This article was originally published to Medium on 21 April 2022.
It has been a few days now since the video with the youth group on the plane singing worship music went viral. Lots of people in both the evangelical and exvangelical spaces have had a lot to say about it. Most seem to agree that it was inappropriate and obnoxious. And it was definitely both of those things. I grew up in evangelicalism, spending about 20 years in various denominations and parachurch organizations that ranged from fundamentalist to pentecostal to generic non-denominational megachurch. I’ve experienced a lot of what evangelicalism has to offer, some positive but mostly problematic to downright negative, and these were the four things that stood out to me as to why this performance was so inappropriate and obnoxious.
I. RELIGIOUS TRAUMA AND SPIRITUAL ABUSE
Huge numbers of people suffer the effects of religious trauma and spiritual abuse. (Not to mention sexual abuse in a lot of churches.) The deconstruction and exvangelical phenomena have accelerated since 2016 and particularly among Millennials and Gen Z. Millions of people are leaving organized Christianity in the United States. This is especially true of White evangelicalism, and this group appears to be part of that demographic. And while some of those who are deconstructing or who no longer identify as evangelical have found other expressions of faith, many have not. It was simply too toxic of an experience, and any attempt at another religion or spirituality is just not possible for them.
Evangelical worship music is a very distinctive type of music, and it can be extremely triggering to those who have left these toxic environments. I haven’t attended an evangelical worship service since 2010 and not regularly since 2003, but I can still recognize the chord progression of poorly written worship music within just a couple of bars. I grew up on Christian music. In elementary school and junior high, it was the only type of music (along with classical music and Disney soundtracks) that I was allowed to listen to. From junior high through my sophomore year of university, I attended church at least twice a week. I also studied at a Methodist university whose student body was largely made up of evangelicals, so there was a ton of this type of music around. I haven’t considered myself evangelical since about 2004, and I stopped attending that kind of church entirely in 2007. And yet, even now, worship music is triggering to me. Not to panic attack levels, but it does cause waves of discomfort to wash over me when I hear it. For those who have been out of the abusive, controlling, and gaslighting subculture of evangelicalism for far less time, the trigger is much stronger. The chances of coming into contact with exvangelicals who may have viscerally negative reactions to this kind of music is only going to grow. These are not unbelievers who have never heard the gospel; they are traumatized individuals who are intimately acquainted with the type of Christianity being advertised and sold.
II. CHRISTIAN PRIVILEGE
This is also a massive example of Christian privilege. This group essentially took over an airplane. Standing in the aisle, walking up and down the corridor, hanging out of seats. A flight attendant would have had a difficult time getting them to shut up if there were any kind of emergency. Probably only an intercom announcement would have been able to get the job done. They turned this very public (secular) space into their own personal (religious) space, disregarding anyone else who was not with them. This also took place about two weeks ago, before the end of in-flight mask mandates in the US, and allegedly en route over Europe. I live in Paris, and masks are very much still required on flights here. Singing also spreads COVID more than speaking does, and most of this group do not appear to be wearing masks. It doesn’t seem like they care much about others’ health and well-being either. But that’s been par for the course throughout this entire pandemic with much of evangelicalism.
And while it does appear that they had permission from the cabin crew to pull this off, they still turned a public space into their own worship service. If they asked the other passengers for their input, who is going to speak up and say they were traumatized by their abusive, religious past? I’m very shy and introverted in public; I wouldn’t be comfortable asking them not to. Even if they asked for some kind of permission, in truth they simply disregarded anyone else who was not with them. Not everyone is Christian, and non-Christians generally do not want to listen to Christian music. And it isn’t like anyone could just leave. They were passengers on an airplane, a thoroughly captive audience. There was no escape.
Can you imagine if a Muslim group tried something like this? Or Jewish? Or Buddhist? Or Hindu? Would they receive the same permission or welcome from a flight crew? I highly doubt it. Jews, Muslims, Sikhs, and other minority religious groups are routinely targeted with violence in the United States, as well as in other Western countries. They’re not going to go out of their way to draw even more attention to themselves by pushing their religious views and worship practices onto others. But that all seems to be acceptable when it’s a Christian group. They weren’t just given permission; they also felt the need, desire, and ability to pull this stunt.
III. CONSENT
One thing I have noticed since leaving evangelicalism is that they largely do not understand the concept of consent. This is very obvious when it comes to things like purity culture, dating/courting, and marriage. There is a hierarchy, and those at the bottom must obey those above them. Or else. Children obey parents. Wives obey husbands. Husbands obey pastors or elders. Consent is largely not a recognized concept. However, this also transfers over into a lot of other areas of evangelicalism, as well as regular, everyday life. When pressed by anyone (fellow evangelical or not), they might say something along the lines of “God told me to.” Those of us who have developed healthy views of consent are thoroughly confused when evangelicals walk all over it. The sense of violation created is usually not even acknowledged. But “God told me to” is often the excuse given to justify disregarding others’ consent. In reality, it simply means that they do not respect others, and those others are thus not going to want to listen to anything they have to say. Whether God told them to say it or not.
The first time I truly experienced a violation of my consent in this regard was actually in South Korea. I taught English in the Bible Belt of Korea from 2010 to 2014, and there were a lot of evangelical churches there. I started at a new school in October of 2012, and I was going to be the only foreign teacher there. One of my new Korean colleagues asked me to dinner after work. I was really excited to get to know one of the other teachers and make friends, especially since we were close in age. At dinner, she went almost immediately into a witnessing spiel talking about church and God and Jesus and getting saved. I had been out of evangelicalism for several years at that point, and was also a confirmed (although informally practicing) Catholic. Even though I didn’t have the resources or vocabulary to explain any of it yet, I was moving toward a contemplative, mystical, panentheistic, perennial form of Christianity/spirituality. I gave so many signals that I was not interested in the topic, that I did not want to continue the conversation, that I did not agree with her ideas about theology and religion, and that I wanted to finish up and leave. She ignored them all. Then she followed me home. And then she asked to come inside. Thankfully she only wanted to use the restroom, and then she left pretty quickly. But it was such a crossing of boundaries. An infringement of my own spirituality, my intellect, and even my personal space. I barely spoke to her for the next six months until she left the school. I didn’t want to risk another verbal onslaught of evangelistic sales pitches.
The thing is, I actually enjoy discussing spirituality, religion, and philosophy with people who are open-minded. People who know they don’t know everything and can weigh the values of various ideas and interpretations. It’s one reason I chose Catholic spirituality over evangelicalism. But she showed none of those qualities, and a large percentage of evangelicals don’t either. It is almost always, “This is the truth!” and everything else is condemned without even really listening to it or considering it. My consent was not given to continue this conversation. Or even to have it in the first place. And it went on for about three hours. But she didn’t care. I was her mark, and she wanted to convert me. It appears to be a similar situation with the passengers on this flight. They were marks too. This is how evangelicalism is done most of the time. Your consent doesn’t matter. And if you complain or protest, you are often told that “God told me to.” How do you argue with that?
IV. PERFORMATIVE SPIRITUALITY
I hesitate to even use the term “spirituality,” but I can’t think of an acceptable synonym. Spirituality is sacred, deep, dynamic, personal, unique, and authentic to each individual. This isn’t that. This is very much for show. This isn’t spirituality. It’s performative spirituality. Even in megachurches with a full sound system and worship band, the emphasis is largely on entertainment with this type of music. I know because I was on the worship team in my youth group on and off for about six years. And I knew people who were part of the “big church” worship team. That was way back in 1995–2003, but it appears to be far worse now with all of the Hillsong and Bethel nonsense. Most of the songs I’ve heard are devoid of much spiritual meaning or theological depth. It’s repetitive, emotionally manipulative gibberish with lyrics that could double as derivative secular love songs if you simply took words like “Jesus” and “God” out. It’s essentially Jesus-is-my-boyfriend music.
Making a show out of singing this kind of music in a public space is very much performative. “Look at how happy we are! Look at how much we love God! Look at how much Jesus makes us feel/act like we’re on very high doses of antidepressants!” is what this always looks like to me. It has big infomercial energy. And I’m sorry to say that I took part in some of this type of performative spirituality when I was in junior high and high school. Thankfully I had grown out of it by the time I graduated. This kind of showy, look-at-me! evangelization repels almost everyone who is not already part of the in-group. No one else likes it, and rarely is anyone affected by it in the way the in-group wishes.
BONUS: UKRAINE
Another element of this whole thing that I have read is that this group was going to Europe to aid Ukrainian refugees. While doing humanitarian aid work is commendable, this does not appear to be that. Or at least not entirely. I have come across articles and tweets of evangelical groups harassing refugees at the border, trying to get them to convert to evangelicalism. These are refugees. If they aren’t literally shellshocked or physically injured, they are at the very least emotionally and mentally distressed and traumatized from having to leave their homes because of war. Providing food, water, clothing, blankets, and other essentials is one thing. Manipulating desperate people with your Sinner’s Prayer and threats of Hell are another thing entirely. Pairing aid work with evangelization is despicable. It is also telling of their motives that over 85% of Ukrainians are already Christian. That’s an even higher percentage than the United States.
Orthodox: 70.6%
Generic Christian: 8.6%
Catholic: 7%
Protestant: 0.8%
But many evangelicals do not believe that liturgical Christians (Orthodox and especially Catholic) are actually Christians. This is what I was taught in my evangelical megachurch. We even had to watch anti-Catholic propaganda videos in preparation for a mission trip to Rome. (Yes, that Rome.) Whatever evangelicals’ theological hangups about Christians who aren’t their particular kind of Christianity, every single one of the Orthodox and Catholic churches predates any Protestant church by about 1,500 years. They believe in God, Jesus, the Trinity, the Bible, baptism, and the Eucharist. They’re Christians. They don’t need to be converted, especially when they currently hold the vulnerable status of refugee, to another kind of Christianity. Meanwhile, most evangelicals don’t even know what the creeds are, let alone have them memorized.
CONCLUSION
One of the many things that drew me away from evangelicalism and toward the liturgical traditions was their de-emphasis on overt evangelization. I took about a year deciding between becoming Catholic, Episcopalian, or Orthodox. (I barely looked into Orthodoxy because they just don’t have much of a presence in Seattle, but I actually like a lot of their spirituality and theology better than the Catholic version.) Anyway, none of the parishes I visited threatened Hell, none paired aid work and humanitarianism with demands for listening to evangelistic pitches, and none forced captive audiences to listen to their awful worship music. In contrast, one of my favorite things about Saint Mark’s Cathedral (Episcopalian) in Seattle is the way they open up their sanctuary every Sunday evening for Compline. It is just chant music, open to anyone, every Sunday at 9:30pm. People from all traditions or none at all bring their blankets and yoga mats to the cathedral to sit or even lay down on the floor. They listen to the simple music, letting it draw out their spirituality at their own direction. No one is forced or coerced to listen to something they don’t want to hear in a space that is meant for other purposes. And most importantly, it isn’t out of key.