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Many evangelical Christian organizations and movements have a similar kind of messianic self-consciousness. Another told me that I needed to understand that the movement was “leveraging celebrity culture to do something for the gospel.” Boromir tried to do something similar with the ring of power, as I recall. One told me that his organization was “God’s means of doing something great in this day and age.” As delusional as such a claim obviously was, it did seem to reflect the general ethos at the time. Which is odd for a religion predicated on repentance.Įarly in the movement’s history, I spoke with a couple of the leaders. Sorry, as Elton John sang, seems to be the hardest word. On Friday the news broke that The Village Church, home of YRR megastar Matt Chandler, is being sued over alleged mishandling of sexual abuse.īut at no point has there been any apparent heart-searching, among those left in the movement, as to whether such falls indicate a problem in the very culture of the YRR-at best a lack of judgment in its choice of headline acts, at worst a fundamental lack of integrity. And one by one big leaders fell from favor: Mark Driscoll, James MacDonald, Tullian Tchividjian, C. An extensive informal network of individuals, institutions, and organizations who wanted a slice of the YRR action was happy to oblige the padrini by keeping critics on the margins. In public, critics were derided and then ignored in private, they were vilified and bullied. The YRR theology was at best a diluted form of Calvinism, but it had a largely positive influence in the pews.īut the movement’s leadership was often arrogant. And Harris was both a product of and a player in the YRR project. Orthodoxy as performance art, one might say. In a sense, that is exactly how and why the YRR was so successful: savvy harnessing of fashionable idioms and marketing strategies, exceptionally clever use of social media, large and well-organized conferences, and professional-grade websites-all fronted by attractive personalities and brilliant communicators. Life, it would seem, continues as performance art. The earlier announcement of his divorce used the typical postmodern jargon of “journey” and “story.” And both posts were designed to play to the emotions rather than the mind. He revealed he was leaving the faith with a social media post, which included a mood photograph of himself contemplating a beautiful lake.
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While Harris seems to be making a clean break with his past, the style of his apostasy announcement is oddly consistent with the evangelical Christianity he used to represent. Now, he has denounced his famous book, announced he and his wife are separating, and repudiated Christianity. He was also an influential figure in the Young, Restless, and Reformed Movement (YRR). In his early thirties, he served as pastor of a Gaithersburg megachurch. Harris authored the best-selling I Kissed Dating Goodbye in his early twenties, unleashing unnecessary angst on a generation of evangelical teens. Joshua Harris has abandoned his Christian faith, news that marks another blow to American conservative evangelicalism.