The Deconstructed Church: Understanding Emerging Christianity - Oxford University Press - due May 2014

Advance Praise for The Deconstructed Church

“As growing numbers of Americans say they are ‘nonreligious,’ observers note a comparable shift among those who are religious toward looser, more individualistic, anti-institutional, experimental expressions of faith. Marti and Ganiel have done a superb job of examining these emerging expressions, illuminating both the practices and beliefs of individuals and the innovative congregations they are forming.”

• Robert Wuthnow, Gerhard R. Andlinger ‘52 Professor of Sociology and Director of the Center for the Study of Religion, Princeton University

“In the midst of a polarized landscape, where ‘religion’ and ‘church’ signal a lack of vitality and authenticity, Emerging Churches are putting together something new out of the debris. Marti and Ganiel show us why we should pay attention. They describe the faith found here as neither shopping nor seeking, but a conversation carried on in congregations that are determinedly open and inclusive. This book provides a careful analysis of this much-discussed movement and shows why it is so well-suited to our times.”

• Nancy T. Ammerman, author of Sacred Stories, Spiritual Tribes: Finding Religion in Everyday Life

 

The Deconstructed Church: A Quick Update

My co-author Gladys Ganiel and I have been working diligently to craft the final contours of our forthcoming book The Deconstructed Church — a book oriented toward describing the identity and practices of "Emerging Christians." While the draft is not complete, it looks like we're on target to turn in the manuscript this summer.

A lot of writing exists (and much more since we received the contract with Oxford University Press) about the Emerging Church Movement—mostly a mixture of suppositions, speculations, and various spokespeople representing their visions for the movement. But sociologists of religion have been reluctant to pay much attention to this group of network-dependent, loosely-affiliated, and largely marginalized "Christians." There are insiders and critics who are sick to death of hearing about emerging/emergent Christians, while there are plenty of outsiders who are still discovering it, intrigued by the orientation, and struggling to figure it out.

And there are a few scholars of religion who have found enough permanence among these groups (existing since the late 1990s, with and without the label) that one esteemed colleague said to me that she's heard of several people who are trying to stake some kind of scholarly "claim" to understanding the movement.

Like a lot of researchers, I follow my nose: meaning, I have a set of questions that intrigue me, a set of observations that coalesce at various times, and moments of opportunity to investigate things that serve to highlight important aspects about identity, social change, and the often surprising dynamics that govern our lives.

I have zero interest in staking any exclusive claim to understanding the Emerging Church Movement. I've spoken about it at academic conferences and written about it. Occasionally, I've been interviewed by a reporter. But there are others. Gladys certainly has her expertise. Other social scientists have recently published some insightful analyses (James Bielo's Emerging Evangelicals and Josh Packard's The Emerging Church come to mind). What I am interested in doing is taking a fairly extensive data set that combines my interviews/observations with Gladys', and supplementing those with data gathered originally by Tony Jones for his dissertation in Practical Theology at Princeton (you can find it on Amazon).  Although Tony has published his thoughts, I have avoided reading this work closely as Gladys and my goal has been to systematically analyze the whole of the data and inductively assess the patterns that (ahem) "emerge."

I'm very pleased with our work so far. I think our book holds some surprises—even for those who are long time observers and insiders. We bring our own conceptual lenses to bear to what has become an impossibly ambitious task: How do we frame the workings of a diffuse religious orientation against the backdrop of the changed society that makes it possible? The Emerging Church Movement would not have existed 100 years ago, even 50 years ago.  It is a manifestation of shifting ground for what it means to be religious today, and what the possibilities for congregational life are in the near future.

As a book-length analysis, it strains a blog post to summarize our findings. You'll forgive me that I won't even try. But I am excited enough to say "Stay Tuned," this book will be worth the wait. Expected sometime Fall 2014.

Seminar in Grand Rapids

I've been directing a seminar on "Congregations and Social Change" this month through a program for scholars at Calvin College.

A wonderful, interdisciplinary group has gathered this month:

Kendra Barber (University of Maryland)
Walt Bower (University of Kentucky)
Lloyd Chia (University of Missouri)
Ryon Cobb (Florida State University)
Lisa DeBoer (Westmont College)
Janine Giordano Drake (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)
Lincoln Mullen (Brandeis University)
Paul Olson (Briar Cliff University)
Peter Schuurman (University of Waterloo)
Christine Sheikh (University of Denver)
Phillip Sinitiere (Sam Houston State University)
Kevin Taylor (Boston University)

Together, these scholars represent a tremendous range of knowledge and skills, drawn from the humanities and social sciences, who pursue a broad scope of ambitious questions in the study of religion. Race, work, technology, "the market," identity, women's leadership, incorporation of the arts, and the question of whether "congregations" matter or not, have all been part of rich and not-easily-resolved conversations happening in both classroom and lunchroom.

We read and think a lot together, but I think we all agree we've ate a lot together, too! Food for thought has been more than adequately matched by food for our collective stomachs.

The first three weeks we explored a range of concepts and methodologies and experienced several congregations on visits as individuals and as a group.  Although we are all fascinated by the phenomena of the megachurch (a memorable visit), a stand-out visit for me was the opportunity to meet with the Imam and several lay leaders of a newly built mosque here in the city -- the most multi-ethnic, multi-cultural congregation we encountered.

Image by steven w via Flickr

This week, participants will share from their own work, something I am really looking forward to hearing.  For me, this is the part where we get to hear ideas in development, articles being born, books being written.  The application of genius to crafting a narrative takes shape before us, further connecting us all into our collective development as scholars.

These are brilliant people, and I am learning from them. Be prepared for more work on the Black megachurch, the emerging church movement, pastor Joel Osteen, conversion narratives between Christians and Jews (both directions), parents raising atheists, second generation mosque leaders in America, congregations and the labor movement in New York, arts and worship, and more.

Special thanks to Penny Edgell (University of Minnesota), Jim Wellman (University of Washington) and Bill McKinney (recent emeritus president of Pacific School of Religion) who each spent time with us and shared their advice and expertise.  Joel Carpenter here at Calvin deserves great thanks for hospitality and his own insightful "footnotes" as well as a nice set of casual conversations with visiting scholars for other programs here in Grand Rapids.

Finally, thanks to all my colleagues in the seminar!  It's a privilege to pursue our questions in scholarship.  It's a gift to do it in community.

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.

Pentecostalism and Prosperity Theology: Symposium at Regent University

The end of 2010 through the beginning of 2011 have been among the busiest--and most productive--months of my academic life.  I've submitted articles, completed book chapters, reviewed several articles and textbooks, and prepared papers for various grants and conferences.  I've also finally completed my manuscript on worship and music in racially diverse churches (more on that in the coming months).

This afternoon, I'm in the midst of final preparations for a symposium happening for the next couple of days at Regent University in Virginia Beach, Virgina.

Pentecostalism & Prosperity Symposium

The Socio-Economics of Global Renewal

Co-sponsored by the Schools of Undergraduate Studies and Divinity

Symposium schedule:

February 21, 2:00-5:30 pm, Library Auditorium

February 22, 2:00-5:30 pm, Library Auditorium

I'm thrilled to join this stimulating conversation.  How is Pentecostalism related to global economics?

The adaptability of Pentecostalism to the current economic system is certainly one of the most interesting aspects of the movement.  On Tuesday, I'll be talking about how prosperity theology connects with today's "individualization" and the rise of "self-culture." 

Hollywood Faith by Gerardo Marti

This is less of a theological exposition than an attempt to connect sociological dynamics of social change.  I attempt to draw out a connection between global economic dynamics and the very real circumstances of individuals, the social psychological "self," that is confronted with historically new challenges. It is an accentuation of an argument made in my Hollywood Faith book. 

If we step back, I think we can all agree that prosperity theology developed with the emergence of modern capitalism.  I believe it resonates with many people today because  the effect of globalized capitalism on  everyday life is experienced so broadly. As society changes, people find forms of religion that fit those changes.

Several theorists (who don't pay much attention to religion) tell us that the broader workforce today must master self-promotion for economic survival.  If we then turn to the place of religion in these changes, I note that much of the "work" of religious communities  has as their goal the supporting of a kind of “self” needed to live in the world today. The modern "self" today largely lives in context of work.  Being a wage-earner has become enormously important, more so than any other period in history.

When we appreciate the economic uncertainty of individuals in advanced capitalism, the emphasis on a vigorous, God-empowered self can be seen as a way to adapt to the demands for work today.

Image via Wikipedia

Healing Service

So what can appear to be an ego-oriented religion can work within a viable religious community.  In other words, prosperity theology can resonate with ambitious individuals who, in their experience, find their goals to be frustrating, systems overwhelming, yet gain great confidence in that God can, wants to, and (eventually) will use them to fulfill cosmic purposes as they at the same time achieve personal fulfillment in a world-affirming way.

In prosperity-oriented churches, individualism coexists with the general call for generosity and self-sacrifice because the individual is seen as the conduit by which God will accomplish his purposes on the earth.  The focus on the individual is not about individual self-promotion but about creating a platform as an ambassador of the kingdom of God to engage in activities that allow God to work in the world at large.

It is a win-win solution; God fulfills his missional purposes, and his people live prosperous, fulfilling lives.

My paper for the symposium lays out more detail on all these processes.  In addition, the symposium will encourage an active dialogue on how this argument is right/wrong, and surely provide many additional considerations.

If you're interested, the presentations will be live on the internet (see symposium website), and the papers will be collected into an edited volume in coming year. I'll post as things become available.

Hacker Ethics and Higher Learning: The Moral Clash Determining the Future of Education

Special thanks to Joe Creech and the good people of the Lilly Fellows Program for an enjoyable time of conversation on the nature of "place" in our professional lives as scholars in higher education. 

I'm just recovering from a very full conference schedule with the Lilly Fellows Program in Humanities and the Arts annual conference held this year at Valparaiso University.  My warm thanks are extended to the many new friends and colleagues I met over several meals and dozens of conversations.

It was an honor to be invited to give a keynote address along with two other notable scholars.

Image via Wikipedia

The conference revolved on the notion of "place" in higher education and, appropriately, there was a scholar of art and architecture, a theologian working on issues of globalization, and myself, a sociologist who pays attention to religion and social change. I focused on the transformation of higher learning welling-up from the cumulative transformations in digital connectivity.

My talk revolved around two moral orientations, two moral "codes" if you will, that are clashing (rather than converging) in higher education today.  The first code is the formative retreat ethic that stresses the moral imperative of creating a cloistered space of education that works toward discipline and even piety. Our institutions of higher education have an underlying moral orientation: a formative retreat for the cultivation of virtuous adults. I speculate that the stronger the religious orientation of the college, the stronger the formative moral imperative of the institution.

On the other hand is a new ethic, a Hacker Ethic, that emphasizes openness, free access, and utter playfulness. The Hacker Code, Hacker Ethics, and Hacker Culture – these are terms I use heuristically to describe a nascent, overarching ethos that has fueled the development of our increasingly “connected” (I mean digitally, online, networked connected) lives from the 1950s until now. Various principles are involved (I give several lists and descriptions in my talk), and much of it centers on digital connectivity.

What I stressed to this esteemed group of scholars and administrators is that higher education is caught in a larger transition. Banks, phone companies, and our local and federal governments are all firmly committed to open internet connectivity. For example, the federal government just announced at the end of September that while we can still physically mail our returns, more people are e-filing and, as a cost cutting measure, the federal government will no longer mail tax forms, but we must access them online. Examples could be multiplied many times over.

Our schools are dominated by this connectivity as well – Barry Wellman on twitter recently wrote, “Student finds it impossible to go cold turkey off the grid because official announcements & research materials are only online.” The internet is not just a tool of knowledge and business but has become something much more.

Image via Wikipedia

We submit grades online, our students register for courses online, use electronic course reserves (72% of professors use course management systems), answer questions, set calendar appointments, distribute departmental information and committee reports, and even submit journal articles and whole book manuscripts. Increasingly we post syllabi and study content, we skype into meetings, we blog and tweet (about one-third of professors as far as I can find a statistic) our results.  Administrators are pushing internet connectivity to solve certain problems and scholars are using internet connectivity to solve others.

It took me a while… but I soon saw that there was a new set of ideals being promoted. What fuels the development of these new digital realms is not just clever innovation but a new morality, what’s been called the Hacker Ethic. Hackers represent those who were taking advantage of the new spaces and new possibilities opened by the creation of new structures. It’s an entire moral orientation.

Although you can't see the Power Point slides emphasizing different points, here's part 2 of 4 parts of the keynote available on YouTube:

More on the "Hacker Ethic" can be found in part 3.

I'm grateful for the time at Valpo and a new set of conversations.  Certainly there are many others who understand these dynamics far better than I do and can speak far more articulately about them.  But this was my chance to package my best understanding of the things that affect my life and work everyday.  And I'm convinced they are propelling more substantial changes that threaten our traditional understandings of higher education in unanticipated ways.

2011 Summer Research Seminar: Congregations and Social Change

Congregations and Social Change:

Adaptation and Innovation among Religious Communities
June 27 - July 22, 2011

I will be directing a research seminar at Calvin College next summer. This is an open invitation:

Seminar Description

This research seminar will closely examine the ongoing relationships between congregations and processes of broad ranging, societal change. By incorporating a historical sensitivity and scholarship rooted in a sociological perspective, the seminar will continually connect societal arrangements with adaptation, reaction, innovation, and experimentation in congregational beliefs and practices. The focus will be on congregations of all types (whether church, synagogue, temple, or mosque) and encourages a look at both interpersonal dynamics (beliefs, micro-exchanges, small group interaction, etc.) as well as more macro-level phenomena (globalization, technological shifts, political systems, etc.).

The analytical perspectives on congregations can include --

• singular case studies, particular historical periods,
• whole denominational networks (Mormon wards, eastern orthodox churches, Jewish synagogues, mosques and Islamic centers as well as Hindu, Sikh, Jain, Zoroastrian and other religious temples and missions),
• types of congregations (small, rural, independent, mega, etc.),
• regional centers (Southern California, Manhattan, Chicago Metro), and
• any other appropriate and manageable arena of analysis.

The seminar also welcomes any aspect of congregational life that can be examined in relation to social change, for example,

• changes or comparisons of liturgical design,
• formation and negotiation of political identity,
• mobilization tied to extra-congregational organizations or social movements,
• creation of age-targeted ministry (twenty-somethings to retirees),
• incorporation of creative arts,
• negotiated relationships between religious and civic service structures or public agencies,
• adoption of online social networking or use of new media and technology,
• management of multiethnic/multiracial dynamics,
• etc, etc.

Seminar participants will read sociological and historical literature, engage ethnographic methodology commonly employed in contemporary research, and discuss their own work toward creating a community of scholarship oriented around common concerns. Ideally, each participant will produce a polished piece of writing as a result of the seminar, eg., completing a conference paper, journal article, dissertation chapter, book chapter, or publishable mass-media article. As participants work on their own congregations and social change research during the seminar, they will receive guided feedback in a supportive environment. Housing, daily lunch with other scholars, library access, and a small research stipend is provided for seminar participants.

Who May Apply

This research seminar is most intended for current and recent doctoral students in fields related to religious and organizational studies (sociology, anthropology, history, ethnic studies, folklore, and others). While the seminar is designed toward social science-oriented scholars holding, or advanced to candidacy for, the terminal degree in their field (typically the PhD), I eagerly welcome humanities-oriented scholars as well theologically-oriented participants from seminaries and divinity schools. To the extent possible, I will select a group diverse in gender, ethnic, confessional, and disciplinary backgrounds, and with a variety of research sites (i.e., the confessional and/or social identities of the communities they plan to study). I also plan to choose among applicants a mix of participants ranging from doctoral candidates through recent doctorates in tenure-track positions and scholars working on their first or second books to mid-career scholars retooling with defined projects.

See Calvin Seminars for more information

on the director, guest speakers, and application process.

Application information is at the bottom of the page. Deadline is January 14, 2011.

Open Session: Scholars and National Leaders of the Emerging Church Movement

I just created a *facebook* invitation for a special session organized at this year's Association for the Sociology of Religion in Atlanta, Georgia. Free, open, and sure to be stimulating, this is going to be a real hoot - All are welcome!

Open Session: Scholars and National Leaders of the Emerging Church Movement You are Attending · Share · Public Event

Edit EventMessage Guests

Time	August 13 · 3:00pm - 5:30pm
Location	Hyatt Regency Atlanta, International Tower Level, Cairo/Hong Kong Rooms
Created By	Gerardo Marti
More Info	Critical dialogue featuring Doug Pagitt, Troy Bronsink and Tim Hartman, along with anthropologist James S. Bielo and sociologist Gerardo Marti. Join us for a unique exchange on the promise, challenge & future of Christianity hosted by the Annual Meetings of the Association for the Sociology of Religion - an international, interdisciplinary association. MAP & LOCATION BELOW Session begins promptly at 3:15pm - arrive by 3:00pm to save your seat! Atlanta, GA - Hotel Map & Room Floor Plan - Cairo/Hong Kong Room - http://atlantaregency.hyatt.com/hyatt/images/hotels/atlra/floorplan.pdf;jsessionid=3D7ADA7CA1DCC18CB2CF43C18D458E4E.atg01-prd-atg1 Full meeting program highlights here: http://www.sociologyofreligion.com/2010%20ASR%20Annual%20Meeting%20Prilim.htm

Not only are the special guests coming from across the country offering a rare opportunity for constructive dialogue, but anthropologist James S. Bielo will be talking about his own "ethnographic observations" of emerging church dynamics.

The meeting will also bring together an international, interdisciplinary group of scholars active in all forms of religious research. The experience and expertise being gathered in this room will be tremendous.

Click here to let me know you're coming so I can say "Hi!"

Church “Tradition” Previous Era’s Cultural Accommodation

Thanks to Jason Byassee, Executive Director of Leadership Education at Duke Divinity, a new post on their Call & Response blog describes my take on tradition and innovation in church life.

In a post titled 'Our "Tradition" is Often a Previous Era's Cultural Accomodation," I try to give church leaders a perspective that will open them to reconsidering not only the new religious movements which they often hate, but also their own religious traditions which they so very much cherish.

The post says:

When new forms of religious vibrancy clearly manifest social change, critics are often quick to attribute their successes to crass appeals to popular tastes.

Here’s an example. I describe in my book “Hollywood Faith” how Oasis Christian Center, an evangelical church in Hollywood, California, grew from five hundred to over two thousand people from 2001 to 2003. Incorporation of entertainment, fun, relevance, and practicality in the promotion of spiritual vitality yielded this spectacular growth.

It is worth asking whether the growth and excitement evident at Oasis is due simply to placating a consumer-driven, popular culture. Is Oasis a secularized “church”? Is religion being compromised?

The post goes on to say more.

My main point is to urge recognition that no religious tradition exists which was not forged through a historical processes of accommodation and acculturation.

Working the delicate tension between relevance and ritual, between cultural resonance and cultural transformation, is a perpetual challenge for church leaders everywhere. I want to encourage church leaders to think more carefully about negotiating this tension in recognition that their cherished "tradition" are historical forms that represent cultural adaptations to a prior era.

Religion Scholars Meet in Denver

Quick Post: I'm getting ready for another meeting of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion.
Although not everyone likes "scientific" in the name because not everyone accepts the loaded connotations of the word... Nevertheless, SSSR (pronounced "triple-es-arr") is a corporate attempt to talk about religion in "non-confessional terms" and is the most focused gathering of scholars from the social sciences in the United States.

These meetings are great. Really great. Sociologists, anthropologists, psychologists, economists, political scientists, historians, etc., etc., who gather in a focused manner to bring everyone up to date on the most recent, most exciting scholarship, happening on religion all around the world. Not only do I learn a lot, I enjoy the people I've met at these meetings. I've made many friends over the years and expect to make many more.

Take a look at the topics and research being presented over the coming weekend. In one session I'll be presenting research on African Americans as the icon of worship among members of multiracial churches; in another, on how attenders become members, then lay leaders, in the American megachurch.

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.

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."

Paper versus Digital - Paper Wins

So, it happened. After several months of keeping up with blogging (more or less), I've suddenly found my time shrinking dramatically and have had to cut corners, re-prioritize, and make new to-do lists. And, guess what?

Paper-based projects take priority over digital ones.

Image via Wikipedia

Let's start with the obvious. I've got journal articles in "the pipeline" that need attention, and draft chapters of my current book need revising (and quite a bit of writing left to go). These products will eventually become paper as the process of turning onscreen words into offscreen print is what drives the process overall.

At the end of the day, articles and books are also becoming online, digital entities. Just about everything I've ever published is available electronically. But the fact that these will be paper products -- and not just online -- makes it a priority because these products count more for my professional future.

In addition, my students turn in papers. Yep, I'm old-school about that, and my office is starting to collect a pile of papers that need evaluation for a final grade. I work these over with my pen, writing brief comments and assuring myself that I've understood their accomplishment which I then place into a matrix of my standards for the course.

And I continue to read, read, read. Although I've tried ebook readers and computer-downloaded content, I find I read more thoughtfully and more energetically when I have the physical paper in my hands. Yes, I even print out online articles to read on paper.

Wow, I'm feeling old.

Well, I will add more thoughts to this blog soon. I've been thinking about several things. I've also been asked to contribute to other blogs out there.

But, first, I've got to get these papers done.

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.

iPhone Church - Religious Media Jumps on the Digital Bandwagon (Again)

As part of their expanding digital offerings, Pastor Wayne Cordeiro explains a new service provided through the IT department of New Hope Church in Hawaii. The "iPhone devotions" borrows the iconic Apple style to communicate relevance to the digital literati.

New Hope on iPhone from Peter Thourson on Vimeo.

Even more, entire church services at New Hope can be streamed live.

It appears that New Hope Christian Fellowship, a large Foursquare Church in Hawaii, is the first to launch iPhone services on July 4th of this year. A press release indicates that "live streaming to the iPhone was one of the most requested features from church attendees" and that the live streaming capabilities of the 3.0 software allowed this to happen.

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

"Typically, churches are years behind other organizations when it comes to technology and innovation. We have tried to reverse that trend and pioneer new ways to spread the Gospel using the most current tools available," explains New Hope's Technology and Innovations Director, Michael Sharpe. "We don't mind the long hours and stress that comes with innovating because we know that if we can come up with something useful, it can be used by other churches around the world."

You can check out their dedicated e-church site here.