Evangelical culture in America

I used to attend a large megachurch is the DC burbs for a couple of years. Then one Sunday, I was standing there singing along with the band and the "me, me, me-ness of the lyrics". Then I realized we never really heard much about Jesus; heard a lot about Paul, not so much about Jesus. Two years later, I'm a Latin Mass attending Catholic. I don't think I would be where I am spiritually without my time as an Evangelical. I admire several things about Evangelicialism, esp. the enthusiam for the Lord that it gives people. People need more than enthusiam over the long haul though. For me, being an Evangelical Christian was like being a minor league baseball player who needs additional time before being ready to play in the major league. What I mean is that being an Evangelical helped me get to the point where I was ready for something a bit theological deeper and historically connected to what I had been experiencing and practicing. I don't mean for my analogy to disrespect Evangelicals.

I think more traditionally minded Christians can reach out to the technophiles but just doing what they do. The RC and EO shouldn't try to relate to this technology culture, but just practice their faith and be a welcoming beacon.

In the last days there will be a great falling away, the book of Thessalonians tells us. Tumultuous times, convulsions in nature, evil people rising up against each other and against the saints; the wrath of God poured out, full strength, in successive waves of judgement - each of these things, will test the faith of many who currently make claims to Christianity.

Many borderline believers will become deeply offended at God and begin to see him as the problem. Their shallow faith will be tested, and found wanting. Unable to withstand the suffering, they walk away.

If as you infer, Mr. Dreher, MTD has no substance, it's just a matter of time until that too will pass. It's really not up to us to "correct the problem".

As a Post-evangelical of sorts, I have to agree 100% with your portrait of Evangelicalism, Rod. In particular, the lack of attention to doctrine, even matters as elementary as the doctrine of the Trinity or of the Incarnation is deadly in the long-term. Of my old youth group friends, less than 10%, if that many, remain Christians today, largely, I believe, because there was no real doctrinal or ritual content to our faith, only a vague and therapeutic moralism (MTD, as you call it) and a lot of pop culture-influenced emotionalism, all facilitated by now-outdated technology.

Her point was that too much of the Evangelical worship experience was about building an intensely emotional bond with Jesus Christ. It seemed disordered to her.

I'm not sure where this comes out from an Orthodox point of view, but St. Teresa of Avila comes immediately to mind in this context. She certainly had "an intensely emotional bond with Jesus Christ," and in fact was, according to herself, mystically married to him.

I've read some stuff on Orthodox websites, critical of saints in the West, which is pretty "disordered" in its own right, so I don't doubt there are those in the East who would be only too ready to pronounced St. Teresa and her bond with Jesus to be out of line.

That isn't, however, exactly how the Church in the West sees Teresa, needless to say. She is one of our great mystic writers, the founder of a major religious order, and officially a Doctor of the Church according to the Catholics.

So, as a Western Christian I'm not exactly sure how to get traction on this criticism. Am I not to love God with my whole heart and mind and soul and strength? That sounds pretty emotional (among other things) to me. And if I may not build "an intensely emotional bond with Jesus Christ," what, please, am I supposed to be doing? Is Orthodox worship really so much the cold fish as it sometimes seems to us as outsiders, and as it is being portrayed here?

I wonder about the long-term effect of painting Jesus as my boyfriend; making our relationship with Jesus analogous to typical (even ideal) romantic relationships, when we no longer expect our romantic relationships to last forever.

Everyone remembers their first love. The intense and unfamiliar emotions usually passed, and later we may be unable to understand what we saw in the other person. Is that how we are supposed to feel about Jesus? In love one day, out of love the next?

Perhaps this popular mode of worship has it exactly backwards. Christ's love for us and ours in return should create the ideal from which we pattern our romantic relationships; our romantic relationships should not be the pattern for our love of Christ.

the choice to worship in an Orthodox setting, a megachurch setting, or a small community Bible church setting is one of individual preference, nothing more.

Sorry, Doug, that's not true. Ever heard of the principle "lex orandi, lex credendi" (the law of prayer is the law of belief)? The way you worship is tied to the things you believe, and shapes the way you believe -- and vice versa.

The problem with emotion is that it cannot be sustained. I've seen many friends constantly and consistently chasing a higher emotional "high." Invariable, they are let down.

A relationship with God, as with any relationship, requires work (e.g. prayer) and commitment.

In the end, a true relationship fulfills and lasts. One based on emotion is sure to disappoint and collapse.

A little simplistic, yes. But it expresses a core truth.

Peace and Grace,
-jp

As a lifelong Evangelical I have a couple of thoughts to add:
1. I was involved in "contemporary worship" long before it became popular, before fancy sound systems and bands--if our churches back then had a couple of guitar players who could take turns leading the service, they were content. While the music was simpler then--much of it now needs a band and backup singers to make it work--there was in some part a reaction to the emotional deadness of the churches we grew up in. Now the pendulum has swung too far; fallen human beings just don't do balance very well. There is a valid place for emotion in worship; there can also be an excess as well as too little.
2. As far as the failure of today's church: There is a tendency in all varieties of Christianity to focus too much on what happens inside the building on Sunday morning and neglect to live out the faith the rest of the week. Protestantism has had a problem for centuries with making Christianity "knowledge-based" in spite of Paul's warning that "Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up." Sermons, Sunday schools and Vacation Bible Schools all are based on the idea that knowledge automatically brings spiritual growth. The "fruit of the Spirit" from Galatians 5 and the qualities of church leaders in Timothy and Titus are all character-based, not knowledge-based.

Speaking of "lex orandi, lex credendi," why is cultural background such an important element of orthodox worship -even determining the amount of greek during mass? If one is not willing to support the greek community, festivals, etc...or does not feel particular drawn to such events one is not going to be happy as a parishioner in a Greek Orthodox Church.

I know, this is not really related and somewhat of a stretch, but it is something that I've spent a lot of time trying to discern. As a roman catholic who really has a hard time focusing at most masses, I think the orthodox have it completely right. The mass, its reverence and aesthetics are where we should be. I love the latin mass, but take issue with a lot of those who attend -charity often being an issue...but that is neither here or there.

Peace and Grace,
-jp

I am in a confessional, Reformed church whose music and preaching is the opposite of Jesus-the-boyfriend, though I would still say we are evangelical in the fundamental sense of ev-angel = good news = gospel.

But to be chartible to the pop-Jesus-music churches, I suspect they have a basically different vision of worship than others of us. Probably they want to just get people in the building, get them to think about Jesus. Then in the weekday groups or Sunday school classes, perhaps they teach them the in-depth gospel. Probably a good idea is for Rod or others to interview a megachurch leader to get his take.

Two comments:

I believe Stanley Hauerwas has been attributed with the following quote:

"One reason why we Christians argue so much about which hymn to sing, which liturgy to follow, which way to worship is that the commandments teach us to believe that bad liturgy eventually leads to bad ethics. You begin by singing some sappy, sentimental hymn, then you pray some pointless prayer, and the next thing you know you have murdered your best friend."

2. As Mr. Dreher has already cautioned, don't throw out the "sappy, I-centered" hymns. The book of Psalms (which is _the_ hymnbook in my denomination) is full of intensely personal songs.

I didn't really know anything about Orthodoxy so i read a bit about it. is it true that Orthodox really view non-orthodox christians as heretics? (not trying to sound inflammatory here; but that's what I read in Wikipedia).

Interesting discussion everyone.

As a former evangelical, (about 30 years ago I left); I can relate to a role of worship as inducing ecstatic states in the worshipers. To this day I don't have an explicit issue with it, provided it is not used as a means to exert undue influence. Most religions have some aspect of ecstatic state induction and mysticism incorporated within their practices. When, however, the aim is simply to bring about powerful, and pleasurable altered states; what distinguishes the worshiper from a non-religious seeker of altered states, (via drug or other means?) I can see how this is an issue, and within the mystical paths of religious traditions this problem is one of the major challenges. "The Cloud of Unknowing" (http://www.ccel.org/ccel/anonymous2/cloud.toc.html) is a classic in the Christian tradition in exploring mysticism. There are many other examples both with Christianity and other traditions.

To my mind, negative theology offers some hope. In negative theology all potential distractions and idols must be set aside if the Presence of God is to be experienced in a near-pure state. The aim is surrender of forms and states, not their induction. To the extent that a pleasurable state distracts from a full surrender it must be set aside with an attitude of indifference to its attraction. Not easy, as altered states can be extremely powerful and beautiful. Now I say this as someone who has had a lot of experience of these states at various points, so I have an experiential base to draw upon. It is very easy to make these states an end in themselves.

So how should a seeker proceed with fidelity towards God?

The answer is, with humility and the insatiable longing for God alone which guides the seeker as a sextant does a ship. The two go together. To truly seek God requires a surrender of all the egoic attachments. Hence humility is a prerequisite, and an ongoing requirement. Beware of spiritual pride: When God draws near it is not because the worshiper is above others or special, but because having surrendered many of the forms which prevent awareness of the Divine, that still small voice is heard, and the Presence of God is no longer hidden beneath the din of noise which normally fills the mind. I have a certain affinity for the "Society of Friends", (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_Society_of_Friends), who sit quietly, waiting upon God.

My point, which I reiterate one last time, is that the aim of worship must always be God as God, and not some derivative form or state. To realize this requires humility and a longing for God only. That makes this path very challenging.

Michelle:
It certainly is important Whom you worship and how you worship Him, but as a wise Orthodox man once said to me, we do not know where the Spirit is, we only know where He is not. That means that the work of the Spirit is likely present in many places that are not Orthodox in practice, but I don't think I'm going too far out on a limb here to say that they are likely orthodox in theology.

We are to worship in spirit and in truth. That means our worship must not only speak to our hearts but it must be truthful as well--recognizing the character of the Triune God as He has revealed Himself to us, recognizing our character as well and focusing on Him and Him alone for our salvation.

MTD does NOT do either of these things very well, so it doesn't matter if it is coming from a priest at a liturgical parish or a megachurch pastor in his obligatory black t-shirt and fancy wireless microphone. It isn't going to get it done and it isn't worship in spirit or in truth.

Very profound summary, Albert. You'd fit in well at my Quaker meeting. May I suggest that you look around you for a meeting - they're all over the world.

Most meetings aren't much on academic theology, on trying to describe or define God in creeds or formulas. Friends differ very much amonst ourselves on the state of our progress towards God, but I think your discussion is very much going in the right direction.

"how much of that formation and discipleship goes on at anybody's church these days"

Well, very little in my church. We have impeccably-orthodox sermons and teachings... and then in the fellowship hall kids run around and spill stuff on the floor... but no one knows how to handle this, lest the dreaded "J" word (judgementalism) pop up. Ideally the pastor would actually disciple this family, but he is interested only in lecturing. As someone mentioned above, what counts is Christian character, not only teaching/dogma. I wish we had Sunday school classes whose subject was Good Manners.

I think your friends are astute, Rod.

I grew up in a small fundamentalist church singing mostly hymns. By the time I was a teen, the praise songs were coming into vogue. For a long time, our church did a mix of the two, which I really liked. The praise songs have some merit: the repetition and dreamy quality can induce a very worshipful state, one which I don't think is false, as long as the worshiper uses that state to connect with God rather than to just wallow in the warm fuzzy loving feeling. But the hymns (old or new, doesn't matter) have more heft. As Matt pointed out, they are sometimes about the individual's relationship to God or Jesus, but they often express more complicated reactions to the Divine -- sorrow, longing, comfort, struggle, and triumph. They also tend to address the community of worshipers more often, exhorting one another to greater faithfulness or spiritual discipline. ("What a Friend We Have in Jesus" comes immediately to mind, as does "Power in the Blood". "Are Ye Able" is similar, but has the congregation speaking to God as one body, rather than as isolated individuals, "Lord we are able, our spirits are Thine...") Sometimes hymns impart a little history or Bible lesson, something praise choruses seldom do.

So yeah, I think the point about how self-referential most of the songs are is well taken. I don't know if it's a sign of anything dire among the faithful, but I do think they are the poorer for having given up on more complex themes and emotions in the worship service.

I'm a Quaker now, and I agree with much of what Albert said. (Though I do think music can have a place in/as worship.) I believe the lack of silent space for inward listening is far more harmful -- especially as our everyday lives get noisier and noisier -- than overly-fluffy, emotional song selections.

Well, I don't know if this counts as rebuttal or evidence, but it is related and I (professional evangelical writer) just now finished writing it.

http://christineascheller.wordpress.com/2009/07/12/speak-the-word-only-and-my-soul-shall-be-healed/

I spent a number of years in the evangelical portion of Christianity before converting to Roman Catholicism. One issue I've thought of is the almost complete lack of any devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary in evangelicalism. Thus it's almost as if Jesus has to take on a more feminine nurturing role,--He has to "do it all", so to speak. Within Catholicism it is much easier for me to see Jesus as the Christ, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords and the Blessed Virgin Mary as occupying a more feminine, nurturing role.

As far as Liturgy goes I can only cry and weep for what we Catholics have allowed our liturgy and music (and architecture) to become these past forty years. In most cases we are offering absolutely no antidote to any type of self-centered, emotionally manipulative worship. I can only hope and pray for a greater return to Gregorian chant and the traditional Latin Mass. I believe that liturgy provides an excellent balance of strong doctrinal content in the prayers, and the lifting of the heart and mind to God with the music of Gregorian chant and the beauty of the prayers themselves. And add a beautiful church as well, if you're fortunate.

Rod: I, who have no experience of Evangelicalism....

This was very enlightening for me. I have long been very much puzzled by how positive your attitude towards Evangelicalism is.

Understand, I'm not saying Evangelicals are bad people. They are our brothers and sisters in Christ, they share many of the same values, we're all on the same side, in a sense, etc. etc. However, those who have experience of the religion and its culture and later leave it tend to have, well, let's say, far less positive views.

Some examples:

My sister wouldn't darken the door of a church for years because a local Evangelical preacher was allowed to come preach to the kids before school (church-state violation!) and preached, in a near-scream, hellfire and damnation to second and third graders!

Having preachers come to the free-speech area to lambaste passers-by (Rod mentioned they did that at LSU, too, but apparently saw it as more humorous than some of us did).

I remember discussing religion with a Campus Crusade for Christ person, and pressing him on how he could believe that God would condemn those who lived before Christ or who otherwise didn't know Him through no fault of their own. He finally became apoplectic and practically screamed, "That doesn't matter! You need to worry about your own relationship with God!"

The anti-intellectualism and rejection of science by anti-evolutionists.

The truly awful music (you got that right!).

And so on.

I'm not beating up on Evangelicals. In fact, I never have been one; however, it is in the air in Appalachia where I'm from, and through friends, neighbors, and others I've experienced it. Also, there are many good things that could be listed about Evangelicals, too. The point is, though, that, at least in the Bible Belt, Evangelicals tend to come on in an aggressive way that you either have to buy hook, line, and sinker, or which drives you away--no middle ground. The culture is ultra-sentimental and insipid--the values of the music are pretty much the same as those of "Christian fiction", "Christian art" (on which you had a really good post), etc. etc. etc. One is reminded of P. J. O'Roarke's hilariously scathing essay on a trip to Heritage, USA in his book Republican Party Animal.

Anyway, Rod, I knew you drifted away from faith, then became a Methodist, before going to Catholicism and then Orthodoxy. I had assumed that being from the Bible Belt the Methodism you experienced would have been (like it is here) strongly Evangelical (even a bit Fundamentalist) in orientation. Apparently that was not the case. Given my previous assumption, and given that my experience and outlook is very common for Evangelicals or those from culturally Evangelical backgrounds who later become High Church, I simply could not figure out, to be blunt, how you could like Evangelicals so darn much! Now I know that my assumption was wrong.

I don't want to sound negative. I guess it's like the ex-anything syndrome; one often sees the most oppressive and negative aspects of what one grows up with, especially after one leaves. I don't like Evangelicalism at all--part of that is, I think, objectively legitimate; part of it is baggage. As I said before, Christians don't have to like each other, but they do have to love each other, which is harder. Anyway, your religious background is in some ways extremely similar to mine, so I had always been unable to figure out why we differed so much in our view of Evangelical culture. Guess we just carried on different baggage onto that train a-comin'!

I agree with Turmarian, in that christians won't agree with each other on everything but they do have to love each other. All I can say is that as someone who was raised in an evangelical church and goes to a sort of evangelical church at present (presbyterian), I never ever heard/hear the kind of dismissive, nasty put-downs of orthodox in the ev. church that I am hearing here about evs. In fact, they don't talk about you at all. And I mean that in a good way--they don't run down anybody else. That's not to say they don't surely have opinions or personal differences with other denominations, but they are kind people who aren't looking down their noses at orthodox. This is a real eye-opener for me to always read the constant put-downs of evangelicals here by non-evs. I had no idea other christians were sneering and looking down their noses to this degree. The evangelicals that I've been around NEVER breathe a word of nastiness about y'all. They actually ARE living the idea of loving their christian brethren and not judging their fellow christians across the spectrum. That's apparently not going on the other way. What a revelation.
Frankly, I've concluded that God doesn't give a rip about denominations and wishes there weren't any. "Father, I pray that they might be one..." Does that sound like Jesus wished that we were all split up into our little groups, some sneering at others for their lack of coolness etc? Heck no. The new testament church was The Church. Not the methodist church. Or the presbyterian church etc. It would be nice to simply preach what's in the Bible and cut to the meat. Forget the denominations. Just be "the church".

It is easy to pick on the Evangelical mindset which is reflected in such bumper-sticker theology as: "The Bible says it, I believe it, that settles it." But I think that over-simplifies things, and yes I have a big problem with conflating religion and politics.

If I have a hope for Evangelicals in the post-modern age it is that they will concentrate more on trying to live up to the very difficult Christian ideals of loving their neighbours and less on a political alignment with the Republican party. That exercise damages both institutions, and especially as it leads to a sullying of faith in the dirty business of politics. This is not to say that an Evangelical expression of faith precludes a political role, but that role is not a conflated with politics. It is rooted in the love of neighbour, ministering to the sick, and relief from oppression.

I had no idea other christians were sneering and looking down their noses [at evangelicals] to this degree. The evangelicals that I've been around NEVER breathe a word of nastiness about y'all.

That’s because, in America, Orthodoxy is relatively minor and marginal. Catholicism is a more significant presence but not as powerful as it once was. Evangelicals probably feel they can safely ignore Catholics and Orthodox (and most old-line Protestants) because those groups don’t represent any serious competition.

The new testament church was The Church. Not the methodist church. Or the presbyterian church etc. It would be nice to simply preach what's in the Bible and cut to the meat. Forget the denominations. Just be "the church".

Not a new idea; it’s what at least some of the leaders of the Reformation thought they were doing, and it’s been tried at various times in the years since. It’s what Barton Stone and Alexander Campbell were aiming for in the early 19th century, for instance, when they started what became the Disciples of Christ.

Which points up the problem: in practice, the ironic effect of declaring that your group is going to scrape off the denominational detritus and “just be ‘the church’” is to create yet another new denomination. A big reason that denominations and branches of Christianity exist in the first place is that Christians have never agreed about what it means to "just be 'the church'." In fact there was no one "new testament church" even in the first century -- as Paul's letters make clear, there was already disagreement and competition among different groups within the various Christian movements right from the very start.

I don't think there's any solution to this. Different people look to religion for different things. Probably in most traditions, and certainly in Christianity, there's inevitably been a kind of dialectical tension between more emotional / enthusiastic approaches and more contemplative, disciplined, doctrinal or traditionalist approaches. The first approach strikes many people as empty of serious content, while the second comes to seem too aridly intellectual, and dissatisfaction with each continually drives people to the other. No one church can be everything to everyone, for the same reason that no state can be both Texas and Massachusetts.

Also, I think it bears repeating that the reaction many people have to this -- a kind of blase, "to each his own" indifference to the whole question -- has been present in every age. It's why Christianity is one long story of reform movements, revivals and Great Awakenings: because something like Moralistic Therapeutic Deism, under whatever name, is always, in every century, threatening to drain the faith of seriousness and provoking anxieties among the faithful like the ones we see regularly on this blog.

Very interesting thread. I attend a small Evangelical Bible church, and have for many years. I have been an elder there for about 12 years, recently leaving the board. Yesterday, I preached on Simplicity as a Spiritual Discipline. I used Matthew 6 and Luke 12 as text, quoting Chesterton and Foster. We sang the wonderful Celtic Hymn Be Thou my Vision and had an a capella solo of Simple Gifts.

I commend Foster's Book, Streams of Living Water, for its discussion of the various strands of Christianity and what we have to learn from each other, Social Justice, The Study of the Word, Mysticism, Holiness, we have much to learn from each other.

BTW, I took no offense at any of your observations Rod. I thought they were quite fair.

Some of their music is easier on the ear than the horrible 1970s folk music that is in use in the Catholic Church. I hate "On Eagle's Wings" and "Peace is Flowing Like a River" and "Gifts of Finest Wheat" and various other awful hymns that are standards. Give me "Ave Maria" in Latin any day. I don't necessary think your "MTD" is completely bad, particularly the emphasis that God loves us passionately and we should reciprocate. I suppose I'm an odd mixture of liberal theology and social views and traditional, conservative, liturgical Catholic sensibilities.

Further to my last point, "It would be nice to simply preach what's in the Bible and cut to the meat" is not a workable program for any Christian church, for the simple reason that they all think that that's what they're already doing. To the extent that any words, music, hymn lyrics, doctrines, sermons, rituals, liturgies, catechisms, creeds, confessions, etc. go beyond the bare text of the Bible, every church would say that it's simply explaining or interpreting the Bible or applying its lessons to our lives, not departing from it.

Again, there just is no agreement, and never has been, about what it means to "simply preach what's in the Bible." One church will insist that it means emphasizing Jesus's love and getting people to feel it emotionally. Another will say that it means helping people sustain the discipline that allows them to lead the best and fullest lives. A third will say that it's about critiquing the world we live in from the standpoint of prophetic witness. One church will say it's about freedom, another will say it's about submission. One will say it's about finding Christ in a deeply personal way, another will say it's about one's relationship to a tradition or one's membership in a worldwide community of saints.

The fact is that the Bible supports all these readings, so there is no way around having to make choices among them. A given church can try to keep several of them in balance, but it can't do or say everything at once. And no church that I know of has ever imagined that preaching "what's in the Bible" should mean literally just reading out the Bible's own words chapter by chapter. Even that approach would leave some things undone -- it would probably come off as fairly mechanical and emotionless, for instance -- so every church does more than that in hopes of somehow enacting the Christian message or making it real. But as soon as more things are being done, more things will be disagreed about. There's just no resolving those disagreements, which is why the best way of handling them is to try to keep them confined to the churches themselves and out of the public square.

Evangelicals can be just as suspicious of and dismissive of Orthodoxy and Catholicism as some comments have been of Evangelicalism here. Personally I could never be a Catholic or an Orthodox, but as an evangelical, I can say that some of the criticisms are valid. Contemporary Christian Music is very me-centered, and can be embarrassingly trite . The worst offender is the song where Jesus is referred to as "The Darling of Heaven," which is not only trivializing of God but weird for me as a man to sing. This is why the description of this music as "Jesus is my Boyfriend" music is so apt. Why am I singing like I'm having a mancrush on a male figure in church? A lot of this music is uncomfortable if a man thinks about the way he is expected to be intimate with a male figure, according to these songs, not that it is much better if it is sung by a woman.

Furthermore the music is cheap and simplistic.

And I can't understand how a congregation can un-critically sing a song like "Above All." Take a look at these lyrics:

Crucified
Laid behind a stone
You lived to die
Rejected and alone
Like a rose
Trampled on the ground
You took the fall
And thought of me
Above all

So, there's Jesus hanging on the cross, and He's looking at me saying "Mike, buddy,this one's for you. It's all about you." Yet this terrible song is sung by Christians all over without a bit of reflection about the truly execrable theology in it. They stopped singing it at my church, but I had started sitting down whenever it was played.

As a Catholic, I'd have to say that there's not much of a culture of friendliness or reaching out in the Catholic Church. You CAN make friends, you often just have to do much of the work yourself, which is daunting to shy people.

I've noticed something interesting since I left the Catholics.

We've been through several churches of various descriptions, having settled at least for now at the Quakers. (Which is probably not a "church," but that's another discussion.) Not Orthodox, any of them.

At any rate, in every single one of these congregations there is the practice, which everyone takes for granted, of organizing people in the congregation to take cooked meals for a few weeks to families in the community who have experienced a serious illness or hospitalization, or who have had a baby. Nowadays this is done on the internet, but occasionally you do see a clipboard where you sign up.

No one thinks a thing of this, or is at all as surprised by it as I was at first.

I was a member of a large number of Catholic parishes during my nearly life-long sojourn at the Catholic Church, big ones, little ones, you name it. No one at any of these churches could even imagine doing anything like this.

This is the sort of stuff that makes a good secularist say, "A plague upon all your houses!" It reminds of one time a girlfriend of mine and I were having an argument over religion and finally, standing it no more, I literally dragged her into the back yard, pointed up to the starry vault and said, "Look! Do you expect me to believe that the intelligence that was capable of creating that would be so small as to care what church a person belongs to?"

I was taught as a small child that if I had been the only human being ever born, Jesus would have been willing to die, just as he did, to save me alone.

I don't recall hearing it as a child, but I did encounter it as a Catholic adult -- in a quote I've heard attributed to Fulton J. Sheen:

"The wounds of Christ on the cross are the autobiography of my sins."

I'm with Observer. I don't think this is bad theology. I think it's profound truth.

That said, I'd probably hate the song "Above All" if I heard it too. I don't suffer sappy church songs gladly.

I would not trade the humble reverence and the thoughtful Christian analysis for purely emotional and self-centered connection with God.

Removing the not-so-hidden insult words "purely" and "self-centered" and the self-praise words "humble" and "thoughtful,"we are left with an alleged choice between "reverence and Christian analysis" on the one hand, and "emotional connection with God" on the other.

But isn't it Rod's point that really, we need all of the above? Especially after reading his later comments, I don't think Rod's saying that there's anything wrong in and of itself with emotion in worship (indeed, completely emotionless worship would seem to be something of a contradiction in terms), just that what is needed is balance. That we need not, and, indeed, should not, choose either one to the exclusion of the other.

I don't think Rod's saying that there's anything wrong in and of itself with emotion in worship (indeed, completely emotionless worship would seem to be something of a contradiction in terms), just that what is needed is balance. That we need not, and, indeed, should not, choose either one to the exclusion of the other.

Excellent point. Arguably, people who yearn for the "bells and smells and chanting" are operating on a certain level of emotionalism (or even nostalgia). They can talk all they want about TRADITION, but ultimately tradition's accoutraments are about emotion. The chanting is about emotion. The bells and smells are about emotion. Hearing the mass in Latin is about emotion. Iconography is emotion. Tradition is both an intellectual and emotional experience, as well as spiritual.

Some of the criticisms of evangelicalism here are really exactly the same ones the older evangelicals have of the younger ones. I do see a movement among a lot of younger evangelicals, though, toward an older orthodoxy--people wanting to bring back the more sober hymns (in, imagine it, minor keys!). A few days ago, my daughter's youth director told me he loves John Calvin more than his own father. When I laughed at him, he said, "Well, that's hyperbole, but he has shaped me more than anyone else." I don't have the same feelings about J.Calvin, but I do admire this guy, who's getting a doctorate in theology from Aberdeen--and he's a youth director, for Pete's sake! It's important to look at the large picture of evangelicals but also to focus in on the details--there you find much to admire, with people like Tim Keller, for instance, having a lot of influence.

Slightly off-topic; but this book touches on many points raised in these comments:

Evangelicals on the Canterbury Trail: Why Evangelicals Are Attracted to the Liturgical Church (Paperback) by Robert E. Webber

I tend to agree with the ick factor toward "Jesus is my boyfriend" worship music. I will say however on the "Above All" discussion, the idea behind that line "and thought of me above all" wasn't to make it self centered to the exclusion of others. It's to make it personal. Jesus didn't just die for mankind. God knew us all before we were formed in our mother's womb and in His infinite capacity to do so, could think of each of us individually as He sent His son to die. It's corporate and personal...though I can see where that might get lost in translation for some.

All that said, give me "All Creatures Of Our God and King" a million times over "Draw me close to you/Never let me go/I'd lay it all down again..."

Blech.

Rod, thanks for bringing this topic up. It's parallel to some things I have given considerable thought to lately.

First off, I would like to say that the most discouraging thing that I have noticed in inter-denominational conversations on the web (certainly not just here) is the excruciatingly large brushes we tend to paint each other with. I grew up in a very traditional Southern Baptist church in the Bible Belt and it was very unemotional. While it was not "intellectual" per se, faith was always cast in the light of reason paired with evidence from your experience. Sober, is probably the best word for it. I have since been a frequenter of many other Baptist and non-denominational churches. The variety of worship, teaching styles, and even teaching emphases has been very wide. They all preached the Gospel, and firmly believed the call to be evangelical (in the sense of missions), but were all very, very different.

Now, I have very little experience in RC or Orthodox churches. I've read a lot, but admittedly there are not many adherents in my circles. Putting the differences of church hierarchy and organization aside, I can see where someone from those traditions that rely in church unity and ecclesiastical hierarchies have a hard time seeing the differences in the box now labeled "Evangelical". To put this into some sort of perspective, every church I have ever attended has a "Statement of Faith" published on their website. They vary in depth and tone, but essentially most evangelical churches define who they are as a body by these statements. This is very much at odds with the RC and Orthodox, and mostly mainline Protestant view. Each church I have been to have all had the same foundational beliefs and doctrines and yet very, very different worship styles.

To bring it all back around, I’ll say this. I am back in Southern Baptist church and it could not be more different than the one of my youth. The worship is heartfelt, corporate, passionate, meaningful and powerful – all without me worrying about getting a “man crush” on Jesus. This is a church that has the same doctrines of my youth, but here the worship and sense of seeking God’s glory give life to those doctrines like never before.

At the end of the day, we will never fully understand God’s love. It is deeper and truer than anything our finite human minds can imagine. As such we will all process it differently, and I don’t think it is our place to judge how someone loves the Lord. We can pray for each other, love each other, and disciple one another, but my real hope for American Christians is that we learn to be one – even if on Sunday one person goes to a Latin mass and another raises their hands in praise in a high school gym.

I think Ragamuffin is right about the purpose of "personally" focused hymns. The problem with contemporary evangelical music is not that the music narcissistic; it's that it is totally vacuous and has developed within a general worship environment that has become a well-oiled machine which can easily run without the congregation being present. Orthodox worship is hardly immune from this emptiness, which is probably why your friend left Orthodoxy for Evangelicalism in the first place.

When I was a kid, "testimonies" of what God had done in your life was an important part of worship in my Southern Baptist Church. Sermons were a deliberate introduction to the "Invitation" where members of the congregation were expected to the front of the auditorium (called "the altar") to pray, be prayed for, publicly repent, or to announce a new commitment to God. That has been almost totally excised by the "Purpose Driven" and "Seeker-focused" worship models. While the Invitation persists, it mostly a time to admit new church members. The start (the singing portion) of the service is the primary focus.

Participatory worship is disappearing even from Assembly of God and other "full gospel" congregations. Pentacostal churches may become that outpost of participatory worship for entirely the wrong reasons (in my Baptist opinion). Even its last vestige, the Choir, has been eliminated in larger churches for a list of programming reasons.

The problem is not that congregations are too large or that they have big screens (although many of them *are* way too large to be effective). It's that there is increasingly little on those screens that anyone would look at if the congregations had the options of changing channels.

At the end of the day, we will never fully understand God’s love. It is deeper and truer than anything our finite human minds can imagine. As such we will all process it differently, and I don’t think it is our place to judge how someone loves the Lord. We can pray for each other, love each other, and disciple one another, but my real hope for American Christians is that we learn to be one – even if on Sunday one person goes to a Latin mass and another raises their hands in praise in a high school gym.

I can only say Amen to that.

I don't believe in prayer for reasons similar to those expressed about Evangelicalism & MTD.

If God is everywhere, and all knowing, then every moment we exist we are in communication with God - our dialog with him is eternal. But the formal act of praying creates a needless boundary of thoughts and actions that are private and selfish (our's) and those that open and giving (God's). The formal designation of Sunday - one day of seven - as being God's day furthers the psychological split.

I believe the unintended effect of this false distinction is a willfully lazy Christian culture - that there are specific times and places that Christians need to be on their best behavior (like sitting in Church or saying prayers), and other times when they can "relax" their standards (the rest of life).

Although considerably harder, Christians need to develop a constant reminder that we are in a perpetual state of communication with God.

My heartfelt thanks to all the Christians who have contributed to this thread. Nothing reassures me more about the state of a religion than its members shining the Harsh Light of Reality on themselves and taking what they see constructively.

As an outsider looking in, I have a perhaps exaggerated reaction to negativity. It's just nice to have the chance to balance that with a discussion like this one.

I should clarify: The Grace Life Church's INTERPRETATION of "historical Baptist doctrine" is more conservative. Personally, I think the 80s version is way more conservative than the Southern Baptist doctrine I grew up with.

I was going to post my comment here, but it's really really really really long. So instead I just posted it on my blog. You can read it here: http://tmamone.blogspot.com/2009/07/on-megachurches-and-evangelical-culture.html.

Like I said, it's kind of long.

Rod, I'm sorry that you thought I was referring to you in my comments. I should have made it more clear that I was well aware that you were trying in your post to go out of your way to preface your points ("I'm an admirer of evangelicals" etc. even if it doesn't come across that way in the rest of your posts). My 2nd comment was actually in response to the amazingly snarky and look-at-those-dirty-unwashed-evangelicals-down-there-aren't-they-toothless-and-gauche??" sort of commments littered throughout the comment thread. The point of my posts was not to say there shouldn't be discussion of "what's wrong" with a particular denomination (We all have opinions about others' denominations, fur sure) but simply to express my utter surprise to find out how judgmental other christians were of evs, while knowing that evs don't talk judgmentally about other denominations. Certainly christians will disagree (I disagree with things in the presbyterian church and a year ago withdrew my official membership from the PCUSA not because of theology but because of politically-oriented things going on at the national level in the denomination, even while continuing to attend with my family and enjoy fellowhips with the awesome people at my church) on things, but I'm simply in awe of the judgmentalism displayed by christians here.

I'm not religious. I'm a mellowing militant atheist who's become a little more agreeable to spiritual/supernatural explanations of how the world really works, but am not inclined to believe in these in the immersive religious sense. My most recent church-going experience, my first in probably a decade, was last fall at a Baptist church in a growing D/FW suburb. I'd say it's not quite a mega-church, but is growing towards it. They have the video monitors and PowerPoint graphics, and have separate "traditional" versus "contemporary" ceremonies. We were at a contemporary one. I was struck by two aspects. One, some of the songs were essentially grovelling to God. Not that far off from the "Oh Lord Please Don't Burn Us" scene in Monty Python's "The Meaning Of Life". The second thing was during the sermon, where the pastor felt the need to theologically rag on gays and Mormons. He had the obligatory "love-the-sinner/hate-the-sin" sound bite in reference to gays, but the disgust was palpable. And he likened Mormons to a cult. There were a lot of self-satisfied murmurs of approval from the crowd during these parts. I came away from this thinking that modern Evangelicalism entails a lot of self-abasement, and corresponding disgust-bordering-on-hatred of the "The Other": anyone standing squarely outside the flock. I couldn't help but think of the "Two-Minute Hate" from "1984". I want no part of this, for me or my kids.

Observer, Travis' post appears if you just click on the blogs home page: http://tmamone.blogspot.com/ I think his link got messed up by including a closing period in the title.

Thanks, N.A.O. I might've typed the link wrong.

People sometimes confuse the terms "Evangelical" and "evangelistic." I'm not referring to Rod or his essay.

Fascinating discussion. As someone who currently attends an Evangelical nondenominational church, and has been on the fence about these issues over the past year, I can't think of a single thing to disagree with in Rod's original post.

The therapeutic, self-interested focus is definitely there -- especially in the praise music and the worship "experience."

This is taking place in both large megachurch settings and in smaller house church settings (which were presumably formed to get away from that very thing in megachurch arenas).

Also, the creeping influence of Pentecostalism and neo-charismatics on Evangelicals at large is leading to an incredible amount of muddy-headed theological thinking that I think will continue to damage people's faith.

There's an entire wave of "prophetic evangelism" sweeping across much of nondenominational American Christianity right now, and it's merely a re-branding of the "signs and wonders" and "Word of Faith" movements from the past few decades.

Hmm. I have seen a comment or two speaking of the purpose of such Orthodox 'accoutrements' as icons and chant being the development of a certain 'emotion.' I really disagree with this assessment. The primary purpose of all the components of Orthodox worship is to provide a unified guidance in proper doctrine and worship. Take, for instance, one of the hymns I find most emotional during the Liturgy:

Only Begotten Son and Immortal Word of God,
Who for our salvation willed to be incarnate
of the holy Mother of God and ever-virgin Mary,
Who without change became man and wert crucified,
Who art one of the Holy Trinity
glorified with the Father and the Holy Spirit!
O Christ our God,
trampling down death by death, save us!

The way we chant this as a congregation during the Liturgy leads to emotions in me that I associate with awe and reverence. Our voices all collectively increase in volume at the mention of the Holy Trinity, and get even louder as a we sing "O Christ our God." The sort of rumbling quality of the "Who for our salvation willed to be incarnate" is sung in such a way that you know something is coming--in the same way that the incarnation of Christ leads us to a relationship with the Trinity. Now, in no way does the Orthodox Church try to prevent emotions during worship; however, isn't it clear from this hymn that it is not primarily to raise emotions but rather to present the Gospel succinctly and reverently?

Similarly with icons. It is clear from the 7th Ecumenical Council and the universal teaching of the Church that the primary purpose of icons is to proclaim the revolutionary truth that God is no longer 'formless' but has been incarnate as a Man. Thus, He can be portrayed. Even if one does not agree with this doctrine of icons, can one at least simply acknowledge that this is the Orthodox reason for them? In that case, even if icons by their beauty and content lead to certain prayerful emotions, this is not the PRIMARY intent.

Thus, even for the components of Orthodox worship which lead to certain emotions for many, these emotions are only a by-product of a method which is meant to present the Gospel and the doctrines of the Church very clearly. Emotion itself is neither rejected nor promoted. Rather, faith in the historic teachings of the Church is promoted. The Church's methods are intended to channel our various capacities-- including emotions-- down the same well-trodden path walked by the disciples and our Fathers and Mothers in the faith. Thus, if one is quite emotional, as long as he stays on the path forged by his Christian forebears, his emotions will be channeled and sanctified within the proper bounds. On the other hand, for one less emotionally-inclined, the path remains the same and is objectively presented for his feet as well.