Boston marked my 4th national Post-Evangelical Collective (PEC) conference. In order, they have been Denver (2023), Raleigh (2024), Nashville (2025), and now Boston (2026). The Dallas 2027 meeting has already been announced.
Here are some things that I noticed about this exciting, joyful conference.
SPONSORS LIST GROWING
The list of sponsors is growing, and it is extending more deeply into the seminary and publishing world. Seminaries know that PEC is now a significant recruiting venue. Publishers likewise know that PEC is now a significant place to recruit authors and announce books. Various other nonprofits know that PEC is a place to announce their parachurch and ministry support initiatives. PEC is definitely on the map.
I was sitting at a table at PEC on Tuesday night talking with three students who may come for a PhD with me at Vrije Universiteit (Free University) Amsterdam/IBTS, and another who might come study at the Master’s level at Mercer University’s School of Theology. I am quite sure that other seminary reps were having similar conversations.
NUMBERS GROWING
I did not see a final attendance number, but it certainly seemed that at least 400 people were present. Each national PEC meeting has been substantially bigger than the one before. Very large venues are now required to host this meeting. Reservoir Church in Cambridge was by far the largest venue we have had and it was nearly full.
By comparison, the PEC national meeting is now at least as large as the Society of Christian Ethics, which has been meeting since the late 1950s. Publishers know this, and that is one reason why they are attending.
WORSHIP CULTURE
Each session at PEC was interlaced with very skillfully led worship music. The music could have been sung comfortably at any evangelical church, though I do notice in post-evangelical spaces a tendency toward less triumphal and more reflective music. Worship leaders also explicitly gave participants permission to sit or stand, raise hands or not, sing or not.
Post-evangelicals are very much aware of the manipulative uses of worship music in some evangelical spaces, as well as certain behavioral expectations associated with displaying piety. They explicitly named this and worked against it at the PEC meeting.
UNANNOUNCED PLENARY SPEAKERS
A fascinating move that PEC Executive Director Keri Ladouceur has made has been her decision to feature multiple speakers in the plenary sessions and not to announce who they will be. The carefully curated, highly diverse list of speakers are in many cases not especially well-known. But the main point here is that by not announcing who the plenary speakers are, PEC signals that this is not going to be about personalities. There is a definite rejection of celebrity culture. I should also mention that speakers are not paid, and they are expected to stay for most or all of the conference.
NONCOERCIVE, DIVERSE CONTENT WITH SHARED ETHOS
PEC has no creed, and my conclusion after four national PEC meetings plus other events is that post-evangelicals, at least of the PEC type, do not have a shared theology or a shared approach to theology. But PEC people do have a shared sociology (that is, being former evangelicals), shared pain (that is, most have had wounding experiences in evangelicalism), and shared ethos (such as inclusion, justice, and grace, as well as supporting theological reconstruction and post-evangelical church life). They also have a joyful shared sense of at-home-ness in the spaces that PEC is creating and curating.
This means that while some speakers at this year’s PEC meeting offered biblical expositions and sounded familiar pastoral and theological themes, others offered ideas further away from traditional theology. Two speakers at this PEC meeting, for example, riffed on John 14:1-14, which happens to be the lectionary text for tomorrow (Sunday, May 3); but a different speaker offered an argument for the need to move from atonement theology to attunement theology. All speakers were listened to respectfully. No one appears to feel the need to police theological boundaries, though of course the choice of speakers in effect ratifies (at least) the range of views and approaches that will be platformed at PEC. Post-evangelicals are not becoming post-Christian though some are certainly questioning various forms of theological orthodoxy.
STRUCTURE SOLIDIFYING
A final word. PEC has now held (I believe) five national meetings. We have organized ourselves into regional hub structure with 15 different hub cities/leaders and have held multiple meetings in each region. We have 501c3 status, a working board, a wisdom board (of which I am a member), a respected executive director, dozens of affiliated churches all over the nation, and a growing sense of momentum.
If this appeals to any readers out there, I say this; Check us out! You are warmly invited!
