Sara Billups’ Orphaned Believers has a very specific audience and may seem strange in parts to readers who don’t share her upbringing. But to those who do…hoo boy, will you feel seen!
Billups delves into the 1980s and 1990s so-called “culture wars” that existed between the Evangelical Christian Church in North America and the secular culture that surrounded them. Specifically, as a child during that era, Billups explores what it meant to grow up in that atmosphere. A time when the dominance of Christians in politics was waning in some ways and strengthening in others. A time when Christian culture was exploding out in new directions – books, magazines, movies, music – and many children in Christian families were directed to keep their interests limited to media produced by other Christians. What does it mean to grow up under the shadow of the rapture, believing you may not make it to adulthood? Or that your loved ones might be suddenly raptured up to Heaven while you are left behind?
As Billups herself is, many children of evangelical parents in those years were the children of converts. New Christians, many of them a result, directly or indirectly, of the Jesus People movement.
Karissa Reads Books 
This summer I am realizing just how very, very different religions can be, and what I’m about to comment is ONLY my personal experience and observations. Growing up Catholic (well, until about age 12) and teaching at Catholic colleges and universities, there seems to be a strong link between having money and faith. Everything looks a certain way and is expensive. Church seems to be a Sunday thing, maybe you have a Bible study group, and you definitely thank God for any positive results during a sporting event. Evangelicals go to church several times per week, if not every day. It seems a lot more personal than a structured mass, and everything they do is through a Christian perspective. Secularism is NOT getting in, and education is meant to equip people with the tools to spread the word of Jesus in every area of their lives. Honestly, I find Catholic schools around me more laid back, though there is no shortage of Catholics who think that is the problem.
I think the money thing is dependent a little on denomination, but much more on individual churches. My old church, despite being in a fairly deprived city, was pretty middle-class – they were aware of it as a problem but not sure how to be more welcoming to people from a working class background. My current church is more of a local church than a city church (as in, it’s trying to serve this little corner rather than the whole city), and it’s much more reflective of the population. It’s on the intersection between a posh, leafy suburb and a fairly dilapidated council estate, and there’s a good chunk of people from each who are part of the church, including part of the leadership team.
I like how balanced that sounds, Lou. In my sociology class, we were just learning about the differences among a church (what the country tells you to attend), a denomination (like what most of us know as “church”), a sect, and a cult. Research has found that more wealthy people are likely to attend a church or denomination, and poorer people are more likely to split off into a sect or develop a cult (the more acceptable term is New Religious Movement because at one time Christianity, Islam, and Judaism were cults, so they want to divorce the negative connotation).
I think the demographic of the leaders of a church makes a huge difference for things like that. Having a mix of people with a wide variety of experience and socio-economic backgrounds tends to draw in a more diverse congregation in my experience. But it’s something many churches struggle with.
I think there’s variance on either side of course but largely I can agree with you. There are a lot of links between money and faith but in many different ways. There’s the prosperity gospel style where if you have money it’s because God blessed you. Or there’s the sacrifice everything and trust in God to provide and so poverty is actually a sign of greater faith. That’s closer to how I grew up (not that we were impoverished but we definitely weren’t rich). Unfortunately, how others perceive us is very much an important thing in a lot of Christian circles and money has a lot to do with that. You’re right too about secularism NOT getting in. This is why you see such a strong movement for families to homeschool their children and things like Christian schools and colleges. Sending our kids to public school is one of the number one things that makes me feel alienated from other Christians these days.
I will say that the Catholics always said that people of faith must be exposed to and learn about secular things because otherwise they are more sheltered than prepared to meet the world.
Interesting…that’s very much my feeling too. I would rather my children are exposed to a wide variety of thought and belief and then choose Christianity on their own than choose it because they know nothing else. Years before I had kids I read an article in a Christian magazine that was bemoaning the fact that so many young adults went to secular post secondary and left their Christian faith. But to me that spoke of a belief system that had been imposed on them rather than one they had chosen.
Sounds like this might be one for me! I don’t think US evangelicalism got as much of a foothold in the UK as it maybe did in Canada, probably due to the geographical distance, but when I was a teenager I was in a South African church plant that was taking a really unwise amount of its cues from that movement. That was mostly down the the lead elder. He ended up leaving very suddenly a few years after I moved away – the reasons he left so suddenly have never been known to me, but a lot of quite ugly stuff came out after he left. The church had to go through a whole process of figuring out what to keep and what to leave of its original ethos, and it’s a much more welcoming place now.
Did you feel like Billups presented answers in this book, or is it more analysis of the problem?
I thought of you as I was writing this actually! There’s plenty that likely wouldn’t be relevant but I’m guessing you’d find some things to relate to here.
I didn’t feel like she offered a lot of answers but that didn’t bother me much. For me, having someone speak out loud that this experience was real and sometimes good and often harmful and evaluating the ways in which it was so, was very helpful. Maybe she’ll do a follow-up though. I would read that!
[…] Orphaned Believers – Sara Billups […]