beneficial for us individually while overlooking how it collectively has adverse effects on society. This is even more pronounced with Christian Nationalism, which seeks to legislate our beliefs upon others in society, regardless of what they believe.

The early Christians weren’t known for having correct theology. They were known for creating communities where the poor ate, the sick were cared for, and the lonely found a sense of belonging.

Let’s build the kind of faith that actually does something good for the world. A faith that pays attention to systems. A faith that listens to marginalized voices. A faith that critiques itself before critiquing everyone else.

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash