What I learned at a conference with post evangelicals by Kelley Barton

A few weeks ago, I flew to Cambridge, MA with Bill White and others to attend The Post Evangelical Collective Conference. The PEC annual gathering is for church leaders, artists and anyone who has left or are estranged from mainstream American Evangelicalism.

Here is just a smidgen of what I learned from the Conference.

READING THE BIBLE

The Bible was written to be read out loud in community. The Old Testament were verbal stories, eventually written down and then read by Priests to the Israelites in the Temple. The Gospels and Letters in the New Testament were read out loud to gatherings of Believers. As time went on, people heard the words from the Bible in church from their Priest/Pastor.

In the mid 1450 the printing press was invented, and the Gutenberg Bible was later published. That allowed individuals to read the Bible for themselves, which was a wonderful and freeing change. But along the way, the Evangelical Church emphasized “daily quiet time” which meant reading the Bible alone. If you wanted to grow in your faith, quiet time was required, or so we were told. But for many of us, reading alone meant being confused, boredom and/or giving up when not understanding the text. The idea that we don’t have to feel pressure to read alone but that a community experience may be what it was intended for, is very freeing for me.

DECONSTRUCTING

Think of the journey of deconstructing the faith you were raised in as similar to that of the chrysalis, which dissolves into goo and undergoes a long process to become a butterfly. See if you can surrender yourself to a complete undoing before transforming into a new way to walk with Jesus

THE SYSTEM

It is not enough to deconstruct the theology we were taught if we don’t also deconstruct the “system” it flourished in. For example, moving to an affirming view of the LGBTQ community is deconstructing theology. Deconstructing the system means rejecting our natural tendency to now tout that being affirming is the “only” or “right” way.

Here is a quote from Bryce Guitierrez, who co-wrote a Reflection with me in April, and sums it up well.

“The journey of deconstruction cannot end with adopting a different set of rigid religious beliefs but requires acceptance of the uncomfortable reality that nobody has a complete understanding of God and that there will always be questions and uncertainty.”

The next PEC Conference will be April 26 & 27, 2027 in Dallas. I think I might attend again. Anyone else curious about joining me?

https://www.postevangelicalcollective.org/