If you have not read the book, Unbroken, by Laura Hillenbrand, or seen the movie directed by
Angelina Jolie, we recommend you do so. It’s a story too good to be missed.
And there is a six minute short available free online, Unbroken: The Power of Forgiveness, that
digs a little deeper into the story. We recommend it as well.
My friend John Seel alerted me to the short film in an
email, writing, “in partnership with Unbroken
and NBC Universal, the John Templeton Foundation released a 6-minute film that
explores Louis’ story further and amplifies Unbroken’s
themes of faith, resilience, and the power of forgiveness. The film resides on
a site we created on the Power of Forgiveness and the film will also appear on
the Unbroken DVD. The film was
directed by Oscar-winning director, Ross Kauffman.”
You can see the short film here.
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.
In his fascinating and helpful book, Cultural Intelligence, David Livermore argues that Christian faithfulness in a globalized world includes deepening our “ability to effectively reach across the chasm of cultural differences in ways that are loving and respectful.” One part of that includes the need to learn empathy. Of being able to see things from another’s perspective, not merely from our own. Of being able to enter their world and life view, their way of seeing, so that we can catch of glimpse of their situation as they are actually experiencing it. “The point” Dr Livermore says, “is not to respect different religions merely for political correctness, but instead, to truly become incarnational in seeking to empathetically identify with what following Jesus will mean for an individual.” And then he tells of a conversation between a young woman and her missionary mother:
“Mom, wait a minute,” Emma said to me. Something had been troubling her ever since she first came home from school. “What would you say if...” I set the plates back on the table and sat down. “What would you say if I told you I was going to become a Hindu?”
It was a good thing I sat down. “What did you say Emma?” I stalled.
“What would you say if I told you I was going to become a Hindu?” She didn't take her eyes off my face.
“You’re not joking?” I knew she wasn’t. Her deep brown eyes could not have been more serious.
“I am not joking,” Emma replied.
What was there for me to say? The sweet, earnest, devout child before me, flesh of my flesh, a Hindu?! I had never thought of her in any way except as a child of Christ. I had failed her, and I had failed God. I had failed the other missionaries and the Indian Christians. How could I face anybody? All this came over me in a flash, and I was then more deeply shamed in the realization that my first reaction was one of loss of face.
She let me sit in silence until the whole impact of what she had said sank in. I saw her whole life before me including her marriage to.... Where was her father?! Perhaps he would be able to cope with this better than I could.
I must have looked very stricken, for she suddenly said, “I’m sorry, Mom. I just want you to know how Rani’s mother will feel. Rani is going to tell her mother, this vacation, that she is going to become a Christian. It will affect her family as deeply as it would affect you if I became a Hindu.”
Source: Cultural Intelligence: Improving Your CQ to Engage Our Multicultural World by David A. Livermore (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic; 2009) pp. 160-161.
In his new book Jerram Barrs has a chapter on the striking episode in Jesus’ life that is recorded in St John 7:53-8:11.
They went each to his own house, but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. Early in the morning he came again to the temple. All the people came to him, and he sat down and taught them. The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and placing her in the midst they said to him, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. Now in the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?” This they said to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him. Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.” And once more he bent down and wrote on the ground. But when they heard it, they went away one by one, beginning with the older ones, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. Jesus stood up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.”
Jerram’s reflections on this text are exactly what those of us who know him have come to expect from him—thoughtful, true to the text, and sensitive to real people living real lives in a broken world. What stunned me, however, and what I want to highlight here are the study questions he included for this text. Unless I am badly out of touch with the sort of discussion that usually goes on in Bible studies today, his questions are of a different sort entirely. The sort of questions we should be addressing but usually don’t. Truth be told, I don’t even think of them.
1. What in your life would you hate to have exposed for public humiliation? This is a question to answer on your own, just between you and the Lord. If you are considering these questions in a group setting, it might be valuable for everyone present to take a few minutes to reflect on this question before discussing the following ones.
2. Are there particular sins in the lives of others that you have exposed for condemnation or even for the public humiliation of the sinner?
3. Are there unbelievers, maybe in your own family or workplace, to whom you need to apologize for the way you have criticized or judged them in the past?
4. What are the sins that preachers most often tend to parade for the church’s condemnation?
5. Are there particular kinds of sinners from whom you have desired to separate yourself?
6. Why do we all find it so much easier to see the sins of others and to criticize them, rather than to see our own sins and to criticize ourselves?
7. Are there examples in your life and ministry where you have shown the kind of mercy to a sinner that Jesus shows to this woman?
Source: Learning Evangelism from Jesus by Jerram Barrs (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books; 2009) pp. 253-254.
This afternoon I attended a superb lecture given as part of Mayo Clinic’s ongoing Spirituality/Medical Grand Rounds: “Acts of Faith: Interfaith Leadership at a Time of Global Religious Crisis.” The speaker was Eboo Patel, founder and director of the Interfaith Youth Core, based in Chicago.
Patel, a Muslim, argued that we are in a dangerous period of history where religious rivalry often ends in violence. He pointed out that the media tends to portray religion in terms of conflict, often ending in sectarian violence. This need not be, Patel said, the only narrative that is told. The Mayo Clinic, he said, in contrast demonstrates how people of multiple faiths or no faith can respect one another and can work together for the common good. This story needs to be told more widely since religious faith, globally, is not diminishing but is increasing.
During the Q&A following his lecture, Dr Patel was asked about evangelism and whether his vision of “proactive cooperation” among believers of various faiths conflicted with their mandate to proselytize. His answer was, I think, both personal and very wise.
Patel said he respected his friend’s faith commitment that included the mandate to pray for his salvation and to evangelize him. That conversation should occur, he said, but it shouldn’t be the only conversation that occurs. We also need, Patel said, to get to know one another; to listen and ask questions; to learn each other’s traditions, ideas, and beliefs; to respect one another; to learn from one another; and to work out how we can live and work together for the common good.
I like that way of putting it: evangelistic conversations should occur but they shouldn’t be the only conversations that occur.
I learned that from a Muslim, and am glad to say so here.
[Thanks to my good friend, David VanNorstrand for alerting me to the lecture.]