Downsizing: Letting Go of Evangelicalism’s Nonessentials

Evangelical Christianity has accumulated too many practices, habits, and trends that get in the way of authentic Christian faith. It’s time to downsize.

Michelle Van Loon came to faith in Jesus as a Jewish teenager and embraced the first Christian community she found: evangelicals. Over the next fifty years, she enthusiastically worshiped and worked in a wide variety of evangelical groups. Looking back on those experiences today, Van Loon treasures the things that truly deepened her faith. At the same time, she laments the accumulation of baggage--religious ideas and practices that were unhelpful at best, and harmful at worst. Unlike many who have given up on evangelicalism altogether, Van Loon is committed to saving what’s worthwhile in the evangelical faith tradition, and she invites others to join her. Simultaneously critical and hopeful, Downsizing encourages readers to reflect on their own experience with evangelicalism, evaluate the movement’s legacy, and participate in shaping its future.

Michelle Van Loon’s writing is shaped by her deeply rooted faith in Christ, secular Jewish heritage, spiritual hunger, and storyteller’s sensibilities. She has been a regular contributor to Christianity Today and In Touch Magazine. Her books include Becoming Sage: Cultivating Meaning, Purpose, and Spirituality in Midlife; Moments and Days: How Our Holy Celebrations Shape Our Faith; and If Only: Letting Go of Regret, which won an award of merit in the 2015 Christianity Today Book of the Year awards.