Hope, failures, and young evangelicals: on what I said and didn’t

My piece last week generated plenty of conversation, which is always gratifying. Over the past decade, writing here at Mere Orthodoxy has allowed me to work through a number of questions with others who have very different perspectives than I do.  One reason why I will never turn off the comments is that even though I can’t respond to everyone, I read all of them and learn from many of them. 

Of the various critiques that were made, one in particular kept coming up, which I would like to address here. A good friend distilled the objections nicely, I thought, in an email.  This is an edited version, posted with their approval and permission: