Posted on 05/17/2004 7:06:39 AM PDT by qam1
VIEW MEGACHURCHES AS SLICK, IMPERSONAL
For evidence of generational upheaval these days, you might skip over the usual suspects -- sex, drugs, rock 'n' roll -- and consider instead Christianity.
Two decades after baby boomers invented the suburban megachurch, which removed crosses or stained-glass images of Jesus in favor of neutral environments, their children are now wearing "Jesus Is My Homeboy" T-shirts.
As mainline churches scramble to retain young people, these worshippers have gained attention by-creating alternative churches in coffee bars and warehouses and publishing new magazines and Bibles that come on as anything but church.
But does a T-shirt really serve the faith? And if religion is our link to the timeless, what does it mean that young Christians replace their parents' practices?
The movement "has a noble side," said Michael Novak, the conservative theologian at the American Enterprise Institute. He remembers how much he enjoyed the Christian comic books of his youth. He compared the alt-evangelicals to missionaries, who "feel they've learned something valuable from their faith and want to share it" using the native language.
For many in this generation, the worship style of their parents feels impersonal: not bigger than their daily, media-intensified lives, but smaller. Their search is for unfiltered religious ex-perience.
"My generation is discontented with dead religion," said Cameron Strang, 28, founder of Relevant Media, which produces Christian books, a Web site and Relevant magazine, a stylish 70,000-circulation bimonthly that addresses topics like body piercing, celibacy, extreme prayer, punk rock and God.
Strang, a graduate of Oral Roberts University, is in some ways a model alt-evangelical, with two earrings, a shaved head and beard. He left a megachurch, he said, because he felt no community at the slick services. Now he attends an alternative church in a school gym, with intimate groups and basketball after services.
This stylistic shift is critical, said Lee Rabe, pastor at Threads, an alternative, or "emerging," church in Kalamazoo, Mich. Where megachurches reached out to baby boomers turned off by church, the younger generation often has no experience with religion. They need to be beguiled, not assuaged, Rabe said.
"The deity-free 'church lite' of the megachurches, that's the last thing these people want," he said. "They want to talk about God. It's hard-core, not in a fire and brimstone way, but it has to be raw, real."
The changes are often more stylistic than doctrinal. Many alt-evangelicals espouse conservative theology, but reject the censure of some churches. Strang sees this as a blueprint for an evangelical left.
"We're all sinners," he said. "Your sin isn't any worse than my sin. We don't say, 'Stop the horrible gays.' You want to reach them, you don't want to protest them. If we looked like goody-two-shoes, clean cut, we couldn't have a conversation with our lesbian friend at the coffee shop, because she couldn't relate."
Increasingly, this conversation borrows from pop culture, in the same way that hip secular culture borrows the cabala and the cross.
Critics say this engagement comes at a price. Timothy Williams, 48, a pastor at Sound Doctrine Ministries, a non-denominational church in Enumclaw, Wash., sees flirtation with pop culture as a capitulation to sin. "More and more, the church is seeking to be like the world around it," said Williams, who has written a pamphlet denouncing Christian rock. "But the Bible says that anyone who becomes a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. If we're going to be relevant or on the world's level to draw people, we might as well give free beer in the parking lot."
But evangelicals have long used pop culture and new technology to spread their gospel, said Stephen Prothero, chairman of the religion department at Boston University.
Christian tracts handed out in the 19th century were one of the first mass media. In the 1930s, the evangelist Charles Fuller used the new medium of radio to broadcast his sermons. Four decades later, the Jesus movement of the 1970s adopted the vibe of the 1960s counterculture.
The actor Stephen Baldwin, a born-again Christian, has just directed a DVD called Livin' It, pairing extreme sports with faith testimony, from which he hopes to spin skate Bibles, clothing, CDs and Bible-study guides, all tied to a non-profit youth ministry.
"This could be the first get-down rock 'n' roll, cool Christian brand," he said.
The underlying romance is familiar from any Nirvana video: the Christian as rebel or outsider, misunderstood, struggling against a world of conformity, commercialism and manufactured pleasures.
"It's a countercultural thing," said Tim Lucas, 33, pastor of an emerging ministry called Liquid in Basking Ridge, N.J. On a recent Sunday, Lucas wore a Hawaiian shirt and used images from The Lord of the Rings movies and a clip from Amadeus in a sermon about the book of First Samuel.
"They identify with being an underground movement, which is what Christianity was in the beginning," Lucas said of his congregation. "Living out a life with Christ at the center draws a lot of flak. Not a lot of people will celebrate that."
The movement away from middle-of-the-road theology and worship mirrors a trend on college campuses, where growing numbers of students claim either no religion or strong religious affiliation, with the middle ground shrinking, said Alexander Astin, director of the Higher Education Research Institute at UCLA, which last year completed a national study of students' beliefs.
In the survey, more than 70 percent of students said they prayed, discussed religion or spirituality with friends, found religion personally helpful and gained spiritual strength by trusting in a higher power.
Please argue that with someone who made that argument. Telling it to me is a strawman even if it wasn't intended to be.
My understanding is that we are called to spread the gospel, not to "convert" people. That is the job of the holy spirit.
If the message is not heard, it has not been spread.
"A nod is as good as a wink to a blind horse".
"My generation is discontented with dead religion," said Cameron Strang, 28, founder of Relevant Media, which produces Christian books, a Web site and Relevant magazine, a stylish 70,000-circulation bimonthly that addresses topics like body piercing, celibacy, extreme prayer, punk rock and God.Unfortunately, in ten years his religion will likely be a dead religion too. This was tried in the '60s and early '70s.
oh, but you forget that in the 1500s it was oh shocking to hear those hymns being sung instead of good Gregorian chants
That's hitting below the belt...especially since we'll never know who's really Elect until it's too late.
oh, but you forget that in the 1500s it was oh shocking to hear those hymns being sung instead of good ole Gregorian chants
See my #69
Very simply, IMO, many of them have been purposely taken over by non believers.
According to Calvin, you're correct. But according to Calvin, the Elect are the Elect regardless of whether or not they've read sprawling diatribes posted on the web.
I thought that was a dumb statement, too! How did St. Paul evangelize the Gentiles, if people can only accept the Gospel from someone just like them?
I find that looking and acting differently from the mainstream attracts people. When they see my children and me, girls modestly dressed, boys with USMC haircuts (their choice!), everyone helping with the babies, etc., they're curious. And if we smile and are friendly, no matter what people look like, they're usually glad to talk to us. And then, when someone says, "Wow, you have your hands full!" then I can say, "Yes, God has been very good to us!"
It's not a big thing, but we try to show that we find joy in the life God has called us to. The beginning of evangelization, as I see it, is for people to see us and say, "They have something in their lives that I need."
Actually, it was the 1960s and 1970s "Jesus movement" that led directly to the explosive revival which began in the late 1970s and continues to this day.
Many of the sandle-wearing, long haired, scripture quoting Jesus freaks are now senior pastors and seminary professors.
And that's the problem with the hardcore Calvinist. They typically believe that if you aren't a hardcore Calvinist then you aren't one of "the elect", because if you were the elect, you would know the Calvinist truth. Some of those pretty heated and detailed discussions took place a few years back right here on FR.
But do you see Episcopalians changing in their membership from being identified as upper class to one of being ultra liberal such as the Unitarians. I am going to see if I can find that book even if it is out of print, sounds interesting.
You know... I don't think I'm making a strawman argument with you. You stated this: "Missing a soul because of lack of imagination on how a particular person might be given the good news is a shame. "
Maybe you'd like to clarify that statement?
Happily.
Everyone born has a soul. We are instructed to spread the gospel. Missing any because we are tied to one particular approach would be to miss telling the good news. It's the same as not bothering to try at all.
As an independent church pastor, I have been following the division of Christianity for many years, 1956-now. The mainline is just another name for liberalism and it is astonishing that the media, other types of Christians, and seminaries would still not see that liberal Christianity is an oxymoron. To take the Christ out of Christianity is to have 'idianity.' There are more kids going to conservative, pentecostal, out of the mainstream churches now because like Calvery Chapel or the Vineyards or Hosanna types, there is excitement for Jesus, teaching which builds character, uses application, and discipline plus allows a personal relationship with the Creator God Saviour of the Universe to grow . Mainline parents or grandparents need their prayer not the other way round. The burden of the pastors in those denominations ( which are hemoraghing nearly 50,000 members a year)is to decide whether their intellectual political correctness is more important than the Biblical terminology of being born again and serving the Lord in the life of the Spirit,or to continue to lead their flocks down the path of Hell.
Okay... sorry if I missunderstood you.
If I am predestined to be a Calvinist, I can't help but be one.
Yep. You'll never find an unregenerate Calvinist. Just like you'll never find someone who believes in reincarnation who wasn't Julius Ceasar or Cleopatra in a previous life.
LOL!
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