Journalist Jon Ward’s memoir-style book, Testimony, delves into the captivating world of evangelical influence, particularly focusing on figures like John Piper, C. J. Mahaney, Al Mohler, Russell Moore, and Wayne Grudem. As the first child to be dedicated in C. J. Mahaney’s church plant, where his father eventually became a pastor, Ward offers a truly insider’s account.

The narrative arc of Testimony begins with what Ward describes as an emotionally-charged, intellectually-suppressed, and culturally-insular environment of his childhood and teenage years. Growing up, he was heavily steeped in the charismatic movement and a hyper-dispensational, apocalyptic view of end-time events. Under the influence of Lou Engle, the anti-abortion movement was virtually the only political issue worth getting excited about.

At 19, Ward experienced a profound transformation while listening to C. J. Mahaney preach about the cross of Jesus, a moment he describes as being “radicalized.” “The message of the cross,” Ward recalls, “gripped me more than it ever had.” As I sat in those bleachers, suddenly I felt as if I had no choice but to throw everything aside that would hinder me from living every moment of my life for God.”

Soon, however, Ward began to feel “suffocated.” The emergence of “New Calvinism” with its emphasis on total depravity and God’s complete sovereignty, contributed, for Ward and his peers, to morbid self-examination, especially at a time when they were “unattached but at the peak of [their] sex drives.” In addition, a “cult of imitation” began to grow up around Mahaney, and the Christian school where Ward taught conditioned the students “to not only do as they’re told but THINK as they’re told.”

In this suffocating environment, Ward found a fresh, liberating breeze in his journalism career. It gave him “an array of experiences that deepened [his] understanding of the world—of politics and government, of how power works, and of culture and communication.” Not long after Ward’s world opened up, the emergence of Donald Trump on the political stage became an increasing source of angst for Ward. Besides his “unique and historic assault on truth,” Trump promoted a message that ran cross grain to Christianity. “Trump spoke about faith as something one claimed for self-promotion and self-protection,” Ward reflects, “not as a way of life that called on its followers to engage in self-sacrifice.”

Ward’s frustration with Trump-era politics gives momentum to the rest of the book, and understandably so, since it deeply impacted Ward’s relationship with his family members. Ward even admits, to his shame, that on one visit to his parents’ in the fall of 2020, he removed two Trump/Pence campaign signs from his parents’ yard and garage.

A pivotal moment in Testimony unfolds when Ward discovers James K. A. Smith’s book You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit. Smith, according to Ward, “imparted to me a different way of understanding how the Christian faith could and should permeate my life, a way that was directly counter to the overly spiritualized, Gnostic approach I was raised with.” Although Ward had grown to be repulsed by the evangelicalism of his early upbringing, he returns to the very things that were central to that evangelicalism: the cross and the Bible. “I still don’t claim to know how to walk the way of the cross or the path of resurrection very well. But I think that the quest to do so is still at the heart of a meaningful faith. . . . Oh, and I’m still trying to understand how to read the Bible.”

Other reviewers have pointed out that Ward’s Testimony falls prey to the universal tendency to valorize one’s own perspectives and choices. But if Ward is overly charitable toward himself, and if his selection of detail portrays others in an unflattering light, we should hardly be surprised: it is, after all, a “testimony.”

These flaws notwithstanding, there is something refreshing about Testimony. To put it negatively, it is not a “deconstruction story,” nor is it a bitter saga in which the narrator wallows in victimhood. Rather it is a story that, in the end, celebrates instead of despises Christianity. Ward concludes Testimony not by imagining a world without Christianity, but by asking, “What would a more Christian witness look like?”

It is not even Ward’s purpose to discredit evangelicalism and evangelicals. True, he was deeply hurt by their support for Donald Trump, and remains pessimistic about the possibility of their repenting of this (“I do not think most evangelicals will turn from their ways”). Still, he is willing to assert that “evangelicals have incredible spiritual resources available to them: their heart connection to God gives them immense power for good.”

A specific example may suffice to show Ward’s ongoing respect for evangelicalism. Although Ward registers his disagreement with evangelical leader John Piper on a couple important points, he credits Piper for showing him a view of Christ that Ward continues to cherish. After hearing a sermon by Piper in 2000 (“Boasting Only in the Cross”), Ward writes that he “embraced the idea that Christians are not to put their ultimate hope in this life, that we are—to some extent—pilgrims in this life.  . . . That meant that no matter what happened in this life, even in suffering or in grief, I could still hang on to hope and meaning.”

Because of its criticisms (and sometimes caricatures) of evangelicals and evangelicalism, many will find Ward’s book painful to read—Ward’s own father included.

Still, there is much fodder here for honest self-examination and humble correction. It is true, Ward points out, that many evangelicals have been swept into identity politics, hoodwinked by conspiracy theories, covered up sexual abuse, embraced racist ideology, failed to engage meaningfully with the world, and eschewed rigorous thinking.

Yet with all this criticism, Ward’s Testimony somewhat paradoxically suggests some encouragement for evangelicals. After all, it was the very tenets of evangelicalism that prompted and sustained Ward’s pursuit of the truth, passion for justice, and embracing of the cross. The very ideals of evangelicalism allowed Ward to see the faults of evangelicalism.

So, if Ward is right, maybe the evangelical movement, for all its inexcusable defects, didn’t completely fail his generation after all.