How Aaron Renn’s “Negative World” myth fuels Christian victimhood

The popular idea suggests evangelical Christians are victims of our culture when reality suggests otherwise

This newsletter is free, but it’s only able to sustain itself due to the support I receive from a small percentage of regular readers. Would you please consider becoming one of those supporters? You can use the button below to subscribe to Substack or use my usual Patreon page!

---

Is it hard to be a Christian these days? Of course not. You know that. I know that. Because there isn’t a single group that has more cultural cachet, more political power, more raw numbers (though that’s changing), more infrastructure spread out across the country, or more shout-outs during award ceremonies and post-game press conferences. More importantly, if you ask Christians which religious or non-religious group they’d ever want to trade places with—for political power, if nothing else—there’s no way they would voluntarily give up what they currently have. That’s how good it is to be Christian.

At the same time, when you’re in power, and when you’ve been in power forever, you’re bound to be criticized, and there’s been no shortage of reasons people should be furious with conservative Christianity. Besides the rampant sexual abuse and the propping up of right-wing fascists and the vaccine denial and the destruction of public schools, we’re now at risk of losing our democracy, rolling back civil rights protections from minority groups, and allowing the richest Americans to loot the country—all with the full-throated support of white evangelical leaders who provide Trump with adoration and function as a shield from attacks.

There are so many reasons to blame conservative Christianity for so much of what’s wrong with our country. They deserve every bit of criticism.

If you’re a conservative Christian who’s trying to spin those realities to make yourself look better, what do you do?

In 2022, Aaron Renn published an article that went viral in the evangelical world because he took everything I just said—all of which he’s heard before—and made it sound like fellow Christians were victims.

Aaron Renn (screenshot via YouTube)

He said that before 1994, being a Christian was widely seen as a good thing. If you told someone you were a Christian, the assumption was that you were a good person and an “upstanding citizen.” In this “Positive world,” being openly Christian was a “status-enhancer.”

In the two decades after that, being Christian was “neutral.”

But since 2014, he argued, Christians have lived in a “Negative World” where people see Christianity as a bad thing, “particularly in the elite domains of ­society.” (2014 was the year before the Obergefell decision made marriage equality legal nationwide.) In practice, that means prominent evangelicals who may have had influence in the culture are now also deemed bigots and “canceled.” It’s hard out there for Christians to affect the culture, and the culture has begun to influence the way the Gospel message is taught.

Society has come to have a negative view of Christianity. Being known as a Christian is a social negative, particularly in the elite domains of ­society. Christian morality is expressly repudiated and seen as a threat to the public good and the new public moral order. Subscribing to Christian moral views or violating the secular moral order brings negative consequences.

Renn defined a new reality and argued Christians could still come away on top: “Having adapted so many times before, ­evangelicals can do it yet again to thrive in the negative world.” (At no point, of course, did he suggest that the way to do that was to stop the bigotry and hypocrisy and cruelty.)

Now, his ideas have been profiled in the New York Times (gift article) by religion reporter Ruth Graham, who explains how his essay became a talking point among many conservative Christian leaders:

But “negative world” is now the dominant framework for many people trying to understand their place in contemporary America. The idea has inspired conferences, sermons, and countless response essays and blog posts. A reviewer in Christianity Today called it “among the most thought-provoking ideas pertaining to American evangelicalism this century.”

“Negative world” has turned Mr. Renn into a kind of Malcolm Gladwell of conservative Christianity, a skilled taxonomist known for distilling and naming a phenomenon that many were feeling but none had articulated.

She also describes how Renn was influenced by the right-wing “Manosphere,” which you probably already figured. He believes they’re far more effective and correct on a range of issues than a lot of preachers. And his solution to help evangelicals get through this negative world? Secede from it.

On the Christian right, then, a thesis is emerging: If conservative Christians are no longer a “moral majority” but a moral minority, they must shift tactics. They ought to be less concerned with persuading the rest of the country they are relevant and can fit perfectly well in secular spaces. They don’t. Instead, they must consider abandoning mainstream institutions like public schools and build their own alternatives. They must pursue ownership of businesses and real estate. And they must stop triangulating away from difficult teachings on matters like sexuality and gender differences. Resilience over relevance.

Arguably, doing those things would only serve to make conservative Christians even more disliked, since they’re not merely creating their own safe spaces; they’re destroying the spaces in which the rest of us exist in order to create their new bubbles. They’re taking over communities instead of becoming a part of them. They’re siphoning money from public education in order to fund their private religious schools, or controlling school boards and government positions to shove Christianity into the curriculum because there are no academic or ethical reasons to do so otherwise, or literally taking kids out of public school so they can be indoctrinated during the school day.

Renn also notes that Trump’s election was only possible in a “negative world” because supposed Christian values are no longer taken seriously. (Though it must be noted that Trump got elected only because conservative Christians stopped giving a damn about their supposed morals. If they cared about family values and helping the least of these, they never would have supported a thrice-married convicted felon who bragged about sexually assaulting women.)

The point is: If people see Christianity as a negative trait these days, it’s because that animosity has been earned. We don’t see Christianity as a bad thing for no reason—it’s because we’re constantly surrounded by evidence of how powerful Christians use their faith to hurt others. We’re not mad about Jesus. No one’s condemning the faith-based food pantries. We’re mad about misogyny and homophobia and hypocrisy and ignorance and incompetence. The instigators of the Culture Wars are acting like they were always just minding their own business when, in reality, they’re launching grenades all around them. They’re mad because their shitty beliefs lead to not being invited to Thanksgiving dinner, getting mocked and criticized by celebrities with larger platforms, and being the people the rest of us talk about when they’re not in the vicinity.

They feel they’re owed respect despite doing absolutely nothing to deserve it.

At least one of Renn’s supporters—a Muslim who’s drifted away from the left—correctly notes that his ideas miss something more obvious:

But as a member of a religious minority for whom the United States has never been “positive world,” he said he did not see neutral- or negative-world occupancy as catastrophic.

“Just because wider society isn’t embracing me or rejoicing over me doesn’t mean I get to lash out in response,” he said. “The culture may be opposed to you, but that doesn’t mean you’re not legally and politically secure.”

That’s what so many white evangelicals don’t seem to care about. They constantly cry about victimhood while using their power to oppress others. They claim they’re pariahs for merely following their faith, but their beliefs necessitate hurting people they deem sinners. You can’t have a pluralistic society with members who believe their faith makes them superior to everyone else.

Renn himself pretends he’s living in a utopia where his Christianity isn’t threatened: Carmel, Indiana:

Carmel is thriving, in Mr. Renn’s view, because its Republican leaders have focused on things like public safety, low taxes, and excellent infrastructure and amenities, while avoiding the distractions of what he called “extreme ideologies,” like D.E.I. hiring practices or banning gasoline-powered lawn equipment.

Let’s set aside the idea that working to hire minorities who have been excluded from those opportunities is “extreme”… and just note that when you’re in a red state where Republicans can write laws at the state level, it’s easier for local governments to focus on everything else. Carmel is also overwhelmingly white—fewer than 4% of the population is Black—and extremely wealthy, with the average family making $117,000 a year. Carmel, Renn argues, has “diversity that works.” But that comment would be much more persuasive coming from a racial or sexual or religious minority instead of a white Republican Christian.

The same guy who wants to give conservative Christians credit for a country that has been ruined by conservative Christians now wants to give Republicans credit for a country that’s been ruined by Republicans. His entire professional career is dedicated to ignoring his own privilege.

It’s easy to see how this guy is considered an intellectual among right-wing evangelicals. Their options are limited.

---