The American Mind’s Tell Me What You Really Think is a daily interview series featuring the host, Spencer Klavan, and The American Mind’s publisher and editors aimed at dissecting the issues facing us in America today and finding out what the cast really thinks.
In this installment of TMWYRT, Spencer meets with Annalyssa Lee, Assistant Director of Fellowships for the Claremont Institute, to discuss what she really thinks about modern Christianity’s deep-rooted problem with being uncritically accepting of contradictory belief structures. Annalyssa shares her experiences with members of her social circle and church to illustrate the problems.
As a former Evangelical from birth, now a Roman Catholic having come through the Episcopal church, it was interesting to hear things from a current Evangelical point of view. I am also pretty familiar with Biola's ethos, and went to Wheaton (IL) myself. I have had many of the same reactions to Tim Keller and John Piper as Annalyssa. I would just add that the stripping down, if you will, of Christianity to little more than the Beatitudes and being "nice" is prevalent across all "flavors" of Christianity, and not something unique to these sorts of Evangelicals. What's interesting is that those of us who don't take that reductionist approach, and take a much broader and nuanced and, dare I say, historically orthodox view of Christianity, are considered cruel and traitors to the real Christ. In addition to just not being in tune with "what the Spirit is doing" or the "new Science."
I also entirely agree with Annalyssa that the root of this is to be found in an extremely deficient theological formation, combined with contemporary secular viewpoints regarding truth, and little desire to actually engage with historical Christian thought other than to excoriate it as "mean."
I'm not sure what your demographics are on the substack, but if it's anything like most of the political online spaces I usually inhabit, the women are greatly outnumbered. I find it amusing that your first woman guest on TMYRT would bring up Pride and Prejudice. I loved it and understood the reference well.