‘The Last Stop: Understanding the Emerging Church Movement’ Interview with Gladys Ganiel and Gerardo Marti Published in Bearings

‘The Last Stop: Understanding the Emerging Church Movement’ Interview with Gladys Ganiel and Gerardo Marti Published in Bearings

Thanks to my fantastic co-author, Gladys Ganiel, who posted our interview on her own blogsite. 

Gladys writes --

An interview with Gerardo Marti and me, ‘The Last Stop: Understanding the Emerging Church Movement,’ has been published in the Collegeville Institute’s Bearings magazine.

The interview begins on page nine and is based in large part on our forthcoming book, The Deconstructed Church: Understanding Emerging Christianity, and includes questions such as:

• How do you introduce the Emerging Church to those who are unfamiliar with the movement?
• What does the Emerging Church Movement tell us about the contemporary religious landscape? What is its significance as a modern religious movement?
• Do you think the Emerging Church Movement will play a role in Christianity’s historical development?

CLICK HERE TO READ THE INTERVIEW

Evangelicalism, Continental Philosophy, and the Deconstructed Church

Thanks to a wonderful invitation from philosopher Jack Caputo, I spent much of last week at Syracuse University participating in The Future of the Continental Philosophy of Religion conference.  

This was quite the event, a gathering of philosophers from the US and UK who specialize in distinctive readings of Hegel, Kierkegaard, Merleau-Ponty, Derrida, Deleuze and the like along with more recent thinkers like Zizek and Meillassoux (you can check out the conference program).  I was pleased to hear Catherine Malabou, Thomas Altizer, and Merold Westphol interacting in  sessions.  With Harvey Cox, Clayton Crockett, and Philip Goodchild in the mix, it was really quite an occasion. 

I was invited to a session focused on Peter Rollins, what I called "the phenomenon of Peter Rollins," as a means to explore one development in the Continental Philosophy of Religion.  When I was invited to present, my follow up email to Jack Caputo said something like,"You realize I'm a sociologist and not a philosopher, right?"  They were quite willing to introduce a multi-disciplinary dialogue that described not only with the ideas of Peter Rollins but what he may represent as actions and movements in our broader religious context. With thirty minutes to share, I tried to unpack my best understanding of how Peter Rollins lies along a long path of renegotiating conservative Christianity that has been brewing for almost two decades.

Most of us know that the spectacular success of Evangelicalism in the 1970s through the 1990s created a self-sustaining Evangelical world—and that these successes created a backlash. Evangelical leaders came to seek ways to overcome the churched/non-churched divide. But the journey hasn’t been smooth.

As Evangelicals became attentive to creating a closed “Christian culture,” many disaffected evangelicals left their churches, becoming critics rather than compliant members. Listening to criticism from outside, atheistic thinkers resourced their critique. There emerged a number of Christian readers of secular philosophy who were pleased to take up an aggressive questioning of the certainty, “truth,” and the resulting morality and politics that came with it. Much of the underlying tone of such criticism draws on a hermeneutics of suspicion with its post-Marx, post-Nietzsche, and post-Freud sensibilities. Notions and paradigms promoted by these new "Christian" writers and thinkers is buttressed and often inspired directly by Continental Philosophy.

Attention to "postmodern thinkers" complimented a broader surge of interest in “postmodern philosophy” among Evangelical seminarians and church leaders. Christian publishers are still catching up to this hunger, producing more books building on recent philosophical work (e.g., Philosophy and Theology series from Continuum / T&T Clark and Church and Postmodern Culture series from Baker Publishing Group). In practice, a growing number of evangelical church leaders are moving from simple “Bible Study” to openly engaging Continental Philosophy through their books and concepts in small gatherings. On my twitter feed yesterday, I mentioned Gianni Vattimo's work, and that initiated a stream of follow-up discussions with fellow tweeps who pay attention to theology and religion. 

This engagement with such deeply intellectual work represents a significant shift. Mark Noll in his Scandal of the Evangelical Mind articulated the historical basis for anti-intellectualism among Ameircan Evangelicals. Now we are seeing more educated evangelicals who are finding their religious frameworks “lag” behind the theoretical or epistemological/ontological sophistication of their schooling. They have fundamental critiques of what they see as “modern” ways of reading the bible (hermeneutics), organizing the church (ecclesiology), and assessing morality and devotion (spiritual formation) and are forming new types of Christian gatherings to express their developing values.

Continental philosophy "works" because it involves thinkers whose work invokes a sustained social critique. Continental philosophy is concerned with structures, underlying structures of society (often drawn from Marxist orientations) and underlying structures of the psyche (often drawn from Freudian orientations). A pursuit of uncovering the working of underlying, non-conscious, structures, cultivates observations that eventually can move to practical efforts in what to talk to people about (preaching), what humans are to become (evangelism and discipleship), how community is to be lived together (ecclesiology and “loving one’s neighbor”), and how to act in the world (duty to God and others). These writings provide resources for being prophetic to the church and to the world.

These Christian critics have been helped also by the “religious turn” in Continental Philosophy and the greater availability of religious thinkers in this vein as primary and secondary works were made more available at the same time as the disaffection and pursuit of alternative frameworks happened among evangelicals. This includes writings from and about Jacques Derrida, Jurgen Habermas, Rene Girard, Jon-Luc Marion, Emmanual Levinas, Paul Ricoeur, Jean-Luc Nancy -- Slavoj Žižek,, Giorgio Agamben, Alain Badiou, Gianni Vattimo). Jack Caputos’s appropriation of Derrida, Levinas’s rejection of Heidegger, Marion’s religious reinterpretation of phenemenologists, and more emerge amidst this re-thinking, aggressively incorporating insights from philosophers who engage in distinctive readings of Hegel, Kierkegaard, Marx, Freud, Husserl, and Heidegger.

In the conference, I dared to raise Peter Rollins to a more significant level by placing him in a broader socio-historical context. Trained in post-structural philosophy, with a PhD from Queens University in Northern Ireland,  Rollins intellectually stimulating style of speaking, writing, and consulting fits efforts to flesh out Christianity in new ways that are sensitive to societal shifts and emerging sensibilities. In other words, the happenings around his person are a manifestation of changes across mainstream Christianity. So while Peter Rollins is an interesting person in and of himself, I moved away from assuming that compelling ideas from a single, charismatic leader initiates social change. Instead, Peter Rollins unique “ministry” (which I place in quotes) is an interesting and timely development of American Christianity that finds resonance in the cumulative contradictions of modern Evangelicalism.

I suspect that Continental Philosophy is underpinning a profound reworking of theological questions including what is the church (ecclesiology), what it means to be human (anthropology), and how life is to be lived (ethics) -- at least for a significant segment of American Christians. Peter Rollins’s appropriation of Continental Philosophy fuels provocative practices in the form of preaching and new types of groups among those who resonate with his message.  And it’s the practice of new religious gatherings (like "Pub Churches") that especially attracts the interest of this sociologist.

New Approaches to New Evangelicalism - Special Session in Denver

Here's a shout out for a session I organized for this weekend at SSSR in Denver, Colorado, on contemporary Evangelicalism in the US and abroad.

Image by Andwar via Flickr

Competition among sessions this year at SSSR is fierce!

So many great sessions in each slot, but you just can't miss the session on New Approaches to New Evangelicalism. Our session brims with brilliance through the work of excellent scholars doing fascinating research. You can count on this being a stimulating time with plenty to chew on.

New Approaches to New Evangelicalism
Westin Tabor Center
Room: Teller

Organizer: Gerardo Marti, Davidson College

One Way Out: Examining the ‘Evangelical Exit Clause’ for Central America
Robert Brenneman, University of Notre Dame (rbrennem@nd.edu)

Exporters of Religion: Evangelicals in Global South Impact Other Countries with the Gospel
Stephen Offutt, Boston University (soffutt@bu.edu)

Reconstructing Social Space at Willow Creek Community Church
Peter Mundey, University of Notre Dame (pmundey@nd.edu)

The Emotional and Aesthetic Dimensions of the Local Church Rock Scene
Kevin McElmurry, University of Missouri (Klm143@mizzou.edu)

Plan on meeting us Saturday October 24 @ 3:45pm-5:15pm.

Sociologists Need to Account for Evangelicals’ Vitality

Thanks to Jason Byassee, executive director of Leadership Education at Duke Divinity, I was asked to contribute a post to the Call & Response Blog. As a sociologist, I'm fascinated by the intersection of religion and social change. Because much of my focus has been on the American context, it's impossible to ignore the vitality of Evangelicalism in the United States.

I've noticed that not everyone is as sanguine about Evangelicalism as I am.

In fact, most sociologists ignore all forms of religious enthusiasm. At Duke Divinity's Call & Response blog, I write:

Spiritual vitality is not a topic normally addressed by sociologists. My discipline historically has more often severely critiqued religion for its oppressive beliefs and practices.

Of course, sociologists are not alone in this: gauged by books and magazines at my local bookstore and conversations with colleagues and neighbors, arguments for the oppressiveness of religion are everywhere. The disappointment and hurt so common among people I know fuels the attention given to the "new atheism" in recent books like Sam Harris’ “Letter to a Christian Nation,” Christopher Hitchens’ “God is Not Great,” and Richard Dawkins’ “The God Delusion.”

But, a few social scientists do pay attention, and I point out that my reading of some recent publications reveals social scientists promoting their own particular religious bias.

Image via Wikipedia

There is a lot they don't like about Evangelicalism.

They acknowledge the strength of Evangelicalism and the evidence that churches in the "Mainline" are adopting Evangelical tactics. Yet, the very spread of "Evangelicalism" is not seen as success, or less the work of God, but rather evidence of a noxious spread of the frightening demons of shallow individualistic spirituality, right-wing freakishness, and worldly decline.

I say to my colleagues that we need a broader analytical approach that encompasses, rather than ignores, the strength of Evangelicalism --

Social scientists must switch from merely a critique of evangelicalism to a broader analysis of what constitutes the set of dynamics broadly labeled (and vilified) as “Evangelicalism.”

How do we account for the passion, excitement, and (dare I say it?) spiritual vitality evident in at least a portion of evangelical churches?

I'm not alone. Theologian Philip Clayton at the Claremont School of Theology has also aggressively promoted a more open-minded understanding of evangelical vitality. This is a call not to promote Evangelicalism, but rather to avoid merely dismissing it.

Evangelical Elites - Power in American Culture

Today I present this extended video lecture from my friend and colleague D. Michael Lindsay given earlier this year at Calvin College. Michael is a sociologist at Rice University and author of the bestselling book Faith in the Halls of Power.

Michael centers his work on the workings of power in American culture.

While completing his research at Princeton University, Michael accomplished an unusual research project. He successfully conducted interviews with more than 350 people of prominence, including two former Presidents of the United States and over two dozen Cabinet secretaries and senior White House staffers; more than 100 presidents, CEOs, and senior executives at large firms (both public and private); two dozen accomplished Hollywood professionals; more than 10 leaders from the world of professional athletics; and more than 100 leaders from the artistic, philanthropic, educational, and nonprofit arenas.

His recent focus on Evangelicals has drawn a great deal of attention, and this lecture titled "Powerful Faith: Evangelicals in American Culture" given to business leaders in Grand Rapids provides a glimpse into his findings.

TJS 20090120 lindsay from Calvin College on Vimeo.

Michael continues to do excellent work and now leads an ongoing multi-year study known as The PLATINUM Study—Public Leaders in America Today and the Inquiry into their Networks, Upbringing, and Motivations.

Brazilian Evangelicals - New National Religion?

According to UK's Guardian, Brazil's evangelical churches are booming, but for all their marketing savvy they don't have the status of Catholicism.

A fascinating article from the UK pits Evangelicals versus Catholics in the battle for Brazil's religious self-identity. Pictures from the story show young, enthusiastic worshipers pouring their hearts out in worship.

This ain't your grandma's Sunday school.

The vibrancy of commitment seen here can be excused as being "Brazilian" - the Latin passion manifesting itself through worship. Except this same style of worship can be seen in the contemporary Evangelical churches in the American mid-west.

It's not an ethnic religion, but a charismatic worship that's being seen here.

Instead, we are seeing continued evidence of the Global South embracing forms of ecstatic Christianity. From the article:

In the past 20 years or so, Brazil, cited as the country with the biggest catholic population in the world, has witnessed a migration from Rome to the booming evangelical churches. According to IBGE (the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics), the Catholic population in the country was 91.8% of the total in 1970. But the most recent survey, in 2000, revealed that the number of Catholics had fallen to 73. 8% with the number of evangelicals up from 5.2% to 15.6%.

The shift is accompanied by new methodologies of "doing church" similar to things we've seen in the United States. According to the article, "Rock concerts, fighting events and surfer rituals are some of the activities laid on by new churches that are garnering increasing numbers of followers."

But can we explain away this spiritual vitality by approaching it as savvy marketing?

I don't think so.

According to Antonio Flávio Pierucci, professor at the department of sociology of the University of São Paulo and a specialist in the sociology of religion, "the new Pentecostal churches [are good at] media and marketing..." BUT "analysing the statistical data shows that older evangelical churches have grown too."

For Pierucci, "It means that Catholicism is struggling against older Pentecostalism as well as the new varieties."

Pierucci says a key reason for churchgoers' change in allegiance is the development of the religious freedom, a process which began at the end of the 19th century. With the end of the empire and the advent of the republic in Brazil, the Roman Catholic church lost much of its power. And although the article does not explain how this works, Pierucci also states that the military dictatorship (1964-1984) also helped sow the seeds of the evangelical "boom".

We've got to look at the bundle of social changes that stimulate new religious developments. Media push and marketing "tricks" are simply not enough to sustain broad growth in any religious orientation.

And the new wave in Brazil is experiencing it's own challenge in how people understand the new movement. "It is really rare to find a student who is brave enough to say that he is a new Pentecostalist. There is still some prejudice."

"It is not just about class, but about the status of the new Pentecostalism."

Instant Cool: Explaining the Diffusion of "Contemporary" Church Culture

Church Marketing Sucks, a website concerned with the use of contemporary marketing techniques by church leaders, recently provided a list of great media resources for churches freely available online. Through sites like these, we have a privileged window into American religion. Why? Because understanding the circulation of these media materials gives us an alternative means for understanding the widespread diffusion of "contemporary" church culture.

Image by mufan96 via Flickr

We know contemporary churches use rented facilities. Not just movie theaters and high school auditoriums--churches are using bars and coffeehouses, community centers and warehouses, even lake shores and parking lots. How do these church leaders focus spiritual attention in these architecturally challenging sites?

Well, what's happening is that even churches who do not have specially-designed or "megachurch" aesthetics are adopting sharp media imagery to promote an exciting "vibe" that directs devotional attention and speaks to quality (and money) even when the church is just starting out.

Take a look through the free resource sites listed by Church Marketing Sucks below. Each of these congregational ministries have longtime experience producing entire suites of visual materials that compliment and accentuate message series:

• Elevation Church
  
• Lifechurch.tv
  
• Northside Christian Church
  
• Stuff I Can Use (Southeast Christian Church)
  
• The Church Box (Four Corners Community Church)
  
• CreativeMYK
  
• Muddy River Media

Clicking and exploring these sites, you get a sense of what non-high liturgy, "contemporary" churches are bringing into their services.

(For church-researcher types, these materials provide fodder for understanding seeker churches, new paradigm churches, and emerging adult spirituality.)

But, I'm writing this post to make a particular point: The availability of these materials points out an aspect of the modern diffusion of church culture. Here's what I see.

The internet is allowing more easy accessibility to media resources. Churches which have produced these materials (and are frequently asked by scores of other church leaders who literally salivate over obtaining such things) are seeing the extension of their local church ministry as giving away these resources--at zero cost.

See, churches that produce these materials are well aware of the money and time invested in the creation of media materials that have an inherent disposability to them. They'll never be used again in their church (since churches don't "repeat" sermon series). So they are happy to have them used by others and see their investment put to good use by others.

In other words, providing media resources to other churches (after they have been used in the base church) is understood to be part of the missional outreach of the congregation.Graphic materials are viewed as tools (modern, necessary, missionary tools) that can be easily adapted by like-minded ministries who are perceived to be essentially partnering with them to spread a message they already believe should be widely promoted.

Because these media items are used in many different churches across the nation (perhaps the anglophone world), and because church attenders are highly unlikely to know the materials they see were originally used somewhere else, there is an unacknowledged yet powerful diffusion of Christian visual culture -- at last a type of Christian culture.

And because we have not studied this, I speculate that the diffusion of style, ambiance, and ethos of religion embedded within these media materials is reinforcing particular boundaries of similarity and identity.

In the research literature, this is a type of "institutional isomorphism." But I won't go into all that now. It's enough to say that researchers DiMaggio and Powell* defined imitating or "Mimetic Processes" as coming from similar external conditions. In particular:

Uncertainty encourages imitation.

What does this mean for how "contemporary" church culture is widely reproduced?

Let's look at how this works. Using DiMaggio and Powell's framework, predictors of similarity (or "isomorphism") are based on premises like this:

Principle 1: The greater the centralization of resource supply, the more it will change to resemble the organizations it is dependent upon.

Application 1: There are only a few churches willing to give away these media materials, so the dependency on these few churches raises their influence as models for how to "do church."

Principle 2: The more uncertainty, the more an organization will model it's structure after successful firms.

Application 2: The means to growing new (and struggling) churches is highly uncertain, so leaders look to the successes of other, usually much larger and media-rich, churches.

Principle 3: The more ambiguous the goals, the more an organization will mimic a successful one to establish legitimacy.

Application 3: A mission statement like "Reaching our community with the gospel" is quite ambiguous, so church leaders quickly become alerted to widely accepted models of ministry and absorb their media practices.

These are not exhaustive, and certainly the principles are not directed soley toward understanding the use of media. Nevertheless, these principles provide a quick peek into the dynamics of isomorphism that can be applied.

Other important aspects are how organizational models can be diffused is through employee migration, which in the case of churches would include the movement of clergy, lay leaders, as well as members between churches. Larger churches with well-institutionalized media ministries more quickly diffuse their media-intelligent people in comparison with smaller churches which are not likely to have as extensive of media practices.

Also, organizational models are spread by consulting firms, which in the case of leaders is usually accomplished through church leader conferences. Highlighting and discussing the use of media is a common aspect of "contemporary" church conferences.

I've come a long way in this post, something I thought I'd shoot off much more quickly than I did. Here's my main point.

In short, I've come to think that the accessibility and wide-spread use of church media materials gives us an alternative pathway to grasping how the cultures of "contemporary" churches can be understood. For me, this highlights that the occurrence of "contemporary" churches are not isolated phenomena--and most of us know this.

Further, it also suggests that "contemporary" churches are more tightly networked with each other than we usually think, specifically around assisting one another to reach similar goals with similar methods. Media materials provides a tangible means to enact those networks.

*P. J. DiMaggio & W. Powell, "The iron cage revisited" institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields", American Sociological Review, 48 (1983), 147-60.

Inside Look: Andy Stanley's North Point Church Describes Creative Process

Quick post: The media department of Andy Stanley's North Point church in the Atlanta area posted a blog today walking through their creative process for a new sermon series.

North Point in Atlanta is a large, multi-site church that invests time strategizing their communication process.

This is more than just "making sermons interesting." The ambitious effort to craft ideas based at the heart of Christian concerns that connect to a mainstream audience is routinely performed.

Here's one video that came through this particular process.

Promo: "Losing Your Religion" from North Point Media on Vimeo.

Of course, North Point is not alone in their concern to craft image-saturated, symbolically-rich content. In my own research I've described Mosaic in Los Angeles and Oasis in Hollywood at length (yes, yes, "read my book...").

Nevertheless, it is important to realize the degree to which religious creativity is channeled through the construction of mission-driven religious content.

Dan Kimball Gives Update on New Network of Entrepreneurial Evangelicals

Thanks to Dan Kimball, we now have a nice update of what's coming through the initiative of a group of missional, innovation-friendly Christians this coming year.

Posting an "insider's view" of the Origins Project on his website, pastor and author Dan Kimball from Vintage Faith Church in Santa Cruz, California, describes a series of new initiatives coming out of a meeting at Eriwn McManus's house with David Gibbons, April Diaz, Margaret Feinberg, Josh Fox, Amena Brown, Eric Bryant, Marc McCartney, and other staff members from NewSong Irvine and Mosiac Los Angeles. (Others like Scot McKnight and Mark Batterson were unable to join.)

If you don't know these names, together they constitute a dynamic collection of evangelicals who write, speak, and perform across the world on matters of mission, relevance, innovation, and church leadership. Dan expresses in his own words the core of this Origins group:

Origins is a network/community being birthed for those who are passionate about Jesus, Humanity and Innovation. So this means it is for anyone who desires to join in on the hopeful mission of people experiencing and knowing the love, and saving grace of Jesus. And using our God-given creativity and innovative thinking in this mission.

There's a lot happening with this very passionate, highly mobilized, and well-networked group. We're getting in on the ground floor through this post. Some highlights include:

Origins festival-event - July 2010: We will be doing an event next summer (most likely in July). It will have a festival-like feel to it with lots of break out groups for connecting, music, art creating, poetry and spoken word creating and inspiration of stories and various sized meetings. Part of the event will be actual serving the community - so it will be about the gospel of Jesus being both proclamation and in deeds.

"Listening" tour - Fall and Spring 2009-2010: We are taking the development of this seriously as we want to be listening to people who have ideas and how they envision Origins to be. It is already happening in the "community" section of the website. But this Fall we will have meetings all across the country where we will be asking questions and listening. Questions like "What would you envision this network to be like?

Regional Groups: part of this will be forming regional groups around the country who can connect for inspiration, discussion and encouragement and learning from one another.

A kick-off book: We discussed some really great ideas for a kick-off book which will hopefully be an inspiring one and a different approach to what a book like this normally would be.

One thing that stands out here is how religious innovation involves a communal network of zealous participants. It is a social movements model invoked by this group that is discontent with staid, "churchy" ways of doing ministry and instead stretching to reframe Christian discipleship as a dynamic, vision-driven, world-involved, and relationally-saturated way of life.

And while the words and actions of this group are involved in a problematic critique with mainstream Christianity, they are spending less time speaking about the enemy of dead religion (as they see it) and more about coordinating their efforts to foster new congregational forms.

Is Obama the Antichrist? Well, Of Course He Is...

The American Religion Historian Matthew Avery Sutton wields a sharp pen. His book connecting American politics and the ministry of Aimee Semple McPherson is fascinating and important. Now in a post on Religion Dispatches this week, Matt takes aim at evangelicals and their relationship to President Obama, especially in their all-too-frequent obsession over decoding biblical prophecy. While Matt may not slay the beast, I think he hits pretty close to the heart.

(Thanks again to Paul Harvey for his posting at the Religion and American History blog.)

Historian Matt Sutton doesn't hold back. He combines careful scholarship with sharp opinion. As a writer, we might say Matt has a "point of view." Even more, Matt is a scholar willing to tell people what he really thinks. Uncommon for an untenured professor.

In this post, Matt shows how it is inevitable that Obama's serene "Angel of Light" manner will be interpreted as yet another indication of the coming Antichrist.

Matt points out that "the vast majority of American evangelicals interpret the most obscure books of the Bible (Daniel, Ezekiel, and Revelation) in a very narrow and particular way. They believe that when these three books are read in conjunction with one another and overlaid with a few of Jesus’ statements, a hidden 'plan of the ages' emerges." And he's right. This is a holdover from the grip of dispensationalism (found in places like Scofield's Study Bible, bestselling Christian books both scholarly and popular, and frequent Sunday sermons) that has held evangelicals for most of the 20th Century.

He continues, "During the last 100 years, evangelicals have witnessed more and more evidence of these prophecies being fulfilled..." and shows how the Antichrist was predicted in the rise of leaders and various policies that emerged in this eventful time.

"So what does this mean for the Obama administration? Nothing very promising. Despite the president’s desire to find common ground with evangelicals, he is unlikely to be able to penetrate the apocalyptic fears that have characterized the evangelical movement since the Great Depression."

The flexibility of biblical interpretation and the considerable history of connecting the actions of political leaders with violent acts and natural disasters of all kinds leads these beleivers to connecting the dots of Obama's life to the determinative flow of spiritual history.

Image by jamelah via Flickr

In other words, if you look for the Antichrist, you will find him.

Matt throws up his hands and concludes:

So what can we do? Pray for the rapture. If evangelicals vanish, the rest of us might finally get better medical care, a healthier environment, a more just international community, and full civil rights for gays and lesbians. But short of this miracle, we can at least begin to understand that before Obama is able to penetrate the evangelical heart, evangelicals themselves will need to do some serious soul-searching. Rick Warren and Joel Osteen’s shallow, positive-thinking, feel-good sermonizing is not going to help them do this. Instead, it is up to the younger evangelicals to engage in serious intellectual debate and a rigorous rethinking of the theology at the root of their politics. Anything less and the doomsayers will turn fears of Obama-as-Antichrist into big business. But hell, maybe that’s just the spark the economy needs.

Here Matt tips his hand on his own politics. Nevertheless, I think Matt is right that the old-school, end-times prophetic orientation of evangelicals will keep them from ever seeing politicians who fail to live up to a conservative social agenda as being less than an agent of prophecy, accelerating the apocalyptic consummation of history.

And he raises an important question. What are the resources available for re-thinking the theology at the root of evangelical politics? Is there something that needs to be recovered from the past, perhaps Walter Rauchenbush? Reinhold Niebuhr? Is there something to be found more recently in Martin Luther King, Jr.? Or is Jim Wallis and the Sojourner's group a fruitful direction?

Jay Bakker Stikes Again - How Good Theology That Makes You a Jerk Isn’t Good Theology

I enjoyed meeting pastor Jay Bakker earlier this year. Jay told me he only has one message. It's about the grace of God. And I believe him.

Jay Bakker continues to travel and write (he's working on another book) while pastoring Revolution church in New York City. His latest message offers another striking testimony -- a speech (he would rather not call it a sermon) that hits at one of the most pressing divisions within evangelicalism today.

The title: "Good Theology That Makes You a Jerk Isn’t Good Theology."

Jay's point is this -- the measure of Christian "correctness" must not be based on well-formulated theology but how we manifest the character of Jesus.

It's a division between "loving" and "exacting" Christians. Those who love do not expect perfection in any form as a qualification for standing well with God or bonding with other believers. But the more exacting Christians have filters of correctness, standards of thought and behavior, that are expected. Fail to live up to these, and beware - you will be attacked and ostracized.

On a personal level, this talk is thoroughly consistent with who Jay is. Yes, Jay does get some attention for his celebrity (including his fashion sense - see a photo from December '08 Esquire and a Kenneth Cole ad here). But I believe these are shrewd opportunities to draw attention to his message. Jay works from a deep orientation of "grace" - a theological term that can be slippery but which for Jay is deeply personal. His understanding of grace comes from his life experience, springing from a conviction that brought him from a spiritual wanderer to committing to full time ministry.

So, this talk is another sample from Jay. It's a good example of Jay's casual-intense speaking style.

But I also share this with you because it's a good example of the profound divide among evangelicals about the proper approach to Christian spirituality. Two ways of approaching the church and the world creating two forms of fellowship, two forms of devotion, two forms of missional activity.

Historian Questions America's Voluntary Tradition

Thanks to Religion in American History blog, I caught an interesting interview with Historian Johann N. Neem on the relationship between religion and the emergence of democratic ideals of the American Republic.

Are joining and volunteering a "natural outgrowth" of the American Revolution?

According to Neem, "Freedom of association is in a sense the embodiment of a failure of a certain kind of revolutionary hope."

And church leaders were part of the process of discouraging orienting with the interests of the state.

Naeem says, "Increasingly church leaders said less we need an alliance with the state, in fact that is a handicap. What we need is to convert people and then mobilize those people.

"Some of the most mobilized Americans in the 1820s and 1830s were Evangelicals coming out of these churches."

For more, add Neem's new book Creating a Nation of Joiners: Democracy and Civil Society in Early National Massachusetts to your summer reading list.

Experience Billy Graham - Man, Method, Message

A meeting on the campus of the Billy Graham Association led me directly to a tour of the Billy Graham Library, the most central, up front facility on campus. The "library" is actually a "museum" that guides visitors through an immersive experience of Billy (everyone on campus calls him Billy) from his birth through today.

Image via Wikipedia

The Billy Graham Library is located on Billy Graham Parkway, a multi-lane thoroughfare just a few miles from Billy's boyhood home and a few minutes from the Charlotte Douglas airport. It's about a 30 minute drive from anywhere in Charlotte.

The campus is primed for visitors. A large parking lot (with tour busses leading senior citizens, many of whom have been "blessed" by Billy's ministry), smooth landscaped lawns, a brick house which you later find is Billy's parent's original house moved from its original site, and a prominent "barn" with an unmistakable cross for an entrance.

To the right of the barn, Ruth Graham, Billy's famous wife, counselor, and companion, is buried. Billy will be beside her when he passes.

Entering the barn is an open area with a tall ceiling. Styled on a diary theme, the building houses a large cafe for simple meals, a bookstore area in the center, and an animatronic talking cow. Food, store, and cow help pass the time if there is a large crowd for going into the museum.

Hand your ticket to the attendant and be seated for the first short film.

The museum is patterned on a series of documentary presentations -- short films of testimonials, Billy's life and ministry, and historical events often placed in a re-created context. Vistors sit in the 1949 Los Angeles Revival tent where Billy's ministry achieved mass attention. The Graham family room is featured. A graffitied Berlin Wall introduces Billy's ministry to Russia and Eastern Europe . A radio station, tv studio, and movie theater provide focal points for the Billy Graham's Association involvement in creating media.

Image by austrini via Flickr

All along the way, there is a mix of biography and gospel message. How Billy was converted; his first understanding of the gospel. How Ruth was raised in China; how Ruth's missionary parents lived the gospel. How Billy traveled the world; how Billy preached the gospel. It's person and gospel, a singular exposition Billy connecting people to God through Jesus.

Artifacts are dispersed later in the tour. Billy's preaching Bible (a large print, letherbound New Testament). Billy's combat boots when visiting troops. Letters from presidents Nixon and Bush. A poem written by Bono in his own hand as a gift to Billy. The symbol of knighthood bestowed on Billy by Queen Elizabeth and his acceptance speech. A leather case for carrying cases. Another of Billy's bibles. Books of Billy's crudely translated using carbon paper and typewriter in foreign language. The Congressional medal of honor. Yet another of Billy's bibles.

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Soon, Billy's life and history mingle together. The fall of the Berlin Wall. The collapse of Russia. The opening of China. The assination of Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. The civil rights movement. The national mourning after 9/11. Billy mingles with presidents, prime ministers, other prominent world leaders.

Visually, the man grows older. Orally, the message is the same.

A world congress of church leaders introduces an expansive mission of spreading the gospel. Evangelists sharing Billy's passion exist all over the world, even if they are isolated with little contact with other ministers. Their connection to Billy and seeing other leaders encourages them to see themselves as part of a broader movement.

More artifacts. More honors. More cards and letters. A "presentation" brings the experience full circle. Men and women talk about their experience of God's love. They reveal their experience of forgiveness, redemption, reconciliation. They had troubles, heartache, pain -- and God healed it.

The final film is Billy Graham preaching the gospel. Ordinary people of all ages and all colors are responding from crowds. Billy says to come down, to respond to the call of Christ now, to pray a prayer and connect to God. Visitors are given a card to fill in. To exit the room, everyone exits through a row of lighted crosses. Every person's life must go through the cross.

The Billy Graham Library is an attempt to assemble the life and ministry of Billy Graham himself, a routinization of his persona and ethos. By promoting revival and personalizing it at the end, the library asserts that the legacy of Billy is not his achievements or his experiences but his message.

Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion Reviews Hollywood Faith

It's been about eight months since my book Hollywood Faithhas been out, and that means the academic reviews are only just beginning to appear.  

Today I am grateful to professor Kathleen Jenkins, sociologist at The College of William and Mary, whose articulate review of my book is available in this month's Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion.  Jenkins authored her own fascinating book Awesome Families: The Promise of Healing Relationships in the International Churches of Christ.  

Here are snippets from her review. 

Book Review of Hollywood Faith

From Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion June 2009 

Hollywood Faith is an engaging ethnography that makes multiple contributions to the sociology of contemporary U.S. religion. 

Oasis is the epitome of what scholars have recently named "new paradigm" churches, especially in its creative use of contemporary culture. 

Drawing from current studies in work and occupations, Marti locates the majority of Oasis members as creative workers whose occupations leave their employment contingent and often exploitative. 

Members are offered a new purpose and fresh identity; through worship and church relationships, individuals come to believe that they are not alone as they engage in self promotion. Instead, personal fame takes a back seat to a common Christian moral purpose. 

We feel the power of collective worship, music especially, as rejuvenating ritual. 

Hollywood Faith...is provocative in suggesting how contemporary religious organizations might help members negotiate and manage uncertain and exploitative labor markets. 

Additionally, the chapters on Hollywood and evangelicalism will certainly be of importance to anyone interested in media and religion. 

Finally, the careful attention to congregational dynamics and how they support a multiracial congregation make this a valuable addition to literature on religion, race, and ethnicity.

 
-- Kathleen E. Jenkins, The College of William and Mary

The Cultural Practice of Self-Critique among Evangelicals

After recently reading several Christian books and posts, I want to draw attention to the pervasive practice of self-critique among contemporary evangelicals.


Evangelical Self-Critique as Cultural Practice

I suspect most people don't see just how much Evangelicals continually criticize themselves. Whether the tone is sincere or smug, the practice of speaking critically about the shortcomings of their faith community is bound to come up in any serious discussion among Evangelicals.

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For Evangelicals, this is obvious and mundane (Dude, tell me something I don't already know). But for those outside the movement, it highlights aspects of this religious orientation that are both critical and complimentary. So, here's my take on it.

Another way to characterize this is that contemporary Evangelicals continually look in the mirror and are not quite satisfied with what they see. So, they turn to each other and talk about the practice of their faith.

I consider such critique to be "insider talk" with "insider language" about "insider dynamics." It makes it as compelling as gossip for those who are inside. It can also sound like gibberish to those outside.

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Because there are so many Evangelicals in the U.S., the conversation can be sustained at a national level through Christian publishing houses, individual blogsites, and constant twitter updates. It's not just local church fellowships (although it happens there), its also readily available at national conferences. The back-and-forth discussion in these settings easily turns to bantering and can become a screeching match. For anyone who cares to pay attention, the public nature of this conversation makes it accessible for study.


Evolving Critique and the Future of American Religion

Why bother paying attention? Because the evolving critique that happens among Evangelicals tells you a whole lot not only about Evangelicalism but also the near future of religion in America.

Image by Don Orrell via Flickr

Take the sharp rise of Fundamentalism in the early 20th Century (George Marsden's book is an excellent source.) In that case, severe critique of what became characterized as "modernism" and "liberalism" redefined Evangelicals into the "Bible church orientation" we are all so familiar with today -- the primacy of exegetical preaching, the focus on Bible as Word of God, the salvation focus driving bullet-point evangelism, and the requirement of church membership affirmed by checking-off a series of doctrinal affirmations.

Since the dawn of the Evangelical movement, it might be said that Evangelicalism functions as an ongoing process of critique in the practice of religion. (See a my recent posts on Charles Finney's remarkable ministry.) Indeed, Christian maturity in some circles is measured -- not by how much you pray or know the Bible but -- by how incisive you can talk about Evangelicals.


Example of Evangelical Self-Critique

As excellent example of Evangelical Self-Critique just came out this week. Read a post by Scot McKnight who recently wrote this fascinating piece on "Spiritual Eroticism."

Spiritual Eroticism:

Are we really in love with Jesus, or with the experience of loving Jesus?

by Scot McKnight

A peculiar development occurred in the medieval age regarding love. Behind closed doors and in the rush of brief encounters, there developed what has been called “courtly love” or “romantic love.” Married men found themselves emotionally carried away with either another married woman or a single woman. This courtly love, so we are told, remained at the emotional and non-physical level.
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The interpretation of many is that the Lover, because of the emotion it generated, preferred the nearly intolerable absence of the Beloved over the presence of the Beloved. The Lover preferred the titillation of fantasy over the toughness of fidelity. The essence of courtly love was to become intoxicated with love, to fall in love with love. It was to prefer the fire of love over the Beloved and delight in the experience of love over the presence of the Beloved. Think Tristan and Isolde. Perhaps even Romeo and Juliet.

Friends of mine today worry about consumerization or commoditization in the church. I offer a slightly different analysis of what might be the same thing: for many, Sunday services have become the experience of courtly love. Some folks love church, and what they mean by "loving church" is that they love the experience they get when they go to church. They prefer to attend churches that foster the titillation of courtly-love worship and courtly-love fellowship and courtly-love feelings.

They say they love worship, and by this they mean they love the courtly-love-like songs that extol the experience of loving Jesus or the experience of adoring God or the experience of a concert-like praise team that can generate the sound of worship intensely enough to vibrate the very soul of the worshiper.

Such folks might like sermons that create powerful contrasts between God’s wrath and human sinfulness or between our sinfulness and God’s gracious love; or they might like stories told so well as to usher them into the depths of human loves and hates and tragedies and comedies. What they like is the freshness of discovery or the flush of shame or the intoxicating sense of learning something new. They may create such a stir of silence in expectation of some great preacher or some great leader that the sheer presence of that person makes their soul swoon.

But this does not describe worship.

My contention is rather simple: the shaping of a Sunday service or a worship event or a concert in order to generate a profound experience might emerge from a courtly-love sense of worship. The expectation of such an experience on the part of the worshiper might also emerge from a courtly sense of worship. The opening of the Bible to read in search of an experience, or the entrance into a prayer time in order to rediscover some powerful emotion might also emerge from the intrusion of courtly love into how many today understand spirituality.

Let’s call this was it is: spiritual eroticism. And those who are good at it can be called spiritual erotics.

Cover of The Four Loves

So, what can be done? The same thing that good critics of courtly love, like C.S. Lewis, did about that distortion of love. Love, proper love—the love of God and, by extension, the love of others that both Moses and Jesus reveal—is to focus on God as the Sole Beloved worthy of our entire heart. Eros, Lewis argued in The Four Loves, wants to be a god, wants to be an idol. Eros left to itself, will not lead us to Charity. Eros needs to be tamed by Charity. When Eros is tamed by Charity, what happens?

Charity always leads us to the Beloved. Charity skips over the intoxication that comes with the experience of love and leads us straight to the face of the Beloved—Father, Son, Spirit. Those who know the Beloved and desire nothing but the glory of that Beloved may well know the experience, but they are so enthralled with the Face of the Beloved they forget where they are and dwell in the presence of God with but one thought: God deserves praise, God is worthy of praise.

There is a big difference between saying “You are worthy of our praise” and saying “I love praising God.” The second, I am suggesting, is courtly love. It is in love with loving God; but it is the first that is in love with God.

McKnight is the Karl A. Olsson Professor in Religious Studies at North Park University. His books have been well-received among Evangelicals of all types.


Characteristics of Evangelical Self-Critique

In my recent reading, I think the best Evangelical self-critique today draws on aspects of Christian history as a point of comparison or apply a sensitizing concept to draw out subtle aspects of contemporary practices.

Image by who.log.why via Flickr

Scot McKnight's writing here is a good example of what can be found almost everywhere once you start looking. See books by Erwin McManus or Doug Pagitt or Tony Jones or Tony Campolo. See articles in Christianity Today or Relevance magazine. See online material like blog posts and podcasts at emergentvillage.com.

If I began some attempt to formalize it, I would begin with these characteristics of Evangelical Self-Critique:

1. Modern Christianity is off-point on several (most?) aspects of "True" Christianity.
2. The word "Christians" is generalized, although it often means only other Evangelicals.
3. Observation of common practices resonates with the experience of other "Christians" (see point #2).
4. Some type of experience -- intrapersonal experience (what happened to me), interpersonal experience (what happened to us together) or extra-personal experience (what happened to my friend, neighbor, brother) -- is weaved into the narrative to root the observation in "reality."
5. Finally, the use of Bible verses is far less important than the application of a biblical theology - that is, applying an interpretive concept of "Christian" living is what is required to drive the point home.

This is only a beginning.

At the core, I think it's important to know that Evangelicals continually have discussions -- intense discussions -- on nearly every aspect of "normal" Christian life. Such discussion can lead to endless spinning of ideas, but others further stimulate the practical decisions being made by church leaders and church attenders (as well as non-profit organizations and broad organizational networks) about practices and priorities that fuels further developments.

Blue Like Jazz Movie Needs Cash

I just discovered that Donald Miller's bestselling book Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality is being made into a motion picture.

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It seems that Blaine Hogan has been helping the production team put together potential investors and grassroots supporters for the film.

An adapted screenplay is ready, a director is hired, and actors are on call.

But, like any movie, it needs money.

As of last week, they were seeking "a few 100k" to "break escrow" which would release money to begin financing. Don Miller has a new book coming out this fall which they would like to crosspromote with BLJ (that's movie lingo).

So, they hope to infuse a good bit of cash in the next 30-60 days.

From Hogan's viewpoint, the majority of people who loved the book don't have money to give, but if the word gets out and there is enough of a passionate response, even a few dollars from many, many supporters would make a different.

Cover via Amazon

Hogan says, "I truly believe that this project is quite special and one that will change a lot of things in the industry as far as 'Christian film' is concerned, not to mention giving investors an excellent ROI."

I'll be interested to see how this develops. Miller's book was a sharp departure for many Christians in the way it talked about God, church, life, spirituality -- an angst, a thoughtfulness, but perhaps most importantly, it had a narrative structure that did not resemble a long sermon.

I had the pleasure of meeting him at when he spoke at Davidson College a few years ago. Both in person and in writing, Miller talks about his perspective. Many resonate with it. A film that captures some of his unique charisma would be an impressive achievement.

West Coast Evangelicals - Playful, Passionate, Proactive

Hanging out with West Coast Evangelicals at Thrive 2009 -- through Bayside Community Church, it's a new conference attracting several thousand enthusiastic attenders.




Religious Innovation in Sacramento

California is birthing another wave of religious innovation through a very active megachurch you may never have heard of -- Bayside Community Church.

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Talk to any Californian. No one would have predicted a dynamic religious movement coming from Sacramento. Maybe San Francisco? L.A.? Sure. But not the distant land considered by many to be a suburb of the Bay Area. Now, Sacramento has built up a vibrant metropolitan community that participates, even accentuates, an interesting mixture of the the rich aesthetic and economic ethos of both Southern and Northern California.

With a nicely architectured site in Granite Bay, the large "mother church" of Bayside hosts several thousand attenders at their weekend services. At a glance how Bayside shares several characteristics with Saddleback Community Church:

• a growing urban population,
• an active economy,
• a range of cheaper housing options,
• and much land still available to build facilities.

The casual-yet-practical style of ministry includes:

• a clear-talking preacher who's written best-selling book,
• a musically-versatile worship pastor with muscle shirts and cool hair,
• and an army of smart back-room administration-savvy paid and volunteer staff who accomplish the welcoming, assimilating, and energizing ministry for this local population.

But all that's happening at the Granite Bay site is just a beginning.


Growing "Thriving" Churches

Bayside also has had great success initiating other congregations in the area - eleven so far, and more on the way. These churches aren't competitors but spiritual colleagues who together produce a dynamic, cooperative network of ministry around Sacramento.

The combination of enthusiasm and the practical demand of talking and training leaders led to the creation of the Thrive conference, now heading into its 6th year.

This conference is "hot." The 2009 conference completely "sold out" six weeks in advance.  Over 2,600 attenders plus another 450 volunteers makes 3,000+ participants this weekend.  

Thrive is cool, fun, and interesting. It brings together prominent speakers and authors from around the country Franklin Graham (son of evangelist Billy Graham and head of the non-profit organization Samaritan's Purse) was a highlight this year.

A re-run of last year's conference produced by Bayside is available on youtube:

And views into this year's 2009 conference are just now being posted:

Also, they are already planning for 2010 and making room for over 5,000 registrants.  John Maxwell is a headliner, Hillsong worship is coming in from Australia, others are being confirmed.

The success of the conference (did I mention this year it sold-out six weeks early?) is spurring another new development, a new network for church innovation.

I'll write more about this new network -- what it highlights about American religion -- real soon.