Some historians categorize the original Quaker movement as a “third way” between Catholicism and Protestantantism, combining the mysticism of the former and the search for perfection of the latter. It’s a convenient thesis, as it provides a way to try to explain the oddities of our lack of priests and liturgies.

But Quakers traded much of our peculiarity for a place setting at the Mainline Protestant table a long time ago. The “Quaker values” taught in First-day schools aren’t really all that different than the liberal post-Christian values you’d find posted on the bulletin board in the basement of any progressive Methodist, Presbyterian, or Episcopalian church. We share a focus on the social gospel with other Mainline denominations.

In a follow-up post, Evans re-shares a piece called The Mainline and Me that tries to honestly explain why she finds these churches admirable but boring. The lack of articulation of the why of beliefs is a big reason, as is the the fire-in-the belly of many younger Evangelicals and a culture adverse to stepping on toes.

One of the people she cites in this article is Robert E. Webber, a religious Evangelical of another generation whose spiritual travels brought him back to Mainline Protestantism. I first discovered him ten summers ago. The cross-polination of that book helped me bridge the Quaker movement with the progressive Evangelical subculture that was starting to grow and I wrote about it in the Younger Quakers and the Younger Evangelicals.

I suppose I should find it heartening that many of the threads of GenX loss and rediscovery we were talking about ten years ago are showing up in a popular religion blog today (with the substitution of Millenials). But I wonder if Friends are any more able to welcome in progressive seekers now than we were in 2003? I still see a lot of the kind of leadership that Webber identified with the “pragmatic” 1975–2000 generation (see chart at the end of my “Younger Quakers” post).

Webber might not have been right, of course, and Evans may be wrong. But if they’re on to something and there’s a progressive wave just waiting for a Mainline denomination to catch a little of the Evangelical’s fire and articulate a clear message of liberal progressive faith, then Friends still have some internal work to do.

Today Jaime Johnson tweeted out a link to a new piece by Rachel Held Evans called “The Future of Evangelicalism.” She does a nice job parsing out the differences between the two camps squaring off over Rob Bell. On the one side is a centralized movement of neo-Calvinists she calls Young, Restless, Reformed after a 2006 Christianity Today article. I have little to no interest in this crowd except for mild academic curiosity. But the other side is what she’s dubbing “the new evangelicals”:

The second group—sometimes referred to as “the new evangelicals” or “emerging evangelicals” or “the evangelical left” is significantly less organized than the first, but continues to grow at a grassroots level. As Paul Markhan wrote in an excellent essay about the phenomenon, young people who identify with this movement have grown weary of evangelicalism’s allegiance to Republican politics, are interested in pursuing social reform and social justice, believe that the gospel has as much to do with this life as the next, and are eager to be a part of inclusive, diverse, and authentic Christian communities. “Their broadening sense of social responsibility is pushing them to rethink many of the fundamental theological presuppositions characteristic of their evangelical traditions,” Markham noted.

This is the group that intrigues me. There’s a lot of cross-over here with some of what I’m seeing with Quakers. In an ideal world, the Religious Society of Friends would open its arms to this new wave of seekers, especially as they hit the limits of denominational tolerance. But in reality, many of the East Coast meetings I’m most familiar with wouldn’t know what to do with this crowd. In Philly if you’re interested in this conversation you go to Circle of Hope (previous posts), not any of the established Quaker meetings.

Evans makes some educated guesses about the future of the “new evangelical” movement. She thinks there will be more discussion about the role of the Bible, though I would say it’s more discussion fo the various Christian interpretations of it. She also foresees a loosening of labels and denominational affiliations. I’m seeing some of this happening among Friends, though it’s almost completely on the individual level, at least here on the East Coast. It will be interesting to see how this shakes out over the next few years and whether it will bypass, engage with or siphon off the Society of Friends. In the meantime, Evans’ post and the links she embeds in it are well worth exploring.