Cultural Awareness and Cultural Responsibility

Evangelical Leaders, Theology, and Culture

Over at The Anxious Bench yesterday, Wheaton history professor Joey Cochran had a provocative piece titled “The Crisis of The Evangelical Heart”. After opening with a reflection from Neihbur, he wrote this:

Christians must take ownership and responsibility for their culture and society, and they cannot wash their hands of it. Furthermore, when the culture of their own making, evangelicalism, becomes an unruly child, they cannot simply disown and disinherit it, release it into the wild, and exonerate themselves of blame. Yet, some evangelical leaders have seemingly done so with the unruly child of evangelicalism, which has led us to the crisis of the evangelical heart.

There’s a great deal to like in the piece. Most importantly, he discusses the ways in which a focus on theological correctness (too often shorthanded as the conservative stance on numerous social issues) can cover a blindness toward the ways in which evangelical leaders are simultaneously shaped by and shaping contemporary culture.

I was reminded of the argument made by James K.A. Smith’s writing (beginning in Desiring the Kingdom) as well as conversations I had with Jamie over a decade ago about the ways in which head knowledge doesn’t translate to character.

Cochran writes:

I believe that cultural descriptions of evangelicals reveal the state of the evangelical heart and when the evangelical heart is in crisis. While I care much about understanding the evangelical mind, I am increasingly more concerned about the condition of the evangelical heart, especially my own evangelical heart. Cultural descriptions of evangelicalism help monitor when the evangelical heart is in crisis. If we give any due regard to recent assessments of evangelicalism, it would be plain that the evangelical heart is in crisis and too few are taking action to respond to the crisis.

A focus on theological correctness gives a free pass to ignore the impact evangelical leaders have on our political and social culture. Today, Kristin Kobes Dumez wrote in her SubStack about the growing concern of uber-conservative political activism from evangelical leaders. She noted the confluence of politically conservative and evangelical groups who are backing the Heritage Administration’s Project 2025, designed to create the working strategy for a potential Trump administration.

Who’s behind Project 2025? There’s an “Advisory Board” of “over 100 conservative organizations,” including the Heritage Foundation, Hillsdale College, Alliance Defending Freedom, the Family Research Council and the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute, Liberty University, Eagle Forum, the Mackinac Center, Moms for Liberty, Turning Point USA, and The Center for Renewing America.

Any number of books and podcasts highlight the ways in which these cultural dynamics are created as the default position for too many evangelical leaders and those that follow them. I would highlight Tim Alberta’s recent book as an excellent example. Chris Hayes’ “Why is this happening?” podcast this week was a conversation with Doug Pagitt, the head of Vote Common Good¹. It’s an excellent example of analyzing the cultural dynamics of evangelicalism and then making adjustments.

My thinking about the cultural dynamics of evangelicalism was prompted by a surprising convergence. I just finished Kara Swisher’s Burn Book, which works as both her memoir and a front-row seat on the development of the tech world of Silicon Valley. Not knowing much of either, I thought it would be fun to read.

The book goes through a litany of tech leaders whose creativity and innovation led to wild success. Often this success was accompanied by excesses. Yet one theme that emerged was about the ways in which leaders like Jobs or Zuckerman or Musk see themselves as culture makers of great influence. One passage stood out to me for its parallels with evangelical leadership culture.

A truism began to form in my brain about the lack of women and people of color in the leadership ranks of tech: The innovators and executives ignored issues of safety not because they were necessarily awful, but because they had never felt unsafe a day in their lives. Their personal experience informed the development of unfettered platforms. And, in turn, this inability to understand the consequences of their inventions began to curdle the sunny optimism of tech that had illuminated the sector (emphasis mine).

A plethora of names come to mind. Success in ministry or ministry networks or conferences encourage leaders to focus on their correctness without acknowledging the downstream harm their positions cause to our democratic ideals, or a sense of pluralistic society, or shifting cultural norms. Here’s another Swisher quote (sorry for the bawdy language) that related.

In that spirit, I created a metric, the “Prick to Productivity Ratio” (P2P), that’s neither scientific nor is it particularly fair. But it’s allowed me to quantify my judgments of the powerful people I’ve covered over the years. It gives flawed people—and we are all flawed in some way—a little break. In short, I would consider what I thought were someone’s accomplishments, including innovative products, visionary ideas, management skills, cool inventions, ability to pivot, and general flexibility. Then, I’d match these achievements against my highly subjective assessment of their characters, based on my own interactions. And if you’re wondering who appointed me judge and jury: I did.

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And while these overbred poodles couldn’t be luckier on this planet at this moment in time, they’re swept up in the constant doom cycle of their own design, painting themselves too often as victims. They seem to wonder why we humans of lesser value can’t understand their genius. They expect an eternal hall pass for egregious acts and blame demons for their transgressions. They are enabled by all manner of hangers-on. Most of whom are paid for their obsequiousness. What they ignore is that no one takes away someone’s genius just because they make mistakes, and that their inability to hear about problems is a problem. These tech moguls are so rarely disagreed with that they now interpret valid questions as attacks.

Joey Cochran closes his piece arguing for the importance of cultural historians (and, dare I add, sociologists) who can help articulate the disconnect between theological identity and cultural impacts. The problem is not a failed theology. It is a theology that isn’t reflective about the ways that theology gets distorted when operationalized into cultural spaces.

Maybe it’s time for a P2P analysis of evangelical cultural leadership.

1. Hearing Hayes and Pagitt discuss theological assumptions was pretty cool.