Say what you will about Evangelical Protestant churches in America (and there’s plenty to say), they are awesome in a pinch.
I grew up in this milieu, and I am well acquainted with the problems of shallow theology, cheesy efforts to be cool, lack of connection to the Christian tradition and history, focus on numbers, vanity in the big show of services, and ever-present hypocrisy. It’s all there.
But damn. If some shit goes down, these people are on your side helping out quickly, efficiently, and in large numbers.
There was some flooding around here recently. The immediate mobilization of every Evangelical Protestant church in the area to survey, collect, and deploy needed tools, workers, water, food, places to stay, vehicles, money – even little things like toys for little kids who lost every thing – put any military or government agency to shame. It also seems the more qualities a church has that would make a “high church”, Catholic, or Orthodox person cringe, the more amazing they are at this kind of direct aid to humans in need.
Clusters of guys with matching trendy church T-shirts were swarming disaster areas and happily cleaning, fixing, and doing anything they could.
There were plenty of individual citizens helping out on their own, and there were some other nonprofits, and of course the largely inefficient, ill-timed, awkward assistance of various government bodies. But nothing came close to the swift, vast action of the local churches.
They may be badly lacking in the theology and rituals of the Christian faith, but modern Evangelical Protestants know how to be Christlike in a crisis better than any I’ve ever seen.