Reenchanted Evangelism

The promise and the peril

“What do you think about Jesus?”

The man in a tight bare-midriff rainbow shirt with a giant furry fox mask is quick to answer: “I think the concept is really great. I feel like having him die for our sins and having him accept everyone and being a benevolent God, I think that that’s really important.”

Another year, another parade, same question: “What do you think about Jesus?”

The shirtless man in a “pup” mask says, “I like Jesus. I’m Catholic.”

All the conversations begin and end roughly the same way. They begin when the baby-faced evangelist walks up and begins asking friendly questions about Jesus, and they end with him politely asking if he can take your hand and say a prayer. But it’s impossible to predict exactly what will happen in between.

The evangelist’s name is Bryce Crawford, and his YouTube channel has roughly 500,000 subscribers. I’m not sure why the algorithm suggested it to me, but once I started watching, I couldn’t stop.

His conversation partners are furries, drag queens, Satanists. They’re witches and Goth girls. They’re profane drunks. They’re gentle junkies with sad eyes. From the gay bar to the mall to the rundown Walmart, from LA to Vegas to Salem and everywhere in between: They’re people.

In every encounter, Bryce will find an opportune moment to tell his own story: He was a depressed 17-year-old, a Bible Belt kid burned by hypocritical church leaders. One night, he felt so hopeless that he planned to kill himself. But first, he decided to have his last meal at a Waffle House. That was when Jesus showed up. Four years later now, Bryce says his anxiety and depression are completely gone. And the same thing could happen to you.

Occasionally, he will ask if the person is dealing with some kind of pain—headache, backache, bad knee, etc. When the person says yes, he says, “Now how could I know that? It’s because God spoke to me.” Then, with permission, he says a healing prayer. If he’s in the vicinity of something occult, he rebukes it in Jesus’ name.

Bryce clearly has no intention of planting himself in the middle of the “reenchantment” discourse. That discourse is taking place in my world—the world of public intellectual podcasting, books, thinkpieces, and Twitter debates. Bryce’s world is not my world. But spending some time in his world has further crystallized what I’d like to contribute to that discourse. So, let’s talk about reenchanted evangelism: the power, the promise, and the peril.