What Remains: Journeying Beyond Evangelicalism

Product Description

What Remains describes the damaging psychological and sociological effects of white American Evangelical discipleship. This book lays out the kind of behaviors the Evangelical discipleship process hopes to foster and the desires that motivate and are instilled by this process.

This book offers a different perspective from existing “exiting Evangelicalism”-type narratives. Most of these books focus heavily on theological, philosophical, or historical arguments about why Evangelical Christianity is wrong and offer alternative beliefs.
What Remains intentionally and explicitly avoids conversations about beliefs. Instead, because desire directs belief, the focus is on how different kinds of spiritual formation direct a person’s desire towards what is life-destroying or life-affirming.

This leads to a description of what an alternative spiritual formation process could look like for people who feel betrayed by Evangelicalism. This counter-formation is drawn from the author’s faith-based community development work in Chicago and Atlanta, as well as with social enterprises across the world. These experiences offer a vision for respecting the difference of our neighbors, resilience, and justice, and are offered to the reader to explore for their own faith development in the wake of their experience of Evangelicalism’s failure.

Review

“Ben is . . . gifted with the ability to weave together personal vulnerability with incisive analysis in a way that is seamless, illuminating, and highly instructive. What Remains will draw you into deeper reflection on you own faith while also challenging you to think more critically and constructively about the broader evolution of our religious landscape. It is a wonderfully thoughtful and gracious book, and I’m pleased to commend it.”
–Adam S. Borneman, Minister, Presbyterian Church (USA)

“Garrett invites us on his journey of development and deconstruction, and in doing so shows us that the wilderness waiting outside the gates of evangelicalism has perilous but rewarding lands in which to wander. The type of place where we might encounter Jesus as we encounter ourselves anew with the realization that leaving can be a new beginning.”
–Jeremy Hall, Associate Pastor of Faith Development, Towne View Baptist Church

“Garrett’s account of his journey beyond American Evangelicalism is at once evocative and intelligent, generous and generative. . . . Garrett’s clear-eyed yet accessible analysis of belief and belonging challenges all of us to decenter our own enculturation so as to apprehend and be changed by ‘the radical grace at the heart of the world.'”
–Cynthia G. Lindner, Director of Ministry Studies, University of Chicago Divinity School

About the Author

Benjamin Garrett is a designer, facilitator, coach, consultant, and writer. He has spent most of his career working in or supporting startup nonprofits and social enterprises. He received a Master of Divinity degree from the University of Chicago Divinity School. Currently he is the Innovation Programming and Operations Manager for Emory University’s Center for Innovation, The Hatchery. Benjamin lives in Marietta, Georgia, with his wife, Candra Michelle.