Evangelism in an Age of Despair: Hope beyond the Failed Promise of Happiness

In this invaluable study of the central place of consolation in the practice and theology of ministry and its power to fundamentally reshape our witness, Root proves once again to be the teacher we need. By story and argument, with characteristic humanity and theological insight, he bids us to repent of our culture’s official optimism and to embrace the one thing genuinely needful: the good word of the cross that claims and consoles us still amid this vale of tears.

—Philip G. Ziegler, University of Aberdeen

In a world marked by fleeting happiness, pervasive stress, and deepening despair, Root confronts a new set of urgent pathologies facing the church as it seeks to evangelize a secular age. Returning the church to the consoling vision of the theology of the cross, this book leads readers through these ‘sad times’ to a life transformed by the crucified God, calling for a reimagined evangelism—one that consoles rather than counts souls.

—Ashley Cocksworth, University of Roehampton

Having read much of Root’s work, I had some sense of what to expect from him on the topic of evangelism. I wasn’t wrong—Root’s practical theology continues to be drenched in philosophy and saturated in love for God. Still, the depth of this new conversation on the church’s unique and invaluable calling to follow Jesus into sorrow stunned me. No contemporary voice of faith gives me more hope in Christ or sustenance for my ministry.

—Rev. Katherine Willis Pershey, co-pastor, First Congregational United Church of Christ, Appleton; author of Very Married: Field Notes on Love and Fidelity

Evangelism is an area of theological inquiry that many avoid in the church and in seminaries today. Root invites us to explore evangelism anew through the lens of consolation, addressing the sorrow of this age with witness to, and participation in, the living God we know in Jesus Christ. Root’s reimagining of evangelism, attending to the sacramental shape of divine-human encounter, will bless and challenge those who long for a deeper, more wholistic understanding of how best to share our Christian faith with others.

—Ross Lockhart, Vancouver School of Theology

"In Evangelism in an Age of Despair, Root piques my curiosity about the recovery of evangelism in our late-modern context. Somehow he compels me to see its surprising and miraculous usefulness for church ministry. Giving us more than a history on evangelism or another how-to program, he completely reframes it as ‘the reception of care that places a person on a path of encounter with the divine.’ The use of words such as care and consolation in his framing is especially resonant. It underscores a discipleship that is oriented to the human—and the relationship between the human and the divine—in such a way that the good news is an invitation to a way of being in this world that lifts up all the complexity of being human: sorrow, blessing, conflict, and the persistence of God’s presence. As always, Root’s work is rich and generative, and I’m eager to ponder this more."

—Mihee Kim-Kort, Presbyterian minister; author of Outside the Lines: How Embracing Queerness Will Transform Your Faith

"Root is my personal go-to when it comes to expositing the spiritual landscape in which we live. His unparalleled insight never fails to inspire compassion for my neighbors and renewed excitement about my faith. Evangelism in an Age of Despair is another astounding contribution in this regard, a book that dares to rehabilitate Christian evangelism in fresh and heartfelt ways, with urgency but without alarm or anxiety. I greatly needed this book (and the consolation to which it points). So too, I’d expect, does the world—to say nothing of the church. Highly, highly recommended."

—David Zahl, director, Mockingbird Ministries; author of Low Anthropology

Evangelism

in an Age

of Despair

Evangelism

in an Age

of Despair

HOPE BEYOND THE FAILED

PROMISE OF HAPPINESS

ANDREW ROOT

KBaker Academic logo: a division of Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan

© 2025 by Andrew Root

Published by Baker Academic

a division of Baker Publishing Group

Grand Rapids, Michigan

BakerAcademic.com

Ebook edition created 2025

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

ISBN 9781540968715 (paperback) | ISBN 9781540968722 (casebound) | ISBN 9781493449729 (ebook) | ISBN 9781493449736 (pdf)

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright © 1946, 1952, and 1971 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Baker Publishing Group publications use paper produced from sustainable forestry practices and postconsumer waste whenever possible.

To my mom, Judy,

who on the day I went to university

began praying Daniel 1:17 over me:

"To these . . . young men God gave knowledge

and skill in every aspect of literature and wisdom;

Daniel also had insight into all visions and dreams."

Since then, I’ve seen shapes and visions

of our cultural context and God’s action in it.

She now prays this prayer for my children.

Contents

Endorsemets    i

Half Title Page    iii

Title Page    v

Copyright Page    vi

Dedication    vii

Preface    xi

Read before Using (Don’t Skip!)    1

1. Get ’Em Healthy, Get ’Em Happy    5

The Surprising Openness to Evangelism

2. Sad Times and a Sad (Pathetic) Church    33

Is Evangelism’s Task to Keep the Church Alive?

3. The Architecture of Our Sad Times    57

Meeting the Positive Genealogists

4. Why All the Happiness Is Making Us Miserable    101

Montaigne, Dead French Kings, and Immanent Contentment

5. Not Okay—Our Sad Times of Stress    133

The Forgetting of Soul

6. The Math Savant and the Fire    167

Pascal and the Promise of Our Sad Souls

7. Sisters as Pastors    203

Leaning into Sorrow and the Promises of Consolation

8. Goodbyes That Save    221

Great Sorrow and Consolation Evangelism

9. When Temptation Is Good    247

And God Is Full of Sorrow

Epilogue    275

Index    281

Back Cover    290

Preface

As I was writing this book, my oldest child left for college. I was surprised at how sad it made me. I was ready for the anxiety. Months before he left, I had big, anxious questions: Will he keep up with his work? How will he deal with homesickness? Is this school, one thousand miles away, the right fit? And, of course, Is it worth the money? I knew I’d be swimming in anxiety. But it was the grief from his departure that surprised me. I was thrust into an acute sorrow. His departure was the sharp signal that our family was now different and never to be the same again. I missed him within minutes of him saying goodbye.

Not surprisingly, all the emotions took me back to my own freshman year. I wasn’t as brave as my son. I went to school thirty minutes away from where I grew up. But the change still hit me hard. I was confused, lonely, and not sure I could do the work. I was sad. After just one week, sorrow blanketed me. I called home in tears. My mom gave me good advice. She told me to reach out to a high school classmate, someone I had known since I was young, who was at the same small university. I called her and asked if we could talk. I needed a friend. Someone to share (and hold) my fear and sorrow. I needed consolation.

She wasn’t ready for that. I told her I was struggling. She told me she was mad at her boyfriend. That’s all she had on her mind. Her annoyance with him dominated our conversation. There was no space for me to confess my sadness. I left our meeting lonelier than I’d entered it. I needed a minister, a consoler in my sorrow, but I found something much different.

Thirty years later, I pray that my son, amid his coming sorrows, can find someone who can give him the ministry of consolation. I pray that the ministry of consolation will deliver to him the good news of the gospel itself. That it might evangelize him, wrapping him in the message of God’s own entering into sorrow, of Jesus meeting us and saving us inside our sadness.

Evangelism comes from the Greek ev or good, and angel or message or messenger. To be part of the event of evangelism is to find yourself in the angelic act of bringing or receiving the message of good news. But we late-modern Protestants aren’t sure we can call evangelism good. Evangelism is a contested, even conflicted, word for late-modern Protestants. We’re not sure we can still embrace it or whether we ever should have. But we also feel like we need it. With our institutions experiencing declines in numbers and resources, we wonder whether a focus on evangelism might help.

Probably not a surprise to anyone who has read my work, but I don’t believe we’re thinking correctly about evangelism, particularly not about its practical, theological, and cultural location. What follows in this project is a conversation on evangelism that contextualizes it in our late-modern times.

When the twentieth century ended, there arose a great swell of optimism. The twenty-first century was believed to be full of possibility. The potential has not quite come to fruition. Instead we have a society of anxious, stressed, and angry people who I believe, in the end, are sad. We are living in sad times. There are a handful of reasons for this, but ultimately I’ll show that our times are so sad because, paradoxically, we are overcommitted to happiness. We seek happiness in nearly every waking moment. We want so badly to be happy that it’s making us sad. To show how we have become such happiness-hunters and why this makes us so restless, and often miserable, I’ll take us on a French tour. We’ll meet the father of happiness hunting himself, the Renaissance French thinker Michel de Montaigne. Montaigne, we will see, is in us all.

Whatever evangelism can be for us late moderns, it will have to address our sadness. Montaigne taught us to focus on ourselves, making the self happy as the objective of life. The same French tradition that gave us happiness as our highest human goal also gave us another figure who early on saw that Montaigne’s goals could never be reached. Blaise Pascal pointed out that we human beings are creatures of soul as much as self. As creatures of soul, we can never be settled and satisfied with happiness. Instead, we are the kind of creatures who require consolation, needing others to care for us in our sadness. As creatures of soul who are selves, we cannot avoid sorrow. Pascal wagers that if we can find such a minister and lean into our sorrow, we will find the very presence of Jesus Christ meeting and saving us. This becomes a dynamic form of evangelism.

In the second half of the book, I’ll lead us into the pastoral theologies of five thinkers who placed consolation at the center of their thought. We’ll look at Gregory of Nyssa and his sister Macrina, Jean Gerson, Johann von Staupitz, and Martin Luther. All five contend that consolation is central to our transformation, to our conversion, into the life of God. I seek in this project to construct a theology of evangelism that is a consolation theology. My hope is that doing so gives you a vision for how evangelism not only addresses our late-modern context but also gives us a practice of evangelism that escapes a market-driven consumer concern and returns us to the act of a living God. To give this all flesh, I’ll again present the story of a fictional church (as in my book Churches in the Crisis of Decline). It’s important to be concrete, and for this concreteness to reach the depth of divine action, I need to show more than tell what this looks like. I use fictional stories instead of actual field research because my goal is to shape your imagination—more than to give a scientific description of a particular context. I believe story can better carry this weight. My hope is that this story shows what it could look like for a congregation to do evangelism as a ministry of consolation.

Another way to see this project—especially as it connects to my other works—is as a presentation of evangelism born from the theologia crucis, the theology of the cross. I’ve sought to think of every part (particularly every practice) of the Christian tradition through the theologia crucis. My work as a whole has been a cultural philosophy in conversation with the theology of the cross. Evangelism takes center stage in this project.

Many friends have helped in this project, particularly by reading the manuscript and giving me feedback. Thanks to my colleague Alan Padgett, who is one of the best philosophical and theological minds I’ve known. Jessicah Duckworth and Blair Bertrand, my dear Princeton friends, again provided insightful feedback. Austin Carty, one of the best readers I know, provided wonderful insight on the manuscript as a whole and its relation to pastoral practice. Wes Ellis again provided his rich theological mind. Hank Spaulding, who’s become a wonderful dialogue partner and friend, offered many helpful points to consider. Erik Leafblad was kind enough to read part of it and give some overarching comments. Mark Sampson, whose friendship and conversations around the church I value, provided unique insights at a handful of points. My work with David Wood on an Eli Lilly endowment grant continued to deepen these thoughts and my overall project. I’m honored by David’s interest in what I’m trying to do.

Finally, my biggest thanks go to Kara Root for her love and talent in grounding both this project and my life.

Read before Using

(Don’t Skip!)

What is this book really about?

This book is the continuation of my work on ministry as a form of action where the divine encounters the human. In this book I provide a vision of evangelism as the practice and theology of consolation.

But even as I write that, the syntax fails me.

In reading that phrase it’s easy to put the weight on evangelism because it comes first. That might lead you to think that this book is primarily about evangelism, giving you a model for its shape and place in the church. If that’s what you’re reading for, you’ll probably be disappointed. There are no models, or discussions of other models, in this book (though I do give you a picture of a church that is living out evangelism). I’m not dissecting evangelism as a practice or theology in this book. Rather, I’m exploring consolation as part of a lived theology of the cross that cannot help but make a space for evangelism.

The aim of this book, then, is not to endorse evangelism even in our late-modern pluralistic days. I am, however, an endorser! But instead of an endorsement, this book is more of an apologia (in the theological sense) for the place of evangelism inside a larger theology of ministry. It is an apology for evangelism in ministry more than it is a full-blown treatment of evangelism. What is fully treated here is a ministry of the church that is grounded in a consolation that moves us into the practice of evangelism (almost as a inevitable reflex). Through a story of one church and its laypeople alongside their pastor, this book provides a thought experiment of how evangelism might be imagined inside a theology and practice of consolation that can reach those in our late-modern times—times that, as this book shows, are very sad ones.

Therefore, in the phrase evangelism as the practice and theology of consolation, I intend to weight or underline consolation. This book centers consolation as the practice that holds together evangelism and discipleship. The ground I’m hoping to break is not in discussing and justifying evangelism per se but in showing the ways that the divine encounters the human in consolation and therefore draws us into acts of evangelism.

My focus since my first book has been on how the divine encounters the human—how humans are transformed deeply by the act of a crucified God. Here I wish to show how consolation can bear the weight of the divine encountering the human. Through consolation, I’ll show that evangelism must be imagined inside this divine-human encounter, drawing the human into Godself. That’s salvation. Salvation, therefore, will be a central topic in this project but not as a point of decision—which evangelism is often reduced to. Rather, salvation and the work of evangelism will be seen as the point, the occurrence, where we turn over our sorrows to God (always with the help, with the ministry, of a community).

Evangelism and discipleship are fused. Evangelism is the invitation to receive consolation, to receive ministry. Evangelism is the reception of care that places a person on a path of encounter with the divine. Evangelism is the invitation to lean into one’s sorrows to find the sacramental presence of the living God changing one’s deaths into life. Walking this path, the one receiving consolation moves into discipleship as they lean into and give over their sorrows to the man of sorrows, Jesus Christ. By leaning into our sorrows, we are evangelized and therefore become Jesus’s disciples. We are Jesus’s disciples when, having received consolation, we go into the world to give consolation to others. This continues the unbroken circle of evangelism and discipleship, of the divine coming near to the brokenhearted, bringing life out of death and therefore saving the world.

What you’re about to read is a case for how a practice and theology of consolation—which births a theology of the cross—can transform the human being so deeply, with such good news (evangel), that the human being is converted and claimed, made alive and saved right within all their sorrow. This project secures evangelism inside my construction of ministry as the place where the divine encounters the human. It offers a view of evangelism from the theology of the cross, one that avoids all instrumentality. It allows relationship to be for relationship (not for some other means), taking us into the divine claiming the human.

Blessed be the Lord of the cross, who raises the brokenhearted from the dead.

1

Get ’Em Healthy, Get ’Em Happy

The Surprising Openness to Evangelism

Mary Ann Hapstad has worked in human resources for twenty-five years, all but three of those with a trucking company out of San Diego County. When she started at the company, it was a small, family-owned business. By the time she left, the company had grown exponentially and had been bought by a large corporation. The company now moves over 25 percent of all industrial equipment in the California inland and Nevada.

Mary Ann fell into HR. Twenty-six years ago, she was hired as a scheduler. Her job was to keep spreadsheets tidy, drivers on time, and clients informed. It was the perfect job for her reentry into the work world. Mary Ann’s youngest child had just entered first grade, and two full-time incomes had become necessary. Her affordable rural community in the foothills of the Laguna Mountains was changing fast. Companies from San Diego were pushing toward Mary Ann’s once remote town, moving into newly built business complexes in the valley. Housing developers from Orange County were buying up old horse farms and turning them into high-end gated communities. The rich and the beautiful wanted out of the congested towns near the coast.

Property taxes and the overall cost of living were skyrocketing. This made it an easy decision when Bud Jr., the owner of the company and son of the founder, asked Mary Ann, just thirteen months after being hired as a scheduler, to be their first ever HR director. Bud Jr., a man of few words (but more than his father), simply said one Wednesday afternoon, I guess they’re tellin’ me—the lawyers and such—that we need some kind of human resources person. I don’t really know what that means. But you seem like a real organized gal, so you want it? It comes with a 10 percent raise.

That’s all Mary Ann needed to hear. She’d never finished her college degree, but here was an offer with a pay level that usually came only to those with a college degree. The tensions in her marriage were high. Mary Ann and her husband fought about nearly everything. But money always seemed to be the spark that ignited the fuse. Mary Ann figured that more money would mean less tension. But that wasn’t so. Just six months after starting the HR position and finding that it suited her quite well—while Mary Ann was falling in love with the job, gaining confidence and esteem as she found her way into a profession, learning so much at conferences and seminars—her marriage ended. It stung and wounded her.

Mary Ann’s husband left, taking a job as a mechanic with an airline in Dallas. Her children, both under ten, were now without a father. Her oldest son particularly was shaken. It was all so painful. Keeping it all together was hard. The grief and worry were sharp and piercing. Work became her respite, the only place she felt competent. But even work couldn’t completely take away her anxiety, shame, and sorrow over what was lost.

It was during that time, twenty-three years ago, that Mary Ann first connected to her church. She’d never been inside a church. Not once in childhood or adulthood. Her father had moved to California to reject polite society and all its formal beliefs—and religion was at the top of that list. The rural community in which Mary Ann grew up was made up of people like her father. They were mostly leftovers from the counterculture who migrated inland from LA and the Bay Area, as well as others who were escaping something back east. Mary Ann’s wedding happened not in a church but at a park, with a justice of the peace presiding. The other two weddings she’d been to occurred outdoors as well—it was California after all. Unlike her father, Mary Ann didn’t hate the church or religion broadly; she just never thought about it. She had no context, no direct experience, to either hate or care about the church and its claims.

But the separation and divorce had led her into a heavy and lonely place. Mary Ann never talked with anyone about this. Having a stiff upper lip was a mantra she learned from her father, and she tried to apply that to any hardship. Never admit you’re hurt, Mary Ann remembered her father saying. One day a coworker, a scheduler named Valentina, asked whether Mary Ann was okay, stating directly, It seems like you’re carrying a heavy load. Valentina’s words turned on a faucet. Mary Ann began spilling her burdens. Two hours later Mary Ann felt held in a way she never had before. She was pretty sure this wasn’t good HR practice, but she knew more than ever that she needed a friend.

From that day on, three times a week, Mary Ann and Valentina walked and conversed along an old horse trail that had been turned into a bike path. Valentina also knew loss. Her oldest son, Leonardo, had been arrested and sentenced for theft. He was stealing to feed a bad addiction. Valentina explained that at her darkest point, the people from her church sat with her in the courtroom. And as the crushing grief pinned her beneath a boulder of depression, her church fed her every night for over three weeks after the sentence. Because of that, Valentina was walking this horse trail with Mary Ann. One day Valentina said, Our pastor says all the time, ‘Followers of Jesus join sorrow.’ I saw that firsthand, so now I do it. That’s it. Nothing else to it really. I just follow. Mary Ann had never heard something so beautiful and true.

Twenty-three years later, Mary Ann is ending her third stint on the church council and has served as a deacon for over two decades of ministry. She loves bringing communion to homebound members. She sits with them and listens, following in the footsteps of Valentina, who followed Jesus into sorrow.

For almost two decades, Mary Ann and Valentina walked that old horse path together at least once a week. They shared so much through laughter and tears. They continued to walk until Valentina couldn’t. On Valentina’s sixty-second birthday, she fainted. Tests revealed that her heart was in bad shape. Eight weeks later she was dead. Mary Ann and others from the church sat with her son Leonardo for days, grieving with him, joining his sorrow.

With Valentina’s death it seemed as good a time as any for Mary Ann to switch jobs. Valentina always told Mary Ann that she needed to move on. Mary Ann had watched the trucking company expand, and she even enjoyed the transition to new ownership. The changes had always kept her from truly entertaining offers from bigger companies with more people under her and better benefits. She could never make the move. She felt loyal to Bud Jr., even after he sold, and she loved seeing Valentina and talking about church. But with Valentina gone, and Bud Jr. retired to Cabo, the time seemed right.

A high-end apparel brand with a campus just miles from Mary Ann’s rural community, in the valley below, was looking for a co-vice president of HR. Looking for a co-anything was appealing in itself. Mary Ann had worked mostly solo. Only in the last few years, with the arrival of new ownership, did the trucking company add another person under her to make an HR team. The apparel company promised not only a team of half a dozen people but a direct partnership at the top, with the co-VP. To make matters even better, Mary Ann had known the other half of the VP partnership for years. Mary Ann had met Garrett at conferences and seminar trainings. Garrett, about fifteen years younger than Mary Ann, considered her to be one of his mentors. Mary Ann had even written a reference when Garrett applied for the position he now held.

The transition to the apparel company was mostly smooth. Garrett and Mary Ann worked well together. But Mary Ann had to admit she found some things odd. She tried to tell herself that this was only natural. She reminded herself that a lifestyle apparel brand and a trucking company were, of course, going to be different. But it always felt strange, like being in an alternate universe, when the CEO and other executives talked. They’d often ask for reports on employee happiness. Bud Jr. never once asked about the happiness of his employees, let alone a report. Mary Ann wasn’t even sure Bud Jr. truly knew the word happiness. Cranky and curmudgeonly were more Bud Jr.’s speed. Mary Ann would always answer the executives at the apparel brand about whether the workers were satisfied and content in the work environment. Bud Jr. had cared about that. But that was never what they meant. The CEO, Will Winterer, stressed that he wanted them happy. The mission of the brand was to bring wellness to the world, to make the world a healthier and happier place. One dollar of every purchase was given to organizations and charities that brought wellness initiatives to those who were less fortunate. But the company couldn’t meet this evangelistic mission of bringing wellness to the world (through expensive T-shirts, jogging shorts, and yoga pants) if its own employees weren’t healthy and happy. Mary Ann picked up quickly that being healthy was the way to be happy. It shouldn’t have taken her so long. There was an enormous poster in the entryway of the building with a picture of an attractive woman running and wearing a big smile, and above it in bold, red letters it said, GET HEALTHY, GET HAPPY.

As Mary Ann and Garrett read through résumés, they agreed that Renate was overqualified to be a catalog editor. Renate had years of writing for some of New York’s top publications. Her bylines included Vogue, the New York Times, Esquire, and The Atlantic. Her pieces covered fashion and lifestyle, with a few opinion pieces on celebrities. Mary Ann and Garrett decided to fly her out immediately for an interview. Mary Ann had some concerns, but Will, the CEO, was ecstatic. Having read Renate’s pieces for years, he said, Get her on a flight now! Mary Ann and Garrett’s main question and concern was, Why this position? Why go from writing journalistic pieces to writing copy for shorts and ads for underwear?

In the interview, Renate, ever polished, cited the company’s mission. But in a moment of honesty, she told Mary Ann and Garrett that she was completely burned out in New York City. She wanted out of New York, and fast. It wasn’t good for her health, she explained. Mary Ann sensed a great deal of discontent in Renate, but Renate never called it that; she didn’t see it that way. It was the city that made her unhealthy. The only thing that made the stress of New York City livable was the wellness practices she’d found. Renate talked about wellness like it was a conversion, and she was now an evangelist. She explained that if it were not for clean and mindful eating, a seminar on sleep hygiene, CBD intakes, and hot yoga sessions, she would have burned out and faded away long ago. It was the only way to find health, and therefore happiness, in such an unhealthy environment.

Renate wanted out of New York City, but she also wanted into California, the promised land of wellness. She needed the California sun, and she saw California as the wellness capital of the world. Like a medieval village priest longing for Rome, Renate longed for California. California represented the epicenter of the wellness knowledge that had saved her. Renate told Mary Ann and Garrett that she was ready to leave New York City behind and be truly healthy. This, she knew, could make her happy. She was putting wellness above career, she explained. It was time to put her happiness first by putting her health first. She’d tried to get to happiness through career, but that only made her unhealthy. Sensing that this statement could be misunderstood and might not show the best tact for an interview, Renate added, If my career can’t allow me to be healthy, then I’ll never be happy. That’s what I love about this company, the way health and happiness are connected. For someone like me who was saved by self-care and wellness, this company is heaven. Renate laughed. She was hired before the end of the day.

The first six to nine months were great. Renate seemed to be excelling, and the executives loved her. She returned from almost every weekend with tales of a wellness retreat or new product she’d found. The latest was her charcoal-infused pillow and a session she’d attended on a mushroom-only cleanse. There was always a cleanse.

But then everything changed. Renate’s carefree and upbeat attitude was gone, and her work was not getting done. Will, who was Renate’s direct report, became frustrated. He asked Mary Ann to talk with Renate and offer her the company’s personal perks. The personal perks process never felt quite right to Mary Ann, but it was common practice for Garrett and it came from the top. When an employee voiced stress or any form of unhappiness, the company would respond by offering the employee services and access to mindfulness sessions and decompression techniques, even free months at a high-end gym. It fit perfectly with the ethos of the company. If an employee was unhappy, it was because they were unhealthy. To get happy, get healthy. The actions of the worker, more than the work environment itself, needed reforming toward health. None of this was at Mary Ann’s speed (and she knew Bud Jr. would think it completely bogus). But she wasn’t doing HR for Bud Jr. anymore. And good HR always serves the mission of the company. So she met with Renate.

How are you feeling about work? Mary Ann asked. Renate assured her it was good. Mary Ann explained that her supervisor was concerned that things were not getting done in a timely manner. Renate agreed and mentioned some stress she’d been under. Mary Ann could tell. Per the practice of the company, Mary Ann offered Renate access to mindfulness breaks and a certificate to a touchless spa in La Jolla. Renate could only muster a small nod and a half smile. The offer seemed to land as if it were more weight added to an invisible load Renate was already carrying. Mary Ann, staying on script, asked, Are those options something you’d like to take advantage of? Renate seemed more burdened than anything; exhaling, she seemed to concede in a near whisper, Yes, sure.

It was then that Mary Ann heard it. It was coming from within her but somehow outside her as well. She heard herself say the same words that Valentina had said to her over twenty years earlier. Words far outside the HR handbook of the apparel company. Mary Ann said, It seems like you’re carrying quite a load. This recognition of sadness was the first step of following Jesus into sorrow. Renate’s head dropped, her hands moving to her brow, and she pushed back her hair. She then said with glossy eyes, I know this isn’t suited for work. I know it shouldn’t affect my work, but my father died two weeks ago.

For all the wellness and self-care, all the cleanses and charcoal-infused pillows that Renate embraced for the health that would produce happiness, none of it helped her with this sorrow. There was no optimizing her grief, no new superfood to cure it, no yoga teacher to visit her with a meal. She was alone. The California sun now just burned with the heat of loneliness. She was away from her father when he died, unable to get home. Now feeling guilty for that, she bore his absence acutely. Renate’s father was dead, and she had no idea how to grieve him. She’d moved to California to be healthy, but now she was alone.

Mary Ann was pretty sure this wasn’t good HR practice, but she knew Renate needed a friend. Mary Ann found herself asking Renate, Do you know that old horse trail that’s now a bike path off Highway 17? Meet me there at six. Wear good shoes.

All the Conversions

It may not be obvious at first, but the story above contains multiple conversions. Both Mary Ann and Renate are converted (and maybe more than once). Mary Ann’s conversion is bound to classic religious forms. Mary Ann’s portion of the story mentions a church, a pastor, and a community joining in grief. Renate, too, is converted. She too finds new meaning and purpose inside a call to a distinct way of life. Renate gives herself over to an overarching goal—an aim, a horizon—that she names as happiness through health. This horizon, this reaching for the ultimate pursuit of happiness, calls her to take on distinct and morally infused ways of being healthy. These moral ways of being are bound to distinct forms of knowledge, which she often shares with others, trying to convert them to this way of being through this knowledge (or perhaps it’s better to call it information). Renate is on a constant search to uncover which toxins need to be avoided or which superfoods can lead to a breakthrough in health. She listens intently to the wisdom of her gurus and those in the know, ready to pass on what she learns to whomever will listen. Renate must live this certain way because of what she has come to know, and what she knows can lead her to the salvation of happiness.1

Returning to Mary Ann, her conversion takes a classic religious form. Unlike Renate, there is a church, a pastor, and a community of people. Even so, her experience is missing some of the stereotypical marks of modern understandings and practices of conversion. There is no sense that Mary Ann responded to an altar call. Nor did she embrace the meaning, purpose, and practices of Christianity in order to escape the ledger of hell and secure a seat in heaven. And yet Mary Ann is converted. She is made into a Christian. But the work of this making happened outside the model that has been called conversionism2

—a kind of obsession with getting people to decide, as if it were in their own power to do so, for heaven instead of hell. Mary Ann’s conversion is different and yet no less bound in the Christian tradition.

Mary Ann is transformed into participating in the very life of Christ.