Faith Beyond His Father’s

Southside Nazarene is not the most inviting of structures: it resembles a sports complex more than a place for intimate communion. But its senior pastor, Jerome Hancock, welcomed Paul home, invited him back to church and guided him on the path to ministry. In 2004, Paul founded a study group for 20-somethings. The next year he started a ministry called Ephesus, which offered a perspective Paul felt was lacking at Southside: a broader reading of the Bible and a practical discussion of social-justice issues including poverty and human rights. "We weren't talking about abortion every week," says Paul.

For Paul, as for so many evangelicals of his generation, the issue of gay rights drove a wedge in the already-widening gap between his elders and himself. According to the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, 26 percent of white evangelicals ages 18 to 29 support gay marriage, compared with 9 percent of white evangelicals older than 30. In 2006, as Virginia was preparing to vote on an amendment banning gay marriage, Southside Nazarene posted a sign near the road urging people to vote yes. SAVE OUR FAMILIES was emblazoned on the banner. Doug Paul remembers a particular Friday-night dinner with his parents that ended in silent fuming. He and his new wife, Elizabeth, were expecting a houseguest that weekend who was gay, and he expressed irritation that their church would propagate the idea that gay people preyed on children.

"I'm pretty sure I just burst out during the meal," he remembers. "I was like, 'Does this really make people feel welcome? Would we put up a sign that says SAVE US FROM ANGRY PEOPLE, or whatever other people we say have sinned?' " The table fell silent. "You could hear the clink of ice cubes in our glasses," he says. His parents say they don't remember the incident.

Paul credits Obama's campaign slogan—"Be the change you seek"—with helping him realize his dream of starting his own congregation. He prayed on the decision for months, going weekly to the driving range to think. He found the theology at Southside too punitive, its social outreach too limited. He and his peers were still pro-life, he explains, but tired of the narrow lens through which his pastors viewed the world. (On abortion, according to the same Pew study, under-29s remain as conservative as their parents: more than 70 percent believe it should be illegal in most or all cases.) Paul prayed for a "return to the Christian tradition that existed before Roe v. Wade," he said. "It's because I'm pro-life that I have to talk about poverty, clean water, AIDS, the environment. [It would be] paradoxical to talk about giving a voice to the oppressed and not to care about people who are actually born." In February he told his mentor, Pastor Jerome, that he would be leaving the church. In March he started Eikon Community, taking a dozen former Ephesus members with him. Today, he preaches to about 40 people each Sunday in a one-room church on a busy strip.

One of these is D.J. Glisson, a 27-year-old graphic designer who signed his absentee ballot for Obama in the presence of his 10-member prayer group. Unlike Doug Paul, who voted for Kerry in 2004, Glisson had never voted for a Democrat before. Raised in a conservative suburb of Richmond, Glisson went to a Christian college and voted for George W. Bush—twice. But Obama's speech on race resonated with Glisson's own view that there are many paths to God, and Obama's position on abortion—legal but infrequent—made moral sense. As he signed his ballot he thought, Wow, things have changed a little bit. He now avoids politics as a survival tactic at family functions. "If it's not going to open minds," he says, "I'm not going to bother."

Pastor Jerome and Doug Paul haven't spoken since Paul announced his departure—though both insist the silence is unintentional. Jerome expresses dismay that the Eikon congregation has moved so far from his church's fundamental teachings, that many drink alcohol, for example, and are willing to vote for a pro-choice candidate. "My faith in God creates a certain logical base," he says. "Does killing a baby make sense? No. Does homosexual marriage make sense? No." He compares Paul's defection to a childish rebellion and expresses conviction that maturity will bring the young man back toward conservative values. With this analysis, Hancock, who is 59, fails to consider a critical fact. He was young and idealistic once, too.

© 2009