If your background is anything like mine, you both grew up in the church and grew up tremendously ignorant of much of what the church has said and thought throughout her history. I remember realizing with a shock while I was in high school that I had absolutely no idea what anyone born before 1850 believed about end times issues as well as much of the book of Daniel and basically the entire book of Revelation.
The fruit of this historical ignorance is on display virtually everywhere amongst younger evangelicals. Our would-be future intelligentsia frequently finds itself nodding along as they read Newman’s silly comment about how “to be deep in history is to cease to be protestant” and eying the Tiber, wondering what temperature the water is. Of course, it’s hard to blame them for buying Newman’s line when much of their formation in Protestant churches lends itself to precisely that conclusion—when liturgies seldom use songs older than the people singing them, when the chief attraction seems to be the production quality and charisma of the pastor, and when the actual acquaintance with church history is virtually nil.
Meanwhile, the overwhelming majority of our remaining young people are rapidly exiting the church altogether, partly due to contemporary evangelicalism’s own egregious moral failures, but also in many cases because they’ve never actually encountered the fullness of the catholic faith. They reject the faith without altogether knowing what the faith is.
If you are concerned about these problems, then the Davenant Institute is worth your support. Davenant exists to support the renewal of Christian wisdom for the contemporary church. We (I have served as an officer or board member with Davenant since 2014) do this through publishing, organizing conferences, teaching, and building an army of friends fit for the times and both ready and able to serve in local churches. As our founder and president, Brad Littlejohn, has put it,
Since its founding eight years ago, the Davenant Institute has been quietly laying the groundwork for a renewal of the American Protestant mind that can be deep, broad, and long-lasting. We’ve been remembering, resourcing, and reforming: distilling the essential insights of classical Protestantism for pastors, teachers, and Christian leaders; and creatively rethinking how these Reformation principles can reinvigorate the church in our day.
If you grow tired, as I do, of churches detached from their birthright as members of the church catholic, of young people being badly catechized and leaving the church without ever really encountering the faith, then Davenant is worthy of your support.
Today, we are running an end-of-year campaign to help launch us in 2022. The money will help us continue to produce Davenant lectures, widely read books, host speakers at Davenant House for discussion, continue our work on the Ad Fontes journal, and produce podcasts and classes for pastors, students, and laypeople through Davenant Hall.
You can give to the campaign using this link: https://davenant.kindful.com/?campaign=1165772
Jake Meador
Jake Meador is the editor-in-chief of Mere Orthodoxy. He is a 2010 graduate of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln where he studied English and History. He lives in Lincoln, NE with his wife Joie, their daughter Davy Joy, and sons Wendell, Austin, and Ambrose. Jake's writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Commonweal, Christianity Today, Fare Forward, the University Bookman, Books & Culture, First Things, National Review, Front Porch Republic, and The Run of Play and he has written or contributed to several books, including "In Search of the Common Good," "What Are Christians For?" (both with InterVarsity Press), "A Protestant Christendom?" (with Davenant Press), and "Telling the Stories Right" (with the Front Porch Republic Press).
