The Light in Our Eyes

Rediscovering Jesus While Recovering from White Evangelicalism

In the spring of 2021, I was serving as Assistant Pastor of a wonderful Presbyterian Church in a Maryland suburb of Washington, D.C. In the preceding months, I had been exploring paths into church planting. After speaking with several churches around the country, my wife and I had our hearts set on joining the congregation of Redeemer Presbyterian in Indianapolis, so that we could be sent out as their church planters. With great joy, we learned that Redeemer had their hearts set on us, and we were eagerly waiting for all the official paperwork to be finalized so we could begin our transition from the East Coast to the Midwest.

I can still remember sitting in the parking lot of the grocery store when Charles Anderson, the senior pastor of Redeemer, called me to share some news. “We are so excited for the Heins to come join our congregation,” he told me. “I also have a significant update to share. When we went into this interview process, we were only looking for one candidate. The Lord brought us two, and we’re excited about both of you. We’ve decided we’re going to bring you both on. The other guy’s name is Nicholas McDonald. He’s creative, thoughtful, and wise, and you guys care about many of the same things. I think you’re really going to like him.”

Charles was right; I do really like Nicholas. And now I get to celebrate my friend as he shares his gifts of creativity, thoughtful insight, and wisdom with the world through his new book The Light in Our Eyes: Rediscovering the Love, Beauty, and Freedom of Jesus in an Age of Disillusionment. Less a review and more a recommendation from the heart, I want to offer three reasons why you should consider reading Nicholas’ book and/or sharing it with others.

Recovering from White Evangelicalism

As a pastor of that D.C.-area church, one of my primary responsibilities was to shepherd the young adults in the congregation. I found this to be an incredibly challenging task. It wasn’t too long before I realized why this role was so difficult for me: I do not understand White evangelicalism. The experiences, the wounds, the language, the camps, the music—it was all completely foreign to me.

I was not a good pastor for 20-somethings who grew up in White evangelicalism.

Sometimes, this bad fit came out in humorous ways. The young adults in our group couldn’t believe that I had never seen an episode of VeggieTales, and they made numerous attempts to show me their favorite episodes. Other times, I felt incredibly left out as they would relate over shared experiences at camps, Christian colleges, or youth ministries.

Most of the time, I felt a sense of bewilderment as I tried to pastor our group. Many of them would share their deep confusion and woundedness based on some of their past experiences in White evangelicalism. Alumni of Christian colleges shared multiple stories about ridiculous rules that were enforced at their school (i.e., demerits for touching the opposite sex in any way). Some of these young adults were struggling with their mental health, yet had always been told that therapy was a sham and they just needed to believe the gospel. Purity culture had left deep scars on these young women and men, as both struggled to hold a healthy understanding of their emotions, gender, or sexuality.

I did my best to care for these young adults. However, I struggled with an internal sense that what they were sharing was preposterous. I often wondered how anyone could confuse these kinds of experiences with Christianity and the Jesus we meet in the Scriptures.

Nicholas McDonald is a great pastor for people who grew up in White evangelicalism. He not only shares their experiences but has walked through his own season of disillusionment (“deconstruction”). After years of wrestling with the disturbing features of the White evangelical subculture, Nicholas found hope, truth, and beauty in the Jesus of the Scriptures and the witness of the global church.

When I read of Nicholas’ experiences at “Worldview camp” (Chapter 3), I audibly groan under the sheer discomfort that such a “camp” exists in the first place. Like a bad (great?) episode of The Office, Nicholas writes in such a way that I can laugh through the awkward pain of it all.

Yet it’s not just Nicholas’ shared experiences that make him a trustworthy guide, but also his ability to diagnose the shortcomings of White evangelicals and point to something better. For example, Chapter 6 critiques the errors of a White evangelical theology that emphasizes escape from the world. As Nicholas describes this view, “None of this [world] matters. It’ll all be burned anyway, so we might as well start now. Heaven, after all, is our goal.” Nicholas demonstrates how this view is simultaneously modern yet also emerges from a heresy rejected by the early church. In his thoughtful critique, Nicholas points us to the true mission of Jesus, who is “restoring love, beauty, and freedom to the world.”

I wish I had Nicholas’ book while I was pastoring that group of young adults. If White evangelicalism has wounded you or someone you love, Nicholas will be a trusted guide to help you rediscover the true and better story of Jesus.

Encountering the Jesus Who Talks Back

Chapter 7, “Re-storied,” is probably my favorite chapter in The Light in Our Eyes. In this Chapter, Nicholas explains how the Bible is just weird enough to be trusted (I love this expression). Beginning with the book of Ecclesiastes, Nicholas shows us how Jesus is both deeply compassionate toward our life circumstances and has something to say about how we should live.

White evangelicalism does not have a Jesus who talks back to us. As Nicholas explains, “For a long time, I thought evangelicals were bibliolaters, having a high reverence for the Bible… What is actually true is that evangelicals misuse Scripture, demonstrating a low reverence for it, because they are culturologists.” In other words, White evangelicalism often reshapes Scripture in our own image.

When Jesus is just like us, he no longer talks back. We’re no longer communing with the resurrected King, but a mere idea of our own making. This is idolatry.

In his retelling of a conversation with “Pete,” Nicholas insightfully illustrates how those navigating deconstruction are still interpreting life and faith within the same evangelical framework that they are supposedly rejecting. In other words, many deconstructing Christians continue to reshape Jesus and the Scriptures in a way that reinforces their preexisting beliefs. As Nicholas told Pete, a self-professed former evangelical,

Have you left Evangelicalism, though? I’m not so sure. How has Scripture talked back to you recently? How has it corrected your wrong thinking? How has it corrected your cultural biases? How has it exposed your behaviors that don’t lead to flourishing? Because, I’ll be honest, [you sound] like the most evangelical thing I’ve heard. ‘Here’s Christianity. Have it my way.’

If you want to get away from evangelical culture, you’ve got to get away from the evangelical framework.

What Pete needed, and what we all need, is the Jesus who speaks to us through the Scriptures. Only then will we discover the God who understands our emotions and experiences while calling us to a life filled with more beauty and meaning than we could ever have imagined.

Finding Love for the Local Church

In 2022, my wife and I moved into the Haughville neighborhood of Indianapolis. Haughville is one of our city’s most historically neglected neighborhoods. Like many urban neighborhoods, ours is a majority Black and Latino community.

One reason this neighborhood was a good fit for us is that White evangelicalism feels just as foreign to our neighbors as it does to our family. However, we’ve also discovered that church wounds and disillusionment with Christianity are not unique to White evangelicalism. Most of our neighbors see churches as places of hypocrisy, self-interest, and abuse.

I’ve shared parts of our family’s experiences in churches, and our neighbors find our story very relatable. In our first three churches together, my wife and I experienced deep wounds and spiritual abuse. We had every reason to leave the Church, and at times, we were close to doing so.

Yet, it has also been our experience that Jesus has saved us through the church. Our lives are filled with hope, meaning, and beauty because of the friendship and witness of countless Christians we have shared our lives with in local churches. We know Jesus through our brothers and sisters who have loved us so faithfully. Yes, many pastors have wounded us, but even more have discipled us with the love and wisdom of Jesus.

Nothing hurts worse than the wounds we can experience in local churches. We cannot grow in and with Christ without the local church.

It is this tension that Nicholas helps us navigate in the final section of his book. As he shares numerous stories of ordinary Christians who have inspired him, Nicholas reminds us that Jesus isn’t bringing his kingdom through the big splash of White evangelical platforms, megachurches, and influencers. Jesus is breaking into this world through millions of ordinary Christians who are striving to be as faithful as they can.

People like this rarely make the news, and you won’t find them on Instagram. Yet they are the Church, the body and fullness of Christ (Ephesians 1:22-23), God’s chosen household (1 Timothy 3:14-16), the temple for the Spirit (Ephesians 2:19-22), the beloved bride of Christ (Revelation 21:2). It is only with these brothers and sisters that we can grow in Christ. As Nicholas wonderfully captures:

I recognize that if you’ve been hurt by a church community in the past, you’re probably gun-shy about committing again. The great irony of being human is that we’re most deeply scarred by relationships, but relationships are also our only way to heal from those scars. As someone who has my own scars, I’m telling you that Covenantal relationships are the only way to experience renewal. Removing yourself from Christian community because you’ve been hurt is like avoiding the hospitals because you once had a bad doctor or never eating because you once had food poisoning.

I’m not surprised to read that Nicholas’ book is helping people engage with the local church again. If you’ve been hurt and disillusioned by White evangelicalism to the point that you no longer participate in the gathered life of a local church, I encourage you to check out Nicholas’ book. His might be the gentle hand you need to walk with you down the street to that neighborhood church you’ve been afraid to attend, lest you get hurt again. Nicholas knows. He gets it.

More importantly, Jesus knows. And Nicholas will help you remember that.

One More Thing…

The Light in Our Eyes is a wonderful invitation to explore the historic, global Christian faith for those who have become disillusioned by White evangelicalism. If you believe this book is meant for you, I encourage you to also pick up a copy of Our Church Speaks: An Illustrated Devotional of Saints from Every Era and Place by Ben Lansing and D.J Marotta. This book will serve as an excellent guide to the global, historic faith that Nicholas invites you to consider. In 52 brief devotional entries, Our Church Speaks attests to the everyday faithfulness of global Christians from the last two centuries.

Christianity is far bigger and more beautiful than you were told by White evangelicalism. Let these two books minister to you as you rediscover the Jesus who has turned this world upside down and who is committed to making his love known to you.

Read more of Nicholas’ thoughtful work here.