Rarely does an essay cause such a stir as Aaron Renn’s “The Three Worlds of Evangelicalism.” Published in First Things in 2022, Renn’s framework for describing Christianity’s fall into cultural disfavor for the reason that Sixties elicited a wide selection of responses, from wholehearted agreement to sympathetic skepticism to vociferous disagreement, and seemingly every little thing in between.
Renn’s essay categorizes the recent history of evangelicalism within the United States into three periods, or worlds. In the positive world, Christianity was ready of cultural dominance; most Americans, even those that weren’t particularly religious, recognized the importance of Christianity to the country’s collective moral fabric. In the neutral world, the broader culture got here to see Christianity not as uniquely good, but still as a belief system and worldview doing more good than harm.
Since the early 2010s—the dates themselves, Renn admits, usually are not binding—evangelicalism has been within the negative world. Here, culture and its elites are inherently suspicious of evangelical Christianity, especially when it challenges or conflicts with emerging, more attractive ideologies. Christians within the negative world, in accordance with Renn, will encounter resistance to previously acceptable beliefs and behaviors. This resistance could take many forms, from easy yet pronounced disagreement all of the approach to the dreaded C-word: cancellation.
Less than two years after his essay, Renn’s book, Life within the Negative World: Confronting Challenges in an Anti-Christian Culture, updates and elaborates on his framework and provides tangible resources for Christians concerned about this cultural transformation. Renn’s work, he admits, isn’t pastoral, neither is it necessarily prescriptive. Rather, drawing on his experience on this planet of management consulting, he proposes a way forward for American evangelicals wanting to adapt to the brand new normal in faithful and prophetic ways—that’s, to be in the negative world while refusing to be of the negative world.
After briefly recapping his “three worlds” framework, Renn pivots to strategies for theologically conservative evangelicals finding themselves step by step alone in and at odds with the negative world. Renn organizes these strategies around three elements of evangelical identity: the private, the institutional, and the missional. In the three chapters for every element—Renn is outwardly a fan of trios—he advises Christians in quite a lot of contexts, from individual decisions to organizational decision making.
In his section on personal living, for instance, Renn exhorts Christians to stay obedient to Christian orthodoxy within the years and many years ahead, whilst the larger culture continues to disincentivize such obedience. This form of obedience, he believes, could bring real consequences to Christians specifically industries, including loss of labor. This is why, Renn later argues, Christians also needs to seek to develop into less depending on the world around them, shrewdly managing funds and networks to supply a form of “cancellation insurance.”
Directing his attention to evangelical institutions, like churches and businesses, Renn warns Christians that there may come a time to “rethink their relationship with mainstream institutions, adopting a less transformational approach with less investment in them.”
Renn is adamant that he isn’t arguing for a “head for the hills” strategy in response to the negative world, but slightly, as Rod Dreher proposes in The Benedict Option, a reorientation toward local, thick communities. Not only does this approach insulate orthodox Christians from prevailing cultural pressures, nevertheless it also encourages investment in congregations, neighborhoods, and communities, traditional incubators of the social capital essential for a flourishing civil society.
Concluding with words on mission, Renn encourages Christians to boldly stand for truth. In this context, he spends loads of time critiquing some evangelicals’ inordinate attention to gender and sexuality. He is skeptical of the wisdom of debating complementarianism and egalitarianism, whilst he applauds thinkers who speak clearly and easily on these questions. (Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson, Renn notes, “has attracted thousands and thousands of followers” for his brand of “folk wisdom.”) Evangelicals, Renn believes, should develop thicker skin when making claims that were taken as a right as recently because the last 30 years, lovingly yet boldly being people of the reality in a progressively post-truth environment.
Reasons for optimism
When I read his First Things essay two years ago, I used to be skeptical of Renn’s “three worlds” framework. I believed it was a blunt instrument that ascribed questionable motives to leaders embracing an engagement model for Christian political and cultural participation. But in reading Life within the Negative World, I discovered myself nodding along way over I had anticipated. Renn doesn’t write as someone who has an axe to grind against Christian actors with whom he disagrees. He is, on the very least, attempting to make sense of our undoubtedly changing cultural environment, and customarily does so graciously and humbly.
In response to Renn’s original essay, critics identified that his framework seems to disregard the long history of prejudice and suffering amongst other elements of the American church—most notably, after all, our Black brothers and sisters. To claim that conservative Christians are at an especially perilous period in American history is, for these critics, shortsighted and obtuse.
To be fair, Renn confronts this criticism head on, claiming that Black Protestants faced discrimination and violence not due to their religion but due to their race. Renn doesn’t discount the struggles of the Black church for many of American history, but he doesn’t think that comparison to today’s challenges for conservative evangelicals is precisely fair.
Still, there are reasons American Christians could also be more optimistic than Renn about our futures in a changing cultural environment. Consider, for instance, today’s legal and constitutional landscape. While Renn points to the same-sex marriage decision in Obergefell v. Hodges as indicative of an emerging negative world, he doesn’t acknowledge other Supreme Court decisions, before and since, more favorable to Renn’s conservative evangelical audience. These cases, which have strengthened personal and institutional religious freedom protections, include 2012’s Hosanna-Tabor v. EEOC, 2018’s Masterpiece Cakeshop Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, 2020’s Our Lady of Guadalupe School v. Morrissey-Berru, 2021’s Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, and 2022’s Carson v. Makin, to call just just a few.
Now, Supreme Court decisions don’t necessarily follow the broader cultural trajectory; conservative evangelicals could also be protected against legal discrimination and government persecution and still face social costs for adhering to Christian orthodoxy. And Renn’s book is actually not a legal evaluation of the state of First Amendment jurisprudence pertaining to spiritual freedom. But considering the Supreme Court’s solid 6–3 conservative majority and years-long trend toward accommodating religious exercise, evangelical Christians might need more reason for optimism within the negative world than Renn lets on.
There is a scarcity of empirical rigor in Life within the Negative World that’s at times frustrating. For example, a few of Renn’s claims are questionable without supporting evidence—he calls Donald Trump’s Access Hollywood controversy “a forty-eight hour blip of scandal,” argues that a holistic pro-life position is evidence of a “softened” cultural engagement, and claims that “evangelicals especially hold few top positions in necessary institutions.” Renn could also be advancing his own opinions throughout his book, but they’re too often presented as matters of fact. And in the event that they are bolstered by evidence, Renn does hardly support them as such.
Additionally, as a political scientist, I used to be discouraged to see only one short chapter focused on Renn’s proposal for Christian political engagement within the negative world. The crux of Renn’s advice on this area is that “evangelicals must remain prudentially engaged,” demonstrating “expertise and wisdom.” But what this implies in practice isn’t specified. Coming after chapters rife with practical recommendations, I used to be upset to see such a relatively light chapter on how Christians should consider their political engagement amid an increasingly suspicious culture.
New models for brand spanking new challenges
Despite these criticisms, I’m convinced that Life within the Negative World is a very important book at a very important time. It should age well, as American culture—and evangelical Christianity’s place in it—continues to evolve, either deeper into the negative world or into something else entirely. For my money, Renn’s positive-neutral-negative world framework is amongst essentially the most thought-provoking ideas pertaining to American evangelicalism this century. You don’t need to be convinced by every element of Renn’s framework to understand it.
Crucially, Renn’s book isn’t a jeremiad against models of Christian political and cultural engagement with which he disagrees. To make sure, he does think these models are going to be ineffective within the years and many years ahead, singling out the culture-war and cultural-engagement models of the Eighties and 2000s, respectively, as popular but ill-suited to our present challenges.
The negative world, Renn predicts, would require more (and different) ideas from evangelicals than will be present in earlier models.
But Renn’s negative world strategies usually are not condescending or tinged with superiority. Instead, he approaches the negative world with a watch for creativity and fresh ideas to match the seriousness of this moment. Indeed, his advice appears to be offered with sincerity and a desire to assist his fellow Christians. And whatever you think that of Renn’s three-worlds framing, I feel it’s fair to say that evangelicals need all the assistance we will get.
Daniel Bennett is an associate professor of political science at John Brown University and assistant director on the Center for Faith and Flourishing. His forthcoming book is Uneasy Citizenship: Embracing the Tension in Faith and Politics.
