Congrats to Hahrie! I've read the article versions of the argument, which I enjoyed a lot, but not the book. I do agree that political scientists need to spend more time thinking about these groups and how they do "community organizing". As someone who has spent a lot of time in and around evangelicalism (not as observer), I do think this narrative is incomplete.
1. Undivided was a new group, created in 2016 largely in response to BLM, during a time when many in the GOP were (temporarily) re-thinking their approach to racial politics. Crossroads itself started in the 1990s. This was not the culmination of decades of hard-bore "difficult" organizing by evangelicals (evangelicist is not commonly-used in the circles I'm familiar with) reaching across groups to expand their coalition. It happened quickly *because* it wasn't working through established institutions towards some specific goal (like winning elections). This was a particular historical moment, during which many evangelicals assumed Trump did not represent them and would lose decisively, then disappear from American politics forever.
2. Undivided has remained active since, without any significant wins or long-run impact (AFAIK). There is a simple reason for this. When Trump did not lose decisively and disappear forever it created a large, ongoing, and probably permanent rupture in the evangelical community. The dividing question is sharp and clear: should white evangelicals care about (i.e., have empathy for) anyone other than white evangelicals? Most white evangelicals say "no, we should not". This is sometimes expressed as "empathy is evil," and proponents of this view are making a bid for theocratic/theonomic power under the banner of Christian nationalism. Undivided is one attempt that had some modest short-run tactical success at resisting this trend, but could not build a sustained movement out of it; Revoice, on the other hand (which happened in David French's denomination), made an empathetic effort in 2018 that failed so miserably (and so immediately) that no political scientist will ever write a book about it, and the church that sponsored it eventually left their denomination entirely. There are many more Revoices than Undivideds, and it is very easy to over-state the successes of the Undivideds if that isn't kept in view.
3. There are evangelicals are all sides of every issue, but bigger-picture outcome is that, since 2016, people like David French have been cast out from these communities while people like Doug Wilson have risen within them, and a racialist MAGA now fully controls both the GOP and American evangelicalism (Tucker Carlson is hugely popular in these circles, as was Charlie Kirk). Generalizing from Issue 44 in Ohio in 2016 is *massively* selecting on the dependent variable, if not missing the forest for one tree (more accurately: one leaf on one branch of one tree). That's important, because "the left" already tried to do its version of Undivided in response to Trump: it was called DEI. All those listening sessions, empathy-building workshops, land acknowledgments, marketing campaigns, strategic hiring initiatives, knee-taking, use of pronouns... these were many tactical victories that did not accumulate into larger strategic gains. If anything they produced substantial macro-level backlash.
4. That's because the Crossroads story ultimately is not about community-building, it is about church-building. These are not the same, churches are self-interested. Crossroads, and other non-denoms, want to attract members. They are start-ups, and have a start-up mentality: it's about capturing scale, and building platform power using that scale (Doug Wilson started with a newsletter, which became a magazine, now he has Canon Press, Canon+ streaming service, a university, a full curriculum for K-12 education used by thousands of families and hundreds of schools, and is trying to take over an entire city "democratically" through importing -- rather than converting -- thousands of co-belligerents into it). They do not gain many members by converting unbelievers. They primarily gain members by poaching people from traditional denominations (mainline or evangelical), some of whom were raised in the church but have since lapsed. The macro story is about the institutional collapse of American protestantism, away from historically-linked churches that were fairly hierarchical (Episcopalians and Presbyterians and Southern Baptists) to highly-localized islands. This mirrors the institutional collapse of the GOP, as it has disintegrated into a personalist "state capitalist" grift operation, and institutional fragmentation more generally.
These churches respond to institutional fragmentation primarily through advertising: lots of campus outreach, energetic young people on their adverts, casual services at convenient times with very generic messaging and contemporary music. It's a social club for people with kids who can't get out much otherwise, there are t-shirts and stickers and buttons and tote bags and summer schools and swimming lessons and music lessons and hiking trips and food drives and mission walks. Lots of reciprocal child care! Focusing on the mission walks, but not the other stuff, is thus reductionist. Still, the longer-running process is about institutional fragmentation, the destruction of legacy networks, and the secularization ('Europeanization') of American society.
Some of these churches appeal to suburban, educated audiences, who are less likely to be overt racialists, but the goal is to grow the church more than convince people not to be racialists. When an initiative like Undivided starts, political scientists need to think of it as corporate marketing; a purpose-driven initiative towards growing their brand loyalty, not purpose-driven towards ministering outside of their community. It's like when business corporations partner with United Way: this is not a model for "the left" just because they successfully raise money at Christmastime. If you go to Undivided's most recent annual report, you will see them boast about the (very small) number of new members added, not any tangible community works.
After all, Crossroads was created by Proctor and Gamble brand managers... they literally built a church on the principles of modern capitalist advertising, how much more like the DNC could they be?
These non-denominational churches/movements are *not* very deeply rooted! They come and go, changing marketing tactics and branding for the times (e.g., "Campus Crusade for Christ" becomes "CRU" during the Obama years). It's not like they've hit on the One Successful Strategy to Win American Politics... they are able to improvise and try things out because the tax code offers them limitless opportunities to experiment with the money of rich people who don't want to pay taxes. Mark Driscoll was hugely important for 5-10 years, then he wasn't. Doug Wilson was a nobody for 50 years, now he's on the front page of NYT, WSJ, CNN, Politico, etc. InterVarsity operates for 80 years, then Charlie Kirk goes on Twitter to yell at teenagers and dominates on their turf.
I'm not sure what there is for the left to learn from this, other than that if they are persistent they may eventually have a moment (which likely won't last).
5. Speaking of advertising and capitalism, the story of MAGA is not a story of evangelical churches organizing. It is a story of evangelicals *being organized*. From the top-down, not via the grassroots. Trump did not come from their ranks. The left has plenty of examples of this stuff working at the scales of Issue 44, but the grassroots has not channeled into a mass movement unless it is led by a charismatic leader who can discipline the group narrative, like Obama. The structure of DSA (and the various splinter groups in socdem circles) resembles evangelicalism pretty straightforwardly. And they've won some races in some friendly areas. But the ability to transform the national political scene is not there. And that is because there is no national leader that can organize the loose collectives into a winning coalition.
I’m not in the USA (Toronto), and I’m only involved in a small amount of what could be called “left-wing activism”, mainly around various urbanist causes (complete streets, bike lanes, speed cameras, looser zoning for dense housing).
Even from this vantage point though, I agree with this article: it’s super obvious that only “hard” actions actually change things, and that people mostly show up for community, not for dry policy debates and click-a-box form letters.
The very ease of sending form letters to politicians makes those form letters basically useless unless you can get thousands of them sent from different voters. Our urbanist group has found that it’s better to send a signed paper letter, and ask your MPP or Counsellor for a personal phone call (most of them will do a 15 minute phone call if you ask politely!). And we have actually had the most success getting city Counsellors to come to our group meeting and speak to us and hear from us.
So the lessons here are good. What I would say though is that everyone kind of knows this. I see some of the more radical/harder left organizations here in Toronto and they too are extremely aware that they have to build a community: the communists and the Indigenous give-the-land-back groups have potluck dinners and craft meetups for that very reason. Or the homeless advocates / drug legalization people are out there in the community giving free food at tent encampments. They know the value of being together!
I suspect the author here (Henry, not Hahrie) is only seeing the community-building on the right because that’s what he knows. Or, seeing the lazy slacktivism online (back in the day on Twitter and today in their Rome-in-AD-680 fallen kingdom of Bluesky) and not seeing it in real life. They are trying!
(I think the reason it doesn’t work on the far left, though, is because life is generally pretty good for most people and those more extreme left causes are very unpopular. So they’ll never raise a mass movement, even if there is a great community surrounding it.)
Speaking as someone who grew up in moderate evangelical circles, all of this is obvious. I have been in the room where Hahrie explains this to secular people on the left and are so stunned. She and I talked on Friday about other ways in which this doesn’t create civic skills. (The church board is self replicating, not a membership organization like a Baptist church)
But when you look at most mass movements for social change in the US, they have been grounded in the evangelical church. Abolition, civil rights, suffrage. All the same story.
So in a certain sense the question for me is why American progressives repeatedly cut themselves off from the lessons of history and the voters.
How can this still be revelatory?
And also why does the scholar in the secular institution get the genius grant and not the person coming up with the organizing ideas 30 years ago?
the answer should be pretty obvious, too: many if not most of us are uncomfortable with religion, and the lessons here have little to do with Christianity itself. Han's work ranges over many kinds of organizations; evangelical churches are just one case. It's a particularly successful and instructive one because it goes back to the origins of the nation, not because it has unique features that render it exemplary.
Well, the people who aren't religious are almost exclusively on the left.
This is in no way a criticism of Han's research. It's great stuff (and I don't think she could be categorized as a secular progressive, from my conversations with her).
Henry is presenting this as "what the left can learn." But it strikes me that they can't just learn directly.
Surely the organizers were more creative than the translator? Or is the Genius Grant for making the other legible to secular progressives?
Congrats to Hahrie! I've read the article versions of the argument, which I enjoyed a lot, but not the book. I do agree that political scientists need to spend more time thinking about these groups and how they do "community organizing". As someone who has spent a lot of time in and around evangelicalism (not as observer), I do think this narrative is incomplete.
1. Undivided was a new group, created in 2016 largely in response to BLM, during a time when many in the GOP were (temporarily) re-thinking their approach to racial politics. Crossroads itself started in the 1990s. This was not the culmination of decades of hard-bore "difficult" organizing by evangelicals (evangelicist is not commonly-used in the circles I'm familiar with) reaching across groups to expand their coalition. It happened quickly *because* it wasn't working through established institutions towards some specific goal (like winning elections). This was a particular historical moment, during which many evangelicals assumed Trump did not represent them and would lose decisively, then disappear from American politics forever.
2. Undivided has remained active since, without any significant wins or long-run impact (AFAIK). There is a simple reason for this. When Trump did not lose decisively and disappear forever it created a large, ongoing, and probably permanent rupture in the evangelical community. The dividing question is sharp and clear: should white evangelicals care about (i.e., have empathy for) anyone other than white evangelicals? Most white evangelicals say "no, we should not". This is sometimes expressed as "empathy is evil," and proponents of this view are making a bid for theocratic/theonomic power under the banner of Christian nationalism. Undivided is one attempt that had some modest short-run tactical success at resisting this trend, but could not build a sustained movement out of it; Revoice, on the other hand (which happened in David French's denomination), made an empathetic effort in 2018 that failed so miserably (and so immediately) that no political scientist will ever write a book about it, and the church that sponsored it eventually left their denomination entirely. There are many more Revoices than Undivideds, and it is very easy to over-state the successes of the Undivideds if that isn't kept in view.
3. There are evangelicals are all sides of every issue, but bigger-picture outcome is that, since 2016, people like David French have been cast out from these communities while people like Doug Wilson have risen within them, and a racialist MAGA now fully controls both the GOP and American evangelicalism (Tucker Carlson is hugely popular in these circles, as was Charlie Kirk). Generalizing from Issue 44 in Ohio in 2016 is *massively* selecting on the dependent variable, if not missing the forest for one tree (more accurately: one leaf on one branch of one tree). That's important, because "the left" already tried to do its version of Undivided in response to Trump: it was called DEI. All those listening sessions, empathy-building workshops, land acknowledgments, marketing campaigns, strategic hiring initiatives, knee-taking, use of pronouns... these were many tactical victories that did not accumulate into larger strategic gains. If anything they produced substantial macro-level backlash.
4. That's because the Crossroads story ultimately is not about community-building, it is about church-building. These are not the same, churches are self-interested. Crossroads, and other non-denoms, want to attract members. They are start-ups, and have a start-up mentality: it's about capturing scale, and building platform power using that scale (Doug Wilson started with a newsletter, which became a magazine, now he has Canon Press, Canon+ streaming service, a university, a full curriculum for K-12 education used by thousands of families and hundreds of schools, and is trying to take over an entire city "democratically" through importing -- rather than converting -- thousands of co-belligerents into it). They do not gain many members by converting unbelievers. They primarily gain members by poaching people from traditional denominations (mainline or evangelical), some of whom were raised in the church but have since lapsed. The macro story is about the institutional collapse of American protestantism, away from historically-linked churches that were fairly hierarchical (Episcopalians and Presbyterians and Southern Baptists) to highly-localized islands. This mirrors the institutional collapse of the GOP, as it has disintegrated into a personalist "state capitalist" grift operation, and institutional fragmentation more generally.
These churches respond to institutional fragmentation primarily through advertising: lots of campus outreach, energetic young people on their adverts, casual services at convenient times with very generic messaging and contemporary music. It's a social club for people with kids who can't get out much otherwise, there are t-shirts and stickers and buttons and tote bags and summer schools and swimming lessons and music lessons and hiking trips and food drives and mission walks. Lots of reciprocal child care! Focusing on the mission walks, but not the other stuff, is thus reductionist. Still, the longer-running process is about institutional fragmentation, the destruction of legacy networks, and the secularization ('Europeanization') of American society.
Some of these churches appeal to suburban, educated audiences, who are less likely to be overt racialists, but the goal is to grow the church more than convince people not to be racialists. When an initiative like Undivided starts, political scientists need to think of it as corporate marketing; a purpose-driven initiative towards growing their brand loyalty, not purpose-driven towards ministering outside of their community. It's like when business corporations partner with United Way: this is not a model for "the left" just because they successfully raise money at Christmastime. If you go to Undivided's most recent annual report, you will see them boast about the (very small) number of new members added, not any tangible community works.
After all, Crossroads was created by Proctor and Gamble brand managers... they literally built a church on the principles of modern capitalist advertising, how much more like the DNC could they be?
These non-denominational churches/movements are *not* very deeply rooted! They come and go, changing marketing tactics and branding for the times (e.g., "Campus Crusade for Christ" becomes "CRU" during the Obama years). It's not like they've hit on the One Successful Strategy to Win American Politics... they are able to improvise and try things out because the tax code offers them limitless opportunities to experiment with the money of rich people who don't want to pay taxes. Mark Driscoll was hugely important for 5-10 years, then he wasn't. Doug Wilson was a nobody for 50 years, now he's on the front page of NYT, WSJ, CNN, Politico, etc. InterVarsity operates for 80 years, then Charlie Kirk goes on Twitter to yell at teenagers and dominates on their turf.
I'm not sure what there is for the left to learn from this, other than that if they are persistent they may eventually have a moment (which likely won't last).
5. Speaking of advertising and capitalism, the story of MAGA is not a story of evangelical churches organizing. It is a story of evangelicals *being organized*. From the top-down, not via the grassroots. Trump did not come from their ranks. The left has plenty of examples of this stuff working at the scales of Issue 44, but the grassroots has not channeled into a mass movement unless it is led by a charismatic leader who can discipline the group narrative, like Obama. The structure of DSA (and the various splinter groups in socdem circles) resembles evangelicalism pretty straightforwardly. And they've won some races in some friendly areas. But the ability to transform the national political scene is not there. And that is because there is no national leader that can organize the loose collectives into a winning coalition.
I’m not in the USA (Toronto), and I’m only involved in a small amount of what could be called “left-wing activism”, mainly around various urbanist causes (complete streets, bike lanes, speed cameras, looser zoning for dense housing).
Even from this vantage point though, I agree with this article: it’s super obvious that only “hard” actions actually change things, and that people mostly show up for community, not for dry policy debates and click-a-box form letters.
The very ease of sending form letters to politicians makes those form letters basically useless unless you can get thousands of them sent from different voters. Our urbanist group has found that it’s better to send a signed paper letter, and ask your MPP or Counsellor for a personal phone call (most of them will do a 15 minute phone call if you ask politely!). And we have actually had the most success getting city Counsellors to come to our group meeting and speak to us and hear from us.
So the lessons here are good. What I would say though is that everyone kind of knows this. I see some of the more radical/harder left organizations here in Toronto and they too are extremely aware that they have to build a community: the communists and the Indigenous give-the-land-back groups have potluck dinners and craft meetups for that very reason. Or the homeless advocates / drug legalization people are out there in the community giving free food at tent encampments. They know the value of being together!
I suspect the author here (Henry, not Hahrie) is only seeing the community-building on the right because that’s what he knows. Or, seeing the lazy slacktivism online (back in the day on Twitter and today in their Rome-in-AD-680 fallen kingdom of Bluesky) and not seeing it in real life. They are trying!
(I think the reason it doesn’t work on the far left, though, is because life is generally pretty good for most people and those more extreme left causes are very unpopular. So they’ll never raise a mass movement, even if there is a great community surrounding it.)
How does this sound: the left - I know because I know I know; the right - I know because I feel I know?
Sounds arrogant and contemptuous.
Speaking as someone who grew up in moderate evangelical circles, all of this is obvious. I have been in the room where Hahrie explains this to secular people on the left and are so stunned. She and I talked on Friday about other ways in which this doesn’t create civic skills. (The church board is self replicating, not a membership organization like a Baptist church)
But when you look at most mass movements for social change in the US, they have been grounded in the evangelical church. Abolition, civil rights, suffrage. All the same story.
So in a certain sense the question for me is why American progressives repeatedly cut themselves off from the lessons of history and the voters.
How can this still be revelatory?
And also why does the scholar in the secular institution get the genius grant and not the person coming up with the organizing ideas 30 years ago?
the answer should be pretty obvious, too: many if not most of us are uncomfortable with religion, and the lessons here have little to do with Christianity itself. Han's work ranges over many kinds of organizations; evangelical churches are just one case. It's a particularly successful and instructive one because it goes back to the origins of the nation, not because it has unique features that render it exemplary.
Well, the people who aren't religious are almost exclusively on the left.
This is in no way a criticism of Han's research. It's great stuff (and I don't think she could be categorized as a secular progressive, from my conversations with her).
Henry is presenting this as "what the left can learn." But it strikes me that they can't just learn directly.
Surely the organizers were more creative than the translator? Or is the Genius Grant for making the other legible to secular progressives?