Superman, Batman, and... Mumita! - Islam Conqures Comic Book Genre

A quick post: I've been noticing interesting mixtures of religion and popculture lately, mostly because I think people are wrong to believe that the appeal of popular culture exists only among certain brands of Christian Protestantism seen to be crassly consumerist and dumbed-down accomodationist. But the effort to remain lively and relevant are found among all religious orientations.

Enter the 99!

Created by Dr. Naif Al-Mutawa, the 99 is a comic book series in the style of Justice League or X-Men that unites a band of superpowered youth to bring peace into society under the leadership of the brilliant Dr. Ramzi.

The backstory returns to the Middle East, the attempt to preserve a library of knowledge being destroyed by war, and a mystical-chemical process of inscribing knowledge into 99 gemstones. Fast-forward to our modern day, and our heroes discover their powers and their brilliant mentor form a team to save the world.

The "origins issue" can be downloaded online.

The writers freely draw on allusions of other successful comic book series. After all, they want to be successful and believe they can learn from the models of the greatest characters created in the past century.

But perhaps the most interesting is the upfront attempt to introduce comic book heroes that reflect the virtues of Islam and are consistent with beliefs of Muslims worldwide. This makes the development of this graphic art series ripe for sociological study: how do the comic book creators fashion an Islamic-friendly graphic that can appeal to the various, globally-diffused orientations within Islam?

I've not read much of the series, so I have yet to see blatant reference to prayers or readings from sacred texts. At most, someone online has already joked about Wonder Woman being "fully clothed" in an forthcoming six-issue team-up with DC comics JLA in October. Besides this, it is hard to tell just how "religious" this series will be.

But I do know this: What is special about the number 99? Why are there 99 gemstones and 99 heroes? Because the characters are intended to display the 99 attributes of Allah.

Just like the Hollywood Christians I write about in my book Hollywood Faith, the series is intended to support and accentuate religious values. Yet it is intended to do so in a way that is unobtrusive to telling a good story. When you read the last page of the "origins issue," the creator is clear that the comic is intended for a Muslim audience, fashioned in what he calls an "East-Meets-West" fashion that combines the fierce independence of heroes of the West (Superman, Batman, Spiderman) and the team-work comeraderie of the East (a la Pokeman).

More on the use of popculture in the Arab world is found in a talk given by Shereen El Feki.

Overall, the intent is to correct the view of Islam as an intolerant religion through a humble framework, accessible to children. There is even a 99 theme park in Kuwait prominently displaying the heroes as awe inspiring icons. According to this news story, this is the Middle East's first theme park.

And while success is hard to measure, the comic is already translated in various languages, is conveniently available online for digital download, has already been put into a computer animated format, is teaming with other important comic book publishers, receiving good media attention, and the creator is committed to making this bold venture a striking presence on the global stage.

Watch a TED talk from the creator and more on the comic book series.

Silly Bandz - Stretching the Relevance of Spirituality

Thanks to an ongoing invitation from Jason Byasee at the Duke Divinity Call & Response Blog, I just posted a fun article on a recent experience visiting a church here in North Carolina. As my friend John Schmalzbauer commented on my facebook page, "Another interesting episode in the story of Christianity and material culture!"

Anyone who is a parent or works around kids has seen children go crazy over Silly Bandz, a broad array of colorful rubber bands shaped like cars, animals, and superheroes, and worn in big bunches on forearms. I was introduced to these back in April when my kids begged me to drive them over to the local drug store in search of a new shipment. It's not just the little ones who are into it. From toddlers to teens, the kids collect and trade Silly Bandz to express their identity and proudly flash a new form of status in the latest hierarchy of "cool."

So, when I visited a church recently I recognized the rubbery trinkets being passed out by greeters at the door. Actually, my kids saw them before I did - "Dad! Dad! They're giving out Silly Bandz!" Smiling volunteers enthusiastically gave away armloads of these pretty toys to excited kids as they came into the service that day.

As you might guess, the ambiance of this church is casual, the worship music is loud, and the "preaching" conversational. The pastor proudly showed off his own Silly Bandz at the beginning of the service before moving on.

But it was after the service when I saw these trinkets work their magic as kids, parents, other church members, and church staff were animatedly talking about their Silly Bandz, trading amongst each other, and telling stories connecting the shape of these bands to the shape of their lives. Strangers made friends, and adults found constructive ways to talk with children. A band shaped like an electric guitar prompted a person to talk about their love of music. Another shaped as an outline of the continental United States got people talking about their summer travels. And ones shaped like a cross were proudly traded around tables in the foyer amidst conversation about Jesus.

...

You can jump to the rest of the article here & comment at the Duke Divinity Blog hosted by Leadership Education at Duke University.

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."

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.

Young, Amateur Sikhs Lead New "Emergent" Congregations

NY Times reporter Samuel G. Freedman shows young professional Sikhs participating in amateur-led services as part of the "emerging movement."

Today, I caught another intriguing article by the Samuel Freedman on young Sikhs in Manhattan.

Seems they are creating new forms of worship, "youth gurdwara" or youth temple, created by and for young professionals. News of their meetings are spread by word of mouth, email, and social networking sites like Facebook.

By Getty Images via Daylife

Mandeep Singh remembers his first diwan located in a rented multipurpose room in a luxury condominium:

What most caught Mr. Singh’s eye, though, were the other members of the congregation, or sangat. They were, like him, young professionals, the BlackBerry crowd, and as the worship service, or diwan, proceeded over the next several hours, these amateur clerics took turns leading the chanting of sacred poetry and the singing of devotional hymns.

According to Freedman, this is "the Sikh version of what religion scholars call the emergent movement, a growing trend toward small, nimble, bottom-up, laity-led congregations that especially attract young adults."

Kanga, Kara and Kirpan - three of the five articles of faith endowed to the Sikhs via Wikipedia

This is "not your chacha’s (in Punjabi, your uncle’s) gurdwara."

On reading about all this, my friend John Schmalzbauer called these "Sikher sensitive services." Yow!

The article describes how worshipers enter with bare feet and covered head, bow before the holy book, and so fulfill centuries-old obligations. "The service follows the time-honored sequence of readings, hymns, a discourse called katha, the distribution of the sweet sacramental food karah parshad and finally the sharing of a communal meal known as langar.

"But the words of the liturgy are projected from a laptop, both translated into English and transliterated phonetically for the many members who cannot read Gurmukhi, the script of the Sikh religious texts. One set of projections carries the logo 'Sikh to the Max.'”

While a diwan in a conventional gurdwara goes four or five hours, this one finished in two.

Freedman mentions other emergent congregations, evangelical Christian and Jewish ones, but the focus of the article is how 28 year old Singh has become a more religiously active person through this peer-led temple. Being with other young adults seems to motivate attenders.

Freedman notes, "For while news media coverage of Sikhs in the United States has tended to focus on controversy — bias crimes against Sikh men, who are mistaken for Muslims because of their turbans, or civil rights suits by Sikhs to allow men to wear turbans and keep beards in various workplaces — the more prevalent, day-in-day-out experience is of finessing the balance between accomplishment and assimilation."

"Balance between accomplishment and assimilation..." Nicely said.

By eyesplash Mikul via Flickr

Another attender Amit S. Guleria said, “When you’re living the life of someone in your 20s, it gives you a different energy.” He added, “When you go to a traditional gurdwara, you feel more like an observer than a participant. Here, the onus is on us. And that’s a responsibility we want to have.”

Who are these 20 somethings? "Well-educated and upwardly mobile... the diwan includes doctors, lawyers, bankers, engineers, computer consultants, graduate students and at least one chef. Perhaps half are the American-born children of immigrants, half are immigrants themselves...

Either way they have a foot apiece in tradition and dynamism."

Peter Rollins - Lacan, Desire, and Religious Language

Quick Post: Peter Rollins is a provocative writer and speaker who views contemporary social theory as a resource for theological reflection rather than as an enemy to Christianity. In a new post, Rollins proves himself a good teacher of theory (insights in bite-sized chunks) and offers another example of his appropriation of modern thinkers many people simply ignore.

Take this as a highly inadequate introduction to Peter Rollins.

In his books and thoughts, Peter Rollins combines a strain of "postmodern theorists" (oh please forgive me for such an inaccurate term) with the history of Christian theology to reintroduce what he calls "heterodoxy." In this latest post, Jacques Lacan's psychoanalytic views are brought into a discussion of discourse and desire.

...we could not operate in the world if we were constantly expressing the desires hidden within language (something that would be impossible anyway). What is of interest to me is, firstly understanding this structure, secondly exploring how it can help us understand religious discourse, and thirdly to explore how an application of this knowledge can help us instigate real change in the religious landscape.

Check out his post to see how he develops this in a few words.

Rollins always offers a a quick background on theorists, presents a shortcoming in current Christian thought, and then recovers alternative conceptions through a combination of biblical scriptures, church history, and poetic parables to bring forth an interesting view.

His first book, How (Not) to Speak of God, is a short one where the first half consists of a string of such thoughts.

Related articles

• Peter Rollins Doesn't Hack Christianity (hackingchristianity.net)
• Book Review of The Fidelity of Betrayal sooner than Peter Rollins (this is a reinterpretation of a antecedent to access and a duplication of the cordial be on the same wavelength in the Truett Journal against Church and Mission) " Bill Walker's Weblog (truthproject.quebecblogue.com)
• A Good Place to Start: Žižek on Lacan (Book Reviews) (gatheringinlight.com)
• A Good Friday Parable (gatheringinlight.com)

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.

Twittering Religion in America - Part 2

Quick post: This is my second of two posts on the use of Twitter by congregational leaders. I'll focus on the use of Twitter by individuals rather than organizations...

Image via CrunchBase

Although congregations using Twitter during worship services has gotten some media attention, the use of religion through Twitter is more than just worship "tweets."

I'll pass on talking about other organizations that use Twitter like Islamic Relief (a non-profit organization) or Islamic Crunch (focusing on activities of all sorts in the Muslim community) or Talk Islam (blogging all things Islam) -- religious organizations of all sorts are finding Twitter provides a low-cost way to raise awareness and communicate updates.

Instead, I've started following a few church leaders on my own Twitter account and notice a few, distinct uses of the service.

(Caveat: Not all leaders do this ALL the time, but I'll suggest what I see as an informal pattern.)

1. Purposeful - Some leaders consistently stay "on message" through Twitter.

Image by Josh Russell via Flickr

Leonard Sweet
Erwin McManus

Here's what I mean - some leaders remain vision-focused leaders through Twitter, keeping their followers encouraged, uplifted, and focused on the values and purposes of their life. This includes leaders who post aphorisms, proverbs, quotes, and key phrases with every tweet. Look at Len Sweet's quotes and expansion of Biblical key words. See Erwin McManus's references to being "wide awake."

2. Provocative - Leaders put out questions and "what if" statements to provoke responses.

Naeem Fazal
Alex McManus

There are other leaders who want to initiate dialogue and get reactions. Using a spare 14o characters, they attempt to provoke thinking and prompt follow-up posts from other people. Naeem Fazal tweets, "Question: Do you have an irrational confidence in the faithfullness of God?" and "Is failure resolved by success or by faithfulness ?" and "Was there a time that you trusted God more than you do now ... What happened?" Alex McManus tweets, "Does talent emerge due to external factors (Gladwell, Outliers), proper practice (Coyle, Talent Code), or nature (Gallup, Strengthsfinder)?" and "What would happen if we planted gardens and designed natural sanctuaries instead of planting and building churches?"

3. Promotional - Leaders use Twitter to keep people up to date with their books, speaking engagements, blog posts, and other resources and events surrounding their ministry.

Image by barron via Flickr

Eric Bryant
Ed Stetzer

Church leaders using Twitter are often busy people who travel, speak, write, and consult to groups nearly every day. Their life is a near-constant whirl of activity, and they use Twitter to let people (both friends and "fans") know what's new with them. Eric Bryant links his blog posts to his Twitter account and regularly gives away free copies of his book. And Ed Stetzer continually developes new material which he often makes available on the internet.

4. Personal - Still other leaders talk mostly about their leisure and family activities.

Alan Hirsch
Sam Radford

Church leaders can be very open about the movies they watch, the restaurants they try, and the various happenings with their spouse and children. Reading their posts, you get a feel for the rhythm of their lives away from "the office." Alan Hirsch and Sam Radford are two who keep us informed of their sleep habits, places they visit, conversations with friends, and any "plans-of-the-moment."

5. Mixed-Use

Image via Wikipedia

Jay Bakker
Dan Kimball

While some leaders have one primary "Twitter Profile," most have mixed uses. Through a series of tweets, they broadcast vision, provoke thoughts, indicate their speaking and writing activities, and talk about their day-to-day lives -- all in a single day! Jay Bakker and Dan Kimball are faithful in providing their Twitter followers a steady stream of thoughts and activities.

These are the 5 uses of Twitter I see among church leaders today.

Any others I've missed?

Revival and Relevance in the Sticks (towns 75k or less...)

Interesting new conference -- "The Sticks" -- takes a southern and mid-western sensibility to initiating contemporary, mission-driven ministry to the small towns of the United States.

With a website complete with videos of t-shirt and wireless-mike wearing pastors, The Sticks conference is designed to inspire smaller town pastors to go for innovative ministry styled on the successful models of larger churches around the country.

The conference is an interesting example of the extent of influence from successful, evangelical megachurches in America, the pervasive use of technology in American religion, and the continued concern for attracting young adults in church ministry. Here you will find a mission-driven form of accommodation, acculturation, and experimentation in response to social change.

Stimulating ambition for churches outside Metro areas, The Sticks makes leadership philosophy and a reflection of contemporary practices accessible to smaller towns. Its stated mission --

Do you live out in the sticks? [small cities and towns of 75K or less]

Image by myoldpostcards via Flickr

Do you want to make a big impact?
Tired of small towns being left out of the conversation?

Have you bought into the lies...
'we can't do that' or 'we don't have the funds to pull that off'?

the sticks is a gathering where revival meets relevance. It is a gathering to inspire and equip pastors in small to medium towns to make a big impact for the Kingdom!

Break out sessions over two days in three different sites work through youth ministry, outrreach, the use of social networking sites, multi-site ministry, and leadership developments.

The speakers are native to each area, successful pastors who have grown vibrant ministries in these areas like Perry Noble, founding and senior pastor of NewSpring Church in Anderson and Greenville, South Carolina.

Meeting Jesus on Spring Break

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

As college Spring Break gets into gear for 2009, churches are organizing evangelistic ministries to help students be safe and meet Jesus.


At South Padre Island, Texas, college students partying on Spring Break were given rides back home while getting quick courses on Christianity. Kevin Sieff writes about the ministry in The Brownsville Herald.

In the makeshift prayer room at the South Padre Island Baptist Church, Allison's friends were praying for her as she drove around in a church van offering students rides. They knew how difficult the experience would be.

Just then, Tommy walked into the van. He was about Allison's age, out for a night's bar crawl.

"I could tell he was tipsy," she said. "But then we struck up a conversation."

Conversation, namely about Christ, is why Allison, 18, had driven 700 miles from Canyon, Texas, to South Padre Island for Spring Break.

She's one of nearly 500 students now participating in Beach Reach, which provides a free van service, breakfast and spiritual advice to young, often inebriated, spring breakers.

Image by Fetchy via Flickr

She shared her own beliefs - her faith in Jesus, her thoughts about the importance of community service.

Word about Allison's success made it back to the prayer room. Her friends posted an update on a projector in the center of the room. "Alli's doing great with Tommy," the note read.

"It was the best experience of my life," she said. "It gave me this incredible feeling."

Allison would need all the energy she could muster. Her next shift would run from 3 a.m. to 8 a.m., and the weeklong bacchanalia had just begun.

Image by FlySi via Flickr

Thousands of Evangelical college students shun the party atmosphere for prayer and service to their free-wheeling colleagues.

Calendar dates like Mardi Gras and New Year's Eve offer convenient points for organizing outreaches. Also, party places like Las Vegas or Florida's South Beach as well as hang out spots like Hollywood Boulevard offer similar opportunities based in geography rather than holidays.

The contradictory combination of heavy partying with intensive evangelism strikes a tone of radical purposefulness evident in many such ministries.

Idea Camp is Live Streaming Video Starting Thurs Nite

Image via Wikipedia

Quick post:  

The innovative incubator "Idea Camp" for church leaders happening in my native Orange County, California, is streaming live video tonight and tomorrow.  Check it out for an online, front-row seat to this "unconference"  --

http://theideacamp.ning.com/

http://www.theideacamplive.com/

You might need to register yourself into the site first.

Hollywood Prayer Network Kid's Calendar

The Hollywood Prayer Network now has a Kid's Prayer Calendar.


The Hollywood Prayer Network (a ministry I wrote about in my book Hollywood Faith -- see an intro video about their mission on their website) is dedicated to praying for all aspects of the Hollywood entertainment industry.

One of their most interesting innovations is a quarterly prayer calendar listing influential industry personnel on-screen and behind-the-scenes. Their monthly prayer updates are "published" to an audience of several thousand supporters. And they have a variety of other prayer ministries they've developed.

Their latest is a Kids Prayer Calendar that seems to indicate people and industry projects most influential among our nation's youth.

Image via Wikipedia

February '09 features the American Idol edition - past contestants and current finalists. A nice PDF file can be downloaded for parents to print and pray with your kids.

I wrote here recently about a book that gives a recent history on how conservative Christians reinvented their relationship to pop media in an attempt to influence and protect their children's spirituality.

The HPN Kid's Prayer Calendar is a great example of spiritual concern for kids. Rather than protest, HPN says prayer is more powerful and calls on Christians to direct their concerns about media to God. It also encourages parents and children to be more mindful of the media influences they are allowing into their lives. And more importantly, they actively prayer with compassion for people working in the industry who are sick, troubled, or facing any form of personal crisis.

More information on the ministry, including access to a free media packet, is available on their website.

Mosaic of Believers - 2nd Edition Paperback Fall 2009

I just found out from Indiana University Press that my first book A Mosaic of Believers will be published in paperback with an updated preface in Fall 2009.

Good news for readers all around the world (I can hear them cheering now).

Video Profile of Influential Pastor Mark Driscoll and Mars Hill Seattle

Mark Driscoll, a contemporary pastor recently profiled in The New York Times, was interviewed on Nightline. 

I wrote last month about Pastor Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill, Seattle, as an example of one brand of contemporary evangelicalism.  Driscoll was recently a highlighted speaker last week at Leadership Network's Innovation 3 Gathering.  

For those interested in things like what Driscoll looks like and the ambience of his church, here's a brief video on his ministry. 

Suburban Evangelicals and Christian Pop Culture

A bold, new history on modern evangelicalism titled Witnessing Suburbia came through my email today. Here's a quick look.


Christian Pop in the Suburbs

Historian Eileen Luhr has written on how religion, family, and media came together to reshape politics.

Witnessing Suburbia: Conservatives and Christian Youth Culture

The book is described as a new "cultural analysis" on how national politics moved decidedly "right" in the Reagan-Bush era. She writes, "this study explores Christian conservatives' shifting attitudes toward youth culture to provide insight into how religious conservatives attempted to reenter public conversations about culture at the end of the twentieth century."

From what I gather in the publisher's description and preview, Luhr brings us the story of how Christian parents and concerned ministers became "activists" in the 1980s for protecting their youth. She focuses much of the work on music -- as rock-and-roll became saturated in American life, evangelicals reconsidered their approach to culture and introduced new innovations.

Overall, she privileges the ability of evangelicals to infiltrate American suburbs and adopt consumer themes. She shows how conservative evangelical involvement with meda had wide political implications.


Concern for Youth Leads to Political Shifts

In the book, Luhr writes "how conservative Christians linked youth culture and social problems and how they aggressively sought to reestablish 'youth' as a category of innocence in need of adult protection during the late-twentieth-century culture wars." She writes about the rise of pop music that included Christian heavy metal (remember Stryper?) and Christian rock festivals.

What makes this book important is how it connecting these developments to the political surge of the Religious Right.

Reading the first chapter, I see how she captures a moment in evangelical culture in the early 1980s when record-burning and exposing Satan's hidden lyrics through backward masking moved conservative families to reject the rock-and-roll culture and the sex, drugs, and wild living that went with it. This set up a context for crafting a new Christian pop culture.

She says the creation of a new approach to "popular" (read "mass media") culture was part of a "modernization" project. And I think she's right. She describes the shift from Old Right to New Right:

Evangelicals' cultural interventions reflected a critical shift in conservative religious affinities from Old Right to New Right as evangelicals developed "modern" middle-class suburban sensibilities and consumer habits.

In both old and new mindsets, the family provided a critical building block of Christian society, and believers worried that a secular worldview encroached on familial authority. Proponents of both views feared that popular culture had replaced parents and church as the primary source of children's socialization.

Strict fundamentalists avoided contamination of the Christian worldview by swearing off secular culture—at least in name.

Conversely, suburbanized evangelicals...cautiously accepted television and music into the domestic circle but attempted to maintain careful adult guidance over message and interpretation.

As far as I can tell, playing out this transition is the theme of the book.

Understanding this piece of history a bit more closely, we come to understand yet another aspect of how modernity re-shaped evangelicalism in various ways. This contributes another piece of the puzzle to marking the rise of megachurches, the incorporation of entertainment, the shift in dress codes, the bringing in of movies and top 40 music into "contemporary" services, and a whole host of other developments thousands of church-goers consider quite "normal" today.

And it gives us another opportunity to reflect on religion and culture.


Check It Out

There's more in the book. Here are the core chapters (and Chapter 1 is now available online):

1. Home Improvement: Christian Cultural Criticism and the Defense of "Traditional" Authority
2. Rebel with a Cross: The Creation of a Christian Youth Culture
3. Metal Missionaries to the Nation: Christian Heavy Metal Music, 1984-1994
4. "An MTV Approach to Evangelism": The Cultural Politics of Suburban Revivalism

Cool Pastor Steven Furtick Draws Fire for Fashion

Steven Furtick, 28-year-old pastor of Elevation Church, is founder of one of Charlotte's newest megachurches and used to getting attention. After three years and over 4,000 attenders, Elevation is considered one of the fastest-growing evangelical churches in America. Now, his sense of style has been the source of some local comment.

The Charlotte Observer characterizes the pastor of Elevation: "Part spiritual athlete, part rock star preacher, Furtick is the talk these days in Charlotte religious circles." True enough. Now the talk has turned to his sense fashion.


Focus on Fashion

Last week in a quirky interview, the Observer decided to run a "style" question-and-answer piece focused on Furtick and his fashion sense. Here's a sample:

Q: Do you wear designer clothing?

I like certain lines. I love Monarchy, mainly the shirts. I like Antik Denim jeans.

Q: Do you have a favorite brand of jeans?

I like Rock and Republic Jeans. We buy a lot of jeans from Jordano's. We also like to Shop at Saks Off Fifth at Concord Mills. I like to go to Pure Denim in South Park.

(On a personal note, I don't understand most of what Furtick is talking about. No one's asking me, but I wear Docker's and 501's from Kohl's. Anyways...)

In the interview Furtick is both revealing and practical in covering:

Q: What piece of clothing can't you live without?
Q: Do you have any fashion role models?
Q: What fashion advice can you give to other ministers?

I found that Furtick's wife Holly supplements her husband's interview by making one thing clear: "The preacher's wife is responsible for his look."

(See the interview and some pictures with Steven Furtick.)


Fashion Draws Fire

But that's not the end. What's interesting is that some readers apparently balked at church donations supporting the young pastor's wardrobe.

The columnist, Dannye Romine Powell, called them "a bunch of pious fuddy-duddies."

Powell makes the point that the hubbub is "more about culture than religion." And she's right. There's no surprise to most that styles of fashion have changed for pastors. As culture changes, style changes.

But more importantly clothing worn by leaders on the platform signals the culture and identity of the church. Whether pastors wear torn jeans, Hawaiian shirts, or some sort of liturgical vestments (I've seen them all and more), visitors draw cues about the priorities of the congregation.

In the fashion interview, Furtick says, "You will see a person with a piercing, and a person with a suit, and the person with the suit is probably a guest, and the person with the piercing is probably a staff member." Elevation is not a suit-and-tie church.

Savvy pastors are more aware of their public profiles -- just like any other person who is dependent on first impressions for their livelihood. They come to understand which markers are important and how they come to be defined by people. Identifying fashion trends and becoming intelligent on matters of personal style is an important source of credibility.

Even further, dressing "in style" among evangelicals like Furtick is another way of communicating the contemporary relevancy of religion. The message and morality of this Southern Baptist Church is still quite conservative, but the earnest attempt by church leaders like Furtick (and Mark Driscoll at Mars Hill and Erwin McManus at Mosaic and Phil & Holly Wagner at Oasis and Naeem Fazal at Mosaic Charlotte) is to translate this orientation in a way that navigates immersion in today's urban/suburban lifetstyle with a vital Christian commitment.


More on Elevation

• Charlotte Observer did a nice profile of Elevation Church in Charlotte back September '08 with an article titled "Cool Pastor, Hot Church."
• A few pictures give a glimpse of the pastor and the ambiance of the services.
• Pastor Furtick also keeps his own blog.

Jay Bakker Counterculture Evangelicalism

Yesterday, I wrote about pastor Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill Seattle as an example of contemporary evangelicalism.

Today, I'm drawing attention to a brief post describing another aspect of contemporary evangelicalism, the ministry of Jay Bakker of Revolution Church in New York. Jay and I will both be speaking at the Earl Lecture's conference at the Pacific School of Religion.


The Tattooed Generation

Evangelicalism comes in many flavors, and today I offer you a glimpse at pastor Jay Bakker's church Revolution Ministries.

Jay Bakker is the son of the fallen late-80s televangelists Tammy-Faye and Jim Bakker of The PTL Club. Like Mark Driscoll, Bakker was also profiled by the New York Times -- back in January 2005.

One post at GetReligion.org called him the preacher for "the Tattooed Generation."


Describing Revolution, New York

A more recent post from Courtney Crowder provides a description of the church,

Revolution Ministries' indie-rock flavored service started in 1998 in Atlanta and has since spread to Charlotte, N.C., and New York City. (Today we're in Pete's Candy Store, in the hip Brooklyn neighborhood of Williamsburg.)

The service's popularity is an indicator of a growing trend in evangelical Christian worship: hipsters in bohemian fashions worshiping at clubs or bars, proudly breaking with their parents' traditional practices.

Revolution's website gives a flavor of the church. For example, a note on the church's website reads:

As Christians
WE'RE SORRY
For being self-righteous
judgmental bastards

REVOLUTION
NYC

A church for people
who have given up on church

Another simply reads:

RELIGION KILLS

Church services are available for free download.


The Backstory Available

Jay wrote the bestselling book published in 2001:

Son of a Preacher Man:
My Search for Grace in the Shadows


If you will be around Berkeley, California, January 27-29, you can catch Jay at the Pacific School of Religion.

Speaking in Berkeley, CA Earl Lectures & Leadership Conference - Pacific School of Religion

Bill McKinney, President and Professor of American Religion and author of the still important book American Mainline Religion: Its Changing Shape and Future (and--although not on his cv--he is really a heck of a great storyteller) invited me to come up to give one of the annual Earl Lectures at the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, California on January 27-29th 2009.

This is the 108th (!) Earl Lectures and Leadership Conference. The lectures were established in 1901 to bring prominent religious leaders to Berkeley's university community, and have featured such international figures as Theodore Roosevelt, Elie Wiesel, Howard Thurman, Maya Angelou, Paul Tillich, and Alice Walker.

Among others, Jay Bakker, son of Jim and Tammy Faye and pastor of Revolution Church, and Karen Ward, founding pastor of Church of hte Apostles in Seattle, will also speak. They will screen the new film on the "new monasticism" titled The Ordinary Radicals, as well.

I will start and finish the conference talking about tradition, innovation, and social change in modern American congregations--with maybe a dash of speculation on the future of religion.

Public lectures are free of charge.

For more on lectures, see here. This is the schedule of events.

Why Young Adults Lose Their Religion

I found a great article available online describing how and why teens seem to "lose their religion" as they grow into young adults. One of the co-authors is sociologist Mark Regnerus. I mentioned his excellent book on sex and religion among teens Forbidden Fruit a few days ago in a post on teen virginity pledges.

Does College Secularize Younger Adults?

Yesterday, I wrote about a Muslim Televangelist who had lost his religion in college before re-discovering his faith. I am reminded that most people believe that going to college leads young adults to move away from religion.

But here's published research that shows those who avoid college are actually more likely to lose their religion.

Image by murplej@ne - under deconstruction via Flickr

From the introduction:

Contrary to expectations, emerging adults that avoid college exhibit the most extensive patterns of religious decline, undermining conventional wisdom about the secularizing effect of higher education. Marriage curbs religious decline, while cohabitation, nonmarital sex, drugs and alcohol use each accelerate diminished religiosity – especially religious participation – during early adulthood.

This article is easy to read and challenges our common sense assumptions.

How to Get the Essential Points from the Article

If you don't have time to read the whole article, focus on pages 1-6, and 17-20.

What do you think?

Other Online Resources

• A shorter summary of the article is also available.
• Many other essays and bibliographies available on a website on the "Religious Engagements of American Undergraduates."

The Value of Teen Virginity Pledges Continues to be Questioned

It's no surprise that conservative Christians promote sexual abstinence among teenagers, but many have found interesting they have been fairly effective at drawing their teens into various rallies to make "purity pledges." The program "True Love Waits," for example, gets enthusiastic support from parents and church leaders who hope to keep their kids out of trouble. And there has been government support.

But the effectiveness of such programs has always been questioned.

Today, I found a study published in the January issue of the journal Pediatrics. Using sophisticated data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, Janet E. Rosenbaum (post doctoral fellow at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health) matched students who had taken a virginity pledge with those who hadn't.

Basically, the study indicates that teens who pledge to remain virgins until marriage are just as likely to have all forms of premarital sex as those who do not promise abstinence. Also, because of what the study reports as "negative views on sex," these teens are less likely to use condoms and other forms of birth control when they do.

The study also finds that 5 years after taking "virginity pledges" teens say they never made such pledges. This "disavowal" and "disaffinity" seems to indicate that parents and churches have been more effective at getting kids into programs, not in making lifelong commitments.

So, rigorous research does not seem to support that abstinence programs slow the rate of sexual activity. This will again call into question the federal funding of these programs because the stated goals are not being met. But the research I read fails to look at other choices these kids are making as a result of these programs.

My guess is that while critics of these programs may be right in the devastating finding that on average what these programs were supposed to do actually doesn't happen. On the other hand, I would be very interested to know more about the "unintended consequences" of participating in these programs (more so than lack of condom use). How do these programs affect friendship networks? Later church attendance? Identity as "Christian"? And later, what will their attitude be towards parenting? How about suicide rates or grade point average?

Finally, we might be spending more time looking at middle averages and not enough on the outliers. What happens to the "super-pledgers", young people who take up the cause of sexual purity? And what about the "anti-pledgers," those who end up fighting against a program they initially supported?

Findings like this will ultimately be a struggle over values. Perhaps the power of these programs lies in unexpected places. If we can get to understanding what these programs actually do in the lives of teens--and the variety of responses by young adults to these programs over time--then church ministries will change again, maybe focusing less on sexual abstinence and more on sexual identity, personal relationships, and reflections on self-worth.

More on the study can be found reported at the Washington Post, and The New York Times.

Also, for an excellent and up-to-date study on the sexual lives of American teenagers, please see my friend Mark Regnerus' new book:

Forbidden Fruit: Sex & Religion in the Lives of American Teenagers

Interesting and easy to read, this book goes well beyond looking at just abstinence to give a full picture of the relationship between sex and religion among teens.

Other articles

• Many Teens Don't Keep Virginity Pledges
• Virginity pledges don't mean much, study says
• Abstinence programs still don't work
• Do Virginity Pledges Work?

PR: wait... I: wait... L: wait... LD: wait... I: wait... wait... C: wait... SD: wait...