Easter in America: Waiting for Jesus to be Resurrected in Evangelical Christianity

Photo by Bruno van der Kraan on Unsplash

A friend recently said that I seem angry lately, that I've become decidedly negative, that my demeanor has grown abrasive.

For a split second, I thought that he might be right, but almost immediately realized what was happening. He had indeed recognized my symptoms accurately but it was the cause that he didn't or couldn't understand, because it's the kind of thing you can't easily tell from a distance.

My well-meaning friend didn't realize that he was dealing with someone grieving deeply. Anger and grief look alike from the outside. They both feel similar when you're on the receiving end.

That's what's been going on here in my heart for a long time: grieving.

For a while now, this spiritual journey has been like a funeral for a friend.

I and so many others like me are mourning a tremendous loss; one so profound and so disorienting that it's altering the very eyes with which we see the world and the way we think and talk and live and pray.

We are Christians looking around and facing the most horrible of realities:

It feels like Jesus is permanently dead to an Evangelical Christianity that so often seems fully content to call itself that without the slightest trace of Christlikeness.