Post-Evangelical and Exvangelical Movements: New Religious Trends in the Americas

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue seeks to highlight a recent phenomenon in the religious lexicon of the American continent that has been called "ex" or "post-evangelicals". Such a phenomenon, as a notable religious change movement, was initially identified in the USA, especially in connection with the massive support of white evangelicals to the election of Donald Trump in 2016. In Brazil, where a similar phenomenon has been noticed with the rise to power of Jair Messias Bolsonaro in 2018, similar responses from a number of young, educated evangelicals have emerged, as Py and Barreto demonstrated in an article published by the International Journal of Public Theology in 2022. Other expressions of this phenomenon are also emerging in other parts of the Americas.

Hence, the articles for the dossier aim at highlighting at least two forms as this phenomenon seems to be manifesting in the Americas: (a) the first focuses on the growing number of people leaving their churches of origin and distancing themselves from self-identification as evangelicals while forming alternative communities based on their common past. This is the case, for instance, for those identified as “exvangelicals” in the USA, which includes different outcomes, from a complete break with religion to migration to other religious traditions; (b) the second form this phenomenon has taken indicates the search on the part of others to reinterpret evangelical identity, overcoming the pitfall of whiteness in contemporary evangelicalism. This post-evangelical response also seeks new theological language to challenge the close relationship between alt-right religious nationalism and hegemonic expressions of evangelicalism both in the United States and throughout the Americas.

For this Special Issue, we welcome articles addressing these and other similar types of experiences in which individuals and/or entire communities have moved away from or beyond traditional evangelical identity in response to the growth of "intolerance to plurality," which has gradually grown into hegemonic evangelical communities across the continent. In this sense, the dossier intends to gather academic contributions that speak to new religious modulations that, due to the growing link between the evangelical sector with the extreme political right in the American continent, have reworked their religious affiliation and self-identification either through a break with evangelical identity or in the contraction of new characteristics surpassing the format of the old religious modulation.

In view of the proponents of the dossier, these practices and discourses are important articulations for the current monitoring of North and South American societies which point to religious changes still underexplored by the scholars of religions in the continent and beyond. The emergence of new forms of religious expression in the Americas calls for the critical questioning of paradigms reproduced by the construction of evangelical identity in these territories, since this sector of Christianity is growing and increasingly influencing social and political power structures in the region.

We look forward to assessing the proposals.

Bibliography:

Barreto, R.; Chaves, J.B. Christian Nationalism is Thriving in Brazil: Bolsonaro’s Faith-Based Enablers. The Christian Century, 2021, 1 December, 2021 issue, 138/24: 22-25.

Barreto, R.; Chaves, J.B. The shared religious roots of twin insurrections in the U.S. and Brazil, The Washington Post, January 18, 2023. https://tinyurl.com/ycxvhs2k. (accessed on 24 September 2023)

Barreto, R.; PY, F. Ex- and Post-Evangelicalism: Recent Developments in Brazil’s Changing Religious Landscape. International Journal of Public Theology 16, 2022: 197–222.

Campos, Leonildo S. Os Mapas, Atores e Números da Diversidade Religiosa Cristã Brasileira: Católicos e Evangélicos entre 1940 e 2007, Rever 2008: 9-47.

Cowan, Benjamin A. Moral Majorities across the Americas: Brazil, the United States, and the Creation of the Religious Right. The University of North Carolina Press: Chapel Hill, 2021

Gushee, David P. After Evangelicalism: The Path to a New Christianity. Westminster John Knox Press: Louisville, KY, 2020.

PY, F. Bolsonaro’s Brazilian Christofascism during the Easter Period Plagued by Covid-19, International Journal of Latin American Religions 4, 2020: 318–334.

PY, F. The Current Political Path of an Ultra-Catholic Agent of Brazilian Christofacism Father Paulo Ricardo. International Journal of Latin American Religions 5, 2021: 411–27.

Prof. Dr. Fábio Py
Dr. Raimundo C. Barreto
Guest Editors

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• exvangelical
• post-evangelicals
• evangelicals
• authoritarianism
• Americas