Living things grow, growing means change. Recent history teaches us a lot about this. The Jesus Movement of the '60s and early '70s introduced a wave of counter cultural nonconformists, iconoclasts, and college students to Jesus Christ. New forms of the faith sprang up like mushrooms. Some faded, some lingered, some exploded in growth preparing the way for the evangelical rise to empire in which Alisa grew up, and some quietly continue their good work to this day.
Today's younger evangelicals may not show up in evangelical churches; they show little interest in helping pay off church mortgages or paying the lawn fertilizer bill of mega churches. They tend to start new ones like Village Vespers in Greenwich Village. They care more about transformation of lives and justice in the world, and they aren't tied to a need for buildings to do it. Relevant magazine, the Veritas Forum, Shane Claiborne, Tim Challies, the neo-Calvinist resurgence, and the continuing vitality of university and college campus ministry, including new ones like Christian Union, all point to new undergrowth coming up and to new, younger minds chewing on vintage truth. Sometimes the young pups (read 20- and 30-somethings) rally around old dogs like Tim Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York or Charlie Peacock and Andi Ashworth at Art House America.
Alisa Harris shares a vulnerable snapshot of where she is today, and in doing so, leaves a road map to spiritually higher ground for others. Let those of us longer in the tooth faith-wise learn both to listen and to speak her language.
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