I was seventeen, sitting in my high school’s weekly chapel, and picturing my future self. I called him Missionary Matt, and he was super cool: I’m in a thatched-hut village in the Congo. I kneel beside a war orphan, checking his ears for infection and telling jokes to lighten his[…]
Last week, I noted that an overly-cynical approach to manliness “leads to humiliation.” I already told the story about how I tried pretending to be a “Wild at Heart” manly man to impress people. This week is the story of how I pretended to be post-masculinity feminist to impress people.[…]
When I was a cynic, I loved talking about the “evangelical bubble.” It was a constant topic at my evangelical college, John Brown University1. Cynics tell themselves that evangelicalism survives by hiding in its own cocoon. When exposed to the outside world, it shrivels in the light of reason and[…]
I’m about to start a series where I analyze the myriad reasons people become cynical about evangelicalism. But that begs the question: why does evangelicalism attract so much cynicism? I think it’s the convergence of several factors. They include: Evangelicals are sincere. Instead of the self-aware distance our culture adopts,[…]
My blog is about quitting cynicism toward evangelicals. But before I talk about that, we need definitions. What is an evangelical anyway? This is weirdly complicated, and has gotten me in trouble a lot. I’ll explain with a mostly-true story: I denied my faith in the Yale Law School courtyard.[…]