A question often raised concerning ISIS is, “Why in the world would young people in the West would want to join them?” There are, of course, a rash of opinions on the topic, but those of us who want something more substantial than that will need to read and think, and then think some more. I am convinced there is no simple answer but rather a confluence of social and personal pressures, yearnings, attractions, and dislikes that make the choice feel not merely possible but necessary.

To try to comprehend this, we will need to read and think about both the culture of the West and the world of Islamic life and thought, including the version of Islam promoted by jihadists. A careful consideration of both sides of the issue is required. Why are young adults leaving the one to join the other? There is at work forces of both repulsion and attraction.

Perhaps you have already seen these two articles, but I commend them to you as helpful in our attempts to truly understand and respond Christianly to our world.

The first is “What ISIS Really Wants” by Graeme Wood in The Atlantic (March 2015)—it can be read here.

The second is “In Defense of Islam” by Ross Douthat in the New York Times (February 18, 2015)—it can be read here.

And as always, I would love to read your comments about either/both pieces.

            Hans Rookmaaker, art historian and colleague of Francis Schaeffer published Modern Art and the Death of a Culture in 1970. It was written, in other words, in the Sixties, a time of cultural ferment and protest in the West, and increasing defensiveness within the American church. We live in a world that still bears the marks of that decade, for blessing and for curse.

            At the beginning of the Sixties Reinhold Niebuhr was arguably the best-known and most influential public intellectual in American society. “Niebuhr was the ideal type of a species all but lost to us today,” Ross Douthat notes, “the public theologian, deeply engaged in a particular Christian tradition—in his case, a ‘neo-orthodox’ Protestantism—but capable of setting the agenda for the secular world as well.” I suspect Douthat is understating the case—the idea that a Christian theologian of whatever stripe could be America’s premier public intellectual is simply unimaginable today at the beginning of the 21^st century.

            It was also a time when technology and a technological mindset started to assume a larger, or more obvious and noteworthy role in daily life and society. We are so used to living in a technological world by now, of course, that this may not sound like much, but at the time it was significant. Things felt different, looked different, was different, and people were thinking differently as a result. There were gadgets, innovations and conveniences, new weaponry, state power and governmental reach, a flood of images and news available so quickly after the events occurred—as I say, commonplace now but novel then.

            A lot of new things appeared and happened. The birth control pill received FDA approval and scientists invented lasers (1960), the Berlin Wall was constructed and the Soviets put a man in space (1961), the first Wal-Mart opened (1962), John F. Kennedy was assassinated (1963), the British band The Beatles hit America and Nelson Mandela was sentenced to life in prison (1964), American troops were sent to Vietnam (1965), Star Trek series appeared on T.V., Black Panther Party and National Association of Women were established (1966), the first heart transplant, the first Super Bowl, and the first black, Thurgood Marshall, on US Supreme Court (1967), Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy were assassinated, and the horrible My Lai massacre occured (1968), Neil Armstrong became the first man to land on the moon and the first episode of Sesame Street was shown (1969), computer floppy disks became available (1970).

            The Sixties were also a decade of unrest, protest and revolution. Four black college students conducted a sit-in at the Woolworth’s whites-only luncheon counter in Greensboro, NC (1960), Freedom Riders challenged segregation on interstate buses (1961), the first person was killed trying to cross the Berlin Wall and at the University of Mississippi James Meredith became the first black admitted as a student (1962), the March on Washington and Martin Luther King Jr.’s  “I Have a Dream” speech occurred, and activist Medgar Evers was shot in Jackson, MS and was initially refused care at the hospital, where he died, because he was black (1963), the Civil Rights Act became law in the U.S. (1964),

            This list perhaps can serve to provide a feeble hint—admittedly wildly selective and incomplete—of what seemed at the time to be a brave new world of technological advance and social protest that was the Sixties. Modern Art and the Death of a Culture was written into and out of this cultural moment. The fact that Hans Rookmaaker wrote it more than four decades ago means it is dated; the fact that his perspective was firmly rooted in the ancient wisdom of the biblical worldview means what he wrote can serve as a model of Christian discernment.

            In reviewing the book recently I remembered how great an impact it had on me. The Sixties were a time of spiritual crisis for me. The Christianity in which I had been raised did not provide reasonable answers for the questions and challenges I faced in my classes and in the late night conversations I had with friends. Rookmaaker’s book arrived like a glimmer of hope. Never before had I known any serious Christian to take art seriously. Reviewing Modern Art and the Death of the Culture also reminded me that the perspective on life and faith that Rookmaaker advanced was radical. That is probably why the bookwas, as far as I could tell, by and large ignored by a church that was increasingly defensive, withdrawn, and reactionary.

            This excerpt captures a hint of what I mean.

            Those who put their faith in a perfected technology have of course some grounds for their optimism, even if they also have their problems. We are living in an advanced world, better equipped than any before to tackle the great problems of mankind: housing, transport, safety, health, home comforts, efficiency. We have better communications, safer systems, more convenient utensils, better organization. Much of our western society is wealthy, affluent. Economics, by applying the methods of the sciences, has been able to break through old barriers; together with sociology it has been the means of providing for everyone goods and services previously undreamt of. No longer is the world one with a happy few, a small class, at the top, with the masses of the nameless poor at the bottom. Democracy, leisure and convenience for everyone have been achieved—well, perhaps not quite, for we are still uncomfortably aware of the areas where they have not yet arrived.

            Certainly the world is a fast-changing one: air transport is faster, and within the reach of an ever-increasing number of people. Television, in the course of one or two decades, has changed the habits, knowledge and whole outlook on the world of a large majority of the people. Cars are now a commodity instead of a luxury. More people get better schooling and higher education at university and college level. Books are cheap and within the reach of all. People live longer as a result of the rapidly advancing medical care and research.

            All this is true, and many of these things have no doubt led to much greater happiness and satisfaction in life for many. No-one wants to undo them, or go back to being without them, or deny their importance. Nor can it be denied that they all have a deep influence on our lives. Certainly one aspect of the crisis of our age is to be found in the fact that we have not yet completely adjusted to them; we have not yet found the right attitude to them, for we are often still like children completely taken up with a new toy. But the overwhelming ecological problems of today show that we must stop playing at random: our utensils may destroy us, our machines cause the decay of the very earth on which they stand. Perhaps we have bought our affluence at too high a price.

            Our world is changing, and we with it. It has become much larger, as our horizons have widened; but also much smaller, for we get instant information on problems and events in places far away. We get involved in things we have never even thought of before. So our world has become much more complex, and in our answers to the problems of life we have to cope with far more factors than ever before.

            All this means that Christians must go through a period of study, thought and re-evaluation that will take much of our energy. Conflicts will arise within Christian circles as older people especially are not consciously aware of this need for re-orientation, and therefore think that the old answers are still valid and sufficient. It is not that the foundation has to change, or that the basic doctrines have lost their meaning. But the expression and formulation of them sometimes needs rethinking as we listen afresh to God's Word, and seek to present it to the new world in which we are living.

            The whole cultural situation however is much more complex than can be dealt with simply by asserting that we have to adjust and rethink. There are many negative elements in the technocracy of today. We must find out what they really are, think through the means of removing them or at least formulating our attitude to them.

            We must also learn to react positively to the positive elements of the revolt and protest around us. For it, too, is against the evils of technocracy. We must rejoice in the fact that man is shown to be still human by his protest against the forces that would dehumanize him. We must be alert to see that the lawless and negative revolutionary elements do not obscure the real issues, so that they do not become themselves an obstruction to finding the solution they seek.

Reading this excerpt after so many years also raised questions in my mind as to how Rookmaaker’s vision of Christian faith could be applied to the opening decades of the 21^st century.

Questions for reflection and discussion:

            1. What is your first impression of what Dr. Rookmaaker communicates? Why do you think you responded as you did?

            2. Do you know anyone personally who tends to “put their faith in a perfected technology”?

            3. Writing in 1970, Rookmaaker says, “All this means that Christians must go through a period of study, thought and re-evaluation that will take much of our energy.” Did this occur in the last 40+ years? If so, to what extent was it adequate for the task?

            4. Rookmaaker goes on to argue there is both a negative and a positive aspect to our task as Christians. The negative, he says, consists of naming the social and technological changes that affect us and then assess them in distinctly Christian categories. In his words: “There are many negative elements in the technocracy of today. We must find out what they really are, think through the means of removing them or at least formulating our attitude to them.” Has this been accomplished adequately over the past four decades? Why or why not?

            5. The positive aspect to the Christians assessment may surprise many Christians. In most retellings of the story of the Sixties, the numerous protests and revolutionary movements tended to be viewed with unrelenting disapproval by conservative Christians—then and now. How do you respond to Rookmaaker’s perspective, especially as it is expressed in the final paragraph?

            6. This is purely speculative, of course, because Dr. Rookmaaker is dead and cannot speak for himself. Still, I suspect that he would have a very similar thing to say to Christians at the beginning of the 21^st century. What might that consist of?

Excerpt: From Modern Art and the Death of a Culture by H. R. Rookmaaker (Downers Grove, IL: Inter-Varsity Press; 1970) pp. 197-199.

Source: Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics by Ross Douthat (New York, NY: Free Press; 2012) p. 25.

In my last post (July 30) I listed the five sociological and historical forces that Ross Douthat identifies in his book, Bad Religion as the primary contributing factors in the decline of the attractiveness and authority of Christian orthodoxy in America. Whatever “proximate causes of Christianity’s decline” (his term) you consider most definitive, the ones he lists certainly contributed.

What I want to do in this post is identify some of the factors within evangelicalism that seems to me to have contributed to the decline. I realize that on this level there are significant regional and denominational differences that are worthy of note, though I will not take the time to parse them out here. Sadly, a number of these factors are still with us.

Spokespeople who represent a shriveled version of faith.

            The so called “Christian media” has produced a host of pundits and commentators who have positioned themselves as representatives of the evangelical world. Many have been more animated by political ideologies than by historic biblical orthodoxy, some have been distinctly uncivil, many have spoken to issues far outside their expertise, and a few are little more than buffoons preening in the spotlight. I have listened to their comments in dismay, at times wondering if I could in good conscience continue to identify myself as an evangelical.

            Though this does not address religious pundits specifically, Susan Cain in her excellent book, Quiet: The of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking notes: “A well known study out of UC Berkeley by organizational behavior professor Philip Tetlock found that television pundits—that is, people who earn their livings by holding forth confidently on the basis of limited information—make worse predictions about political and economic trends than they would by random chance. And the very worse prognosticators tend to be the most famous and the most confident” (p. 52).

            We would have been far better served by silence. We still would be.

Squandering spiritual resources.

            As the world passed from modernity to postmodernity, it was quickly clear that rather than a descent into secularism, a renewed interest in spirituality was blossoming. It’s true this trend was not immediately evident in the books and articles produced by the knowledge elite, but it couldn’t be missed in coffee shops and in the themes expressed in popular music and film. At such a point, it would make sense that attention and creativity would be given to the rich spiritual resources of evangelical faith, but often no one seemed to care or notice.

            Consider just one example: liturgy. Liturgy rooted in the ancient practices of the church, thoughtfully rendered for today and creatively shaped by the gospel itself is a rich spiritual resource to be demonstrated to a watching world. A self-confident and comfortable church, however, goes through the motions, perhaps even enthusiastically, failing to realize how beauty must be carefully nourished if it is to be appreciated.

            Even today it is often obvious that the leader has not carefully prepared for each aspect of the service. Prayers, readings, and hymns are introduced with tired phrases that once might have sounded fresh, now repeated every week, “please stand with me and respond in praise…” as if that’s an intelligent way to introduce the corporate singing of a hymn full of phrases and concepts not normally spoken in everyday speech to someone who is unchurched. Insufficient context is provided to tie each element to the last and to the whole, and speaking louder than normal is apparently thought to grant authority or authenticity.

            Non-liturgical evangelical traditions still have a liturgy, if we define it as the order in which the various elements of worship appear during corporate worship. The problem for such churches is demonstrating that their order is rooted in anything more ancient or authoritative than the group’s preferences, and then leading it so that the whole demonstrates an orthodox faith.

Faith separated from vocation.

            The evangelical church professes to believe the Reformation teaching that all work brings glory to God, but in practice this has been rarely reflected in the life of congregations. A proliferation of church and parachurch activities have been produced, and often the subtle impression has been given that truly spiritual people are involved in such programs.

            The problem remains. The truth of the matter is that our faithfulness as Christians is expressed in our vocations. Our work fulfills our calling to build culture and witness to God’s mission to bring Christ’s kingdom to fulfillment in his creation. Even if this is believed, it is rarely taught explicitly, and in practice is smothered by the pressure to volunteer for more church sponsored events and activities.

Priorities in ministry set by reaction not biblical and historic faithfulness.

           As Christianity has declined in attractiveness and authority, evangelical leaders have responded in various ways. Some adopted a consumerist model, and assumed their attempt was good because huge churches resulted. It was years before data was available to prove what should have been evident: using what fallen people like to make church entertaining guts the gospel of its meaning and power. Some have embraced postmodernism, arguing that historic orthodoxy itself must be reimagined. Before long in their preaching and writing were espousing positions that are at best heterodox. Others have reacted against this heterodoxy, retrenched and emphasized theology, so that their people became well versed in identifying differences in varying schools of thought about the minutia of doctrine. For some reason many of these seem to fail to comprehend that orthodox Christianity also provides us with a worldview by which we can see, discern, and faithfully find our way through the myriad choices of ordinary life.

            All these reactions, still with us, are understandable, but unfortunate.

Claims to change the world.

            Over the past century evangelicals have claimed the gospel transforms not just lives, but families and cultures to eventually change the world. Sadly, these claims have been misapplied politically so that electing the correct politicians was promised to usher in a renewed period of traditional family values, economic freedom, and justice.

            These claims reached a high point with Ronald Reagan’s election, but the reality was disappointing, if not embarrassing. As conservative Ross Douthat points out in his book, Bad Religion, Reagan’s worldview did not align itself with the orthodoxy: “As John Patrick Diggins wrote, ‘Reagan offered three of the most radical thoughts ever held by an American president: We have no history at our back; the people know no evil because our God-given desires are good; and only the state knows how to sin.’ The Gipper took elements from modernist theology and adapted them to right-of-center politics. Instead of History’s God working out His purposes through the development of the modern bureaucratic state, it was democratic capitalism that reflected God’s ultimate will for humanity. Reagan’s was a utopianism of free men and free markets, rather than of a benevolent administrative body—but it was a utopianism nonetheless, unconstrained by traditional conservatism’s sense of tragedy” (p. 267).

            Perhaps a bit less hubris would be wise. I happen to believe that the gospel is the true transforming power of all of history, but pinning the hopes of transformation to particular political, judicial, legislative, or evangelical events is irresponsible. As each year passes these claims seem more foolish. Once again, silence would be preferable.

An absence of human flourishing.

            The claim that the gospel is transformative will be implausible unless those who claim to live by it exhibit lives of beauty, virtue, love, and grace. Accomplishing this is impossible, of course, but thankfully the Lord has sent the Spirit. It does not require anything extraordinary but faithfulness in the ordinary and routine, the deeply subversive arts of warm hospitality, unhurried conversation, a simple meal, good listening, and a quiet dependence on God through prayer. Following the mistaken impressions of the Second Great Awakening, over the course of the twentieth century evangelicals have depended more on techniques and programs than on radical discipleship.

Unethical evangelism.

            The primary approaches to evangelism fostered since the end of World War II were modeled after sales techniques. Some were frankly unethical, such as those involving “surveys” that were really not surveys, their data never collected and tabulated, but were merely a set of manipulative questions designed to funnel the encounter into a particular presentation. All the church really succeeded in doing was convincing the world that evangelism was a form of marketing and the gospel was one more commodity. Many involved "bait and switch," giving the impression of professing interest in one thing, only to suddenly change direction to a pre-packaged witness.

Reaction rather than discernment.

            When a minority is not prepared to meet the challenges of living in a culture that does not share its deepest convictions and values—and may even be hostile to them—the tendency is to react. This in turn gives the impression the minority’s position is weak and indefensible, so that the fearfulness displayed seems plausible to the majority. If the minority then withdraws into a self-imposed ghetto, with its own activities, media, music, art, and language, the majority’s opinion is further supported.

            It is extremely difficult to be a thoughtful minority, especially if you haven’t noticed the culture’s change switching you from a majority force to a dismissed minority. It’s hard work to be discerning, instead of merely reacting to things, but there is no other possible way to be faithful in a pluralistic world.

Enough for now: I provide this list not as something exhaustive but as impressionistic, anecdotal, and incomplete. It seems to me these tendencies within evangelicalism have not served the church well, and most of them still haunt us. They comprise factors that seems to me have helped reduce the authenticity and authority of orthodoxy within the evangelical movement over the course of the last 70 years.

I look forward to your comments, pro and con, or adding to what I've included here.

Ross Douthat, Op-ed columnist for the New York Times, takes another look at the brouhaha that resulted when a journalist suggested Tiger Woods should consider Christianity since being revealed as an unfaithful husband. Brit Hume, on Fox News many people noted with displeasure, had made the gaffe, showing both the moral bankruptcy of Fox as a news source and the danger of religious people being allowed to proselytize in the public square.

Douthat asks us to ignore the hissing in the background and be more thoughtful about what took place:

Liberal democracy offers religious believers a bargain. Accept, as a price of citizenship, that you may never impose your convictions on your neighbor, or use state power to compel belief. In return, you will be free to practice your own faith as you see fit — and free, as well, to compete with other believers (and nonbelievers) in the marketplace of ideas.

That’s the theory. In practice, the admirable principle that nobody should be persecuted for their beliefs often blurs into the more illiberal idea that nobody should ever publicly criticize another religion. Or champion one’s own faith as an alternative. Or say anything whatsoever about religion, outside the privacy of church, synagogue or home.

A week ago, Brit Hume broke all three rules at once. Asked on a Fox News panel what advice he’d give to the embattled Tiger Woods, Hume suggested that the golfer consider converting to Christianity. “He’s said to be a Buddhist,” Hume noted. “I don’t think that faith offers the kind of forgiveness and redemption that is offered by the Christian faith. ”

A great many people immediately declared that this comment was the most outrageous thing they’d ever heard.

Douthat suggest that the outcry misses what might in fact be the most essential issue. “Theology has consequences,” he argues. “It shapes lives, families, nations, cultures, wars; it can change people, save them from themselves, and sometimes warp or even destroy them. If we tiptoe politely around this reality, then we betray every teacher, guru and philosopher—including Jesus of Nazareth and the Buddha both—who ever sought to resolve the most human of all problems: How then should we live?”

You can read Douthat’s interesting piece, “Let’s Talk About Faith,” here. I recommend it to you.