The Dispatch: Can Los Angeles Once Again Serve as the Epicenter of Evangelical Revival?, by Mark Kendall:
[T]he storied history of evangelicalism in Los Angeles is older than Hollywood itself. From serving as the epicenter of Pentecostalism’s rapid ascent to hosting some of the nation’s first megachurches and 20th-century celebrity pastors, the city rose alongside the faith shared by 1 in 4 Americans, including me. Drawn by the same promises that the city afforded creatives from across the country—namely, reach and reinvention—these Christians used the city as a testing ground for the entrepreneurial drive and spiritual ambition that characterizes the evangelical movement to this day.
LA’s surprising religious stewardship began mere years before the region’s film industry was born. With zeal to spread the gospel, the group that would become known as evangelicals found it advantageous to be in a place where people arrived from across the nation and globe. Iowans and Oklahomans, then Koreans and Salvadorans, came to LA in waves.
Whether these new arrivals brought their faith with them or found it here, the message they encountered resonated, and word spread across the nation, and around the globe. Frank Bartleman, an early chronicler of Pentecostalism, christened Los Angeles the “American Jerusalem,” where God had gathered the multitudes around the world to “scatter the fire to the ends of the earth.”
Give your life to Christ, help others do the same—that’s the 10-word ideal of evangelicalism. When it came to, well, evangelizing, these fervent Christians also found it providential to be in the storytelling capital of the world. Even while clashing over notions of decency and morals, LA evangelicals and Hollywood came to share a commitment to craft, innovation, and thinking in blockbuster terms.
Today, though, it’s reasonable to wonder whether LA’s earnest fervor has cooled or congealed into a different brand of faith. Many threads of the larger evangelical odyssey—and LA’s role in it—have taken unsettling turns into scandal, excess, and what some dub the evangelical industrial complex. Others fear a descent into political preoccupation, partisanship and, in some cases, extremism. This troubled state has been widely chronicled, rightfully so. Believers may be tempted to ask: Have we lost the plot? Is it too late to fix this script?
“People come here to build something, either a career, community, a new identity,” [Pastor Jason] Min says. “In some ways, everyone’s a work in progress in LA.” …
[E]vangelicalism, like the city of Los Angeles, has all too often found itself vulnerable to excess, celebrity worship, and ideological overreach. While some religious leaders sought to build incrementally on the tradition of their predecessors, others, like longtime Fuller Seminary professor C. Peter Wagner, envisioned a new path for the Christian faith, with the church to be led into action—unbounded by denominational bureaucracy—by apostles and prophets as it had in New Testament times. This ready-for-action approach to church leadership would be paired with Wagner’s elevated conception of Christian spiritual warfare as a sweeping conflict to defeat demonic forces holding sway over vast territories. …
Back in downtown Los Angeles, at Citizens LA, something is stirring.
Ashley Kim, a 29-year-old who moved from Chicago to Los Angeles five years ago, had already been listening to Pastor Min’s podcasts before she arrived. She sees signs of a shift happening in her generation, as people begin to revisit faith in their quest to be well, “mentally, emotionally and spiritually.”
Pastor Min says that people nationwide are now noticing Gen Z’s return to church, something his congregation has experienced for years now at Citizens. He sees a hunger for a “transcendent experience,” as well as connection. When the church stopped livestreaming services years ago, the young crowd didn’t mind: They now pack in-person gatherings.
Though he is not Pentecostal, Min still references Azusa Street, which is within walking distance of where his church meets. He suggests that Los Angeles could once again become “ground zero for revival” and serve as a “spark for the rest of the country.” And so this one LA series promises to outlast Netflix itself, rolling on with new characters, reboots, and plot twists to the very end of the age.
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