The transition to Ambivalent World

The vibes have shifted and young men in America are more open to the gospel than they have been for decades, and we mostly have podcast culture to thank for that.

Aaron Renn’s Negative World thesis makes sense of the secularization we’ve seen in America through three stages: Positive World (pre-1994), where being a Christian was an asset; Neutral World (1994–2014), where Christians were generally well-tolerated; and Negative World (2015–present), where following Jesus was seen as a liability. Renn identified the 2015 Obergefell Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage as the pivotal moment marking this shift.

From my vantage point, Negative World is already disintegrating and giving rise to a fourth epoch: Ambivalent World.

This transition became evident last month when Joe Rogan endorsed Donald Trump for president. The endorsement symbolized a broader cultural vibe shift. MAGA hats per capita are up, New Atheism lost traction, Richard Dawkins is identifying as a cultural Christian, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez took her preferred pronouns out of her bio. It seems the LGBTQ activists overplayed their hand. Sexual issues may have given birth to Negative World, but gender issues killed it.

Long-form podcasts have replaced clickbait journalism, eroding the legacy media’s ability to shame Christians for their sexual ethics. Jordan Peterson lets evangelist Greg Laurie share the gospel on his podcast. Kid Rock asks Joe Rogan if he wants to know Jesus as his personal Lord and Savior. Willie Robertson is on with Tucker Carlson sharing about how the Good News changed the trajectory of his family for generations. At least for young men who listen to podcasts, we aren’t in Negative World anymore. We’re back in Neutral World—the podcast era has diluted the influence of the cultural elites.

Enter Ambivalent World.

This is a fragmented shift, and it’s gendered and generational. While young men are breaking conservative and religious—even more religious than women for the first time ever—young women are increasingly identifying as liberal. This means we aren’t returning to Neutral World, but we’re wading into a split world filled with mixed emotions and divergent plausibility structures.

Ambivalence is the coexistence of conflicting feelings. America today craves moral coherence and resists it, it seeks transcendence while reveling in immanence. Ambivalent World means that where someone spends time on the internet means more than where they sleep at night in regard to their political assumptions and spiritual plausibility structures.

There are ministry implications for this.

For evangelicals, this means reframing our paradigms. In the six-way fracturing of evangelicalism, Michael Graham and Skyler Flowers see a scale from 1 (farthest right) to 6 (farthest left):

1. Neo-Fundamentalist Evangelical
2. Mainstream Evangelical
3. Neo-Evangelical
4. Post-Evangelical
5. Dechurched
6. Deconverted

Notice how the non-Christians (and the power brokers) are to the left. But in Ambivalent World, the most likely converts are fleeing reality-denying epistemologies by yanking the wheel to the right. So, here’s how that framework needs to be adjusted.

-1. Reality Respecters (Joe Rogan)
0. Meaning Makers (Jordan Peterson)
1. Neo-Fundamentalist Evangelical
2. Mainstream Evangelical
3. Neo-Evangelical
4. Post-Evangelical
5. Dechurched
6. Deconverted

Those who respect reality won’t stand for the erasure of biological facts, and the Meaning Makers won’t settle for nihilistic existential answers to questions about meaning. They’ll have libertarian instincts as it relates to authority and traditional assumptions about gender. They’ll be open but cautious about the Bible. It’ll code rebellious and dangerous, like alcohol to a deconverting Mormon: a forbidden good time.

Churches must recognize that no matter what, their rhetoric will alienate some while resonating deeply with others, but churches that want to reach the next generation of young men should orient their communication and missional emphasis in such a way that the Reality Respecters and Meaning Makers (i.e., people who listen to Joe Rogan and Jordan Peterson) will feel understood and seen. We are always contextualizing the gospel, and too many pastors read The New York Times and The Atlantic instead of listening to the podcasts that are shaping the minds of the future converts who will be the next generation of elders in our local churches.