Testimony: Inside the Evangelical Movement That Failed a Generation
by Jon Ward
View on GoodreadsYahoo News political reporter Jon Ward's memoir-journalism hybrid on his own evangelical upbringing in DC-area megachurch culture, and the broader failure of the movement to deliver on its own claims to a generation of kids it raised.
Core ideas
- The cultural specifics are precise: the "Third Wave" charismatic megachurch world of the 1980s-90s — Vineyard, C.J. Mahaney, Sovereign Grace — that produced a particular kind of pastor-celebrity ecosystem and a particular kind of disappointed adult.
- The failure is less about scandals than about the intellectual narrowing — the movement told its kids it had the answer to everything, and when they went to college, the answers didn't hold.
- Ward's reporter posture lets him write with affection and critique simultaneously — the book reads more pastoral than polemic.
Published2023
Pages256
ISBN9781587435775
ReadNov 2023
