WHAT DO EVANGELICALS HAVE IN COMMON, despite their heterogenity? The conversion ritual. The conversion imperative. The sense of shared experience which comes from sharing an initiation. It is the same shared sense which unites a fraternity, or a military unit. Shared initiation is a powerful glue. The sense of shared initiation is what makes evangelicals recognize each other. It is what makes them feel different.
THE CONVERSION humiliation--and all initiations have a sense of humiliation about them--brings the convert to zero. It emasculates the convert, renders his or her entire past worthless, and raises up the already converted in the audience to the level of sage experts--experts, at least, in the world of evangelicalism. It validates the beliefs of the long-time converts.
EVANGELICALISM is a movement. It must move! It must have converts. The hunger for converts is a part of the evangelical culture and a part of the evangelical mind more than it is a product of any particular theology. Look at the former evangelicals--they have a difficult time not being evangelical about not being evangelical! Or, they find something else to be evangelical about. Vitamins. Amway. Business. Left-wing politics. Gay activism. But conversion remains their imperative. It arises from a desperate hunger for validation of their beliefs, and a justified sense that they only credulous fools spend their lives grasping for an ideology which satisfies, which doesn't evaporate once grasped. Those who are the most evangelical, the most grasping, the most desperate to convert are finally--those with no faith!
ANGER AT GOD runs just under the surface in evangelicalism. It shows in the testimonies and in the confessional sermons. "I asked God, why, why are you doing this to me? Why are you testing me now, of all times, God?"
AND IS IT ANY WONDER? The dogmas are clear: God is fair. God is good. God controls the universe. God watches over me. And yet: I have a cold and my husband is an asshole. Can the dissonance between reality and the ideal lead to anything but anger?
THE FAMILY BUSINESS--Evangelicals find it difficult to pass their evangelicalism from generation to generation, except for evangelical missionaries. The calling to the mission field seems hereditary. It is frequently passed on from generation to generation. It is such a peculiar life--living off the donations of the middle class back in this country, and not living all that badly--that once one is so ensconsed, it must be difficult to leave. Plus, it is a holy calling, even if it is hereditary, so leaving the mission field results in nothing less than a crisis in identity and faith.
