Faith communities emerging out of the Big Sort
Bill Bishop's book The Big Sort frames a fairly simple question:
What happens to political minorities in communities with large political majorities?
In many part of the traditional church in the West, what has happened is something called the "emerging church" phenomenon. As large church majorities grew in power, many people on the edges experienced a sense of conflict between what was moving in their soul & the institutional containers that were built all around them. Some of these folks left the church setting, following faith paths outside the traditional constructs. Some have tried to renew or even reform their institutions - as an example, look at the recent election of Bruce Reyes Chow as the moderator of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), a model of traditional faith institutions in the U.S.
These emerging phenomenas have arisen in evangelical settings, as well as mainline, Catholic and even Jewish settings. While by their very nature they are unique, these emerging communities share some traits, as Dr. R. Todd Mangum, Associate Professor of Theology and Dean of Faculty at Biblical Seminary, describes it this way:
"Emergent" is a loosely knit group of people in conversation about and trying experiments in forwarding the ministry of Jesus in new and different ways, as the people of God in a post-Christian context. From there, wide diversity abounds. "Emergents" seem to share one common trait: disillusionment with the organized, institutional church as it has existed through the 20th century (whether fundamentalist, liberal, megachurch, or tall-steeple liturgical). Its strengths: creative, energetic, youthful, authentic, highly relational. Its weaknesses: somewhat cynical, disorganized, sometimes reckless (even in the theological ideas willing to be entertained), immature
These emerging communities are often populated by people from the minorities that Bishop describes, people who do not fit the majorities pattern or recipe. In the Episcopal denomination, this may be individuals who have tired of the seemingly endless fighting and dueling orthodoxies. In mainstream evangelical settings, this may be the diaspora of former youth ministers who now struggle to fit into a marketing-focussed model, with a version of consumer faith. Often, these emerging folk hop-scotch all over the categories that have been used to bound faith in the late 20th century - you find a mash-up of theologies and spiritual practices among these communities struggling to rise.
In chapter 7, Bishop talks about a faith community that in many ways exemplifies the majority that has spawned the emerging church phenomenon in the U.S. Bishop includes the following quote:
"I find very little evidence that churches are really transforming their congregations," University of Maryland political scientist James Gimpel told me. "It's rather quite the reverse. Ministers depend on pleasing a particular congregation for their longevity. The last thing they want to do is offend those people or try to transform their viewpoint . . . . It's conformity all the way." We have more choices than ever before in the hundreds of religious niche markets. But given a choice, we select sameness.
A striking contrast to this sameness is Shane Claiborne, one of the founding members of a New Monastic community called The Simple Way in Philadelphia. A Graduate of Eastern University, where he studied sociology and youth ministry, Claiborne did his final academic work for Eastern University at the powerful evangelical center, Wheaton College (Illinois). While at Wheaton, Shane did an internship at Willow Creek Community Church, which rivals Rick Warren's Saddleback as a model of the successful majority. He has done some graduate work at Princeton Theological Seminary, but took a leave of absence, and now is a part of The Alternative Seminary in Philadelphia. Claiborne's outlook on ministry to the poor is often compared to Mother Teresa, whom he worked alongside with during a 10-week term in Calcutta. He spent 3 weeks in Baghdad with the Iraq Peace Team (a project of Voices in the Wilderness and Christian Peacemaker Teams).
Claiborne - and thousands like him across the U.S. and the West - are struggling to emerge from the majority that so often dominates faith communities. They are, at their core, re-sorters - in their view of God, in their faithing of their practices, in their choices for justice and community. Eddie Gibbs, who Bishop quotes in the Big Sort, captures this re-sorting and the challenge it provides when he says:
Emerging communities come alongside God, who I believe is creating a new thing within our established traditions, whatever they may be. But God is also doing a new thing outside of those structures.
Thanks for the informative post. You should take some pride in having rendered the TPM community speechless! Religion does not go over very well here; one of the weaknesses of an otherwise very fine community of interlocutors.
July 23, 2008 6:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
I, too, find it fascinating that a post about an incredibly important religious movement is just sitting here, a skunk in the liberal/progressive garden — and a perfect example of the sort.
July 23, 2008 7:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
Bushwah.
The guy's post, Joe Pettit, is all of two hours old as I write; you have permission to "revise and extend your remarks".
Or just STFU (which is not quite the same as being "rendered speechless").
As for BB: it appears that his stroll through the "liberal/progressive garden" has gotten up his nose! Or as my grandma used to put it: you smell your upper lip.
Ah well, to work. As usual, my analysis is keyed to the main poster's text, in order.
First off, I'll skip the chance, here, to attack Bishop's assumptions. "What happens to political minorities, etc.?" is just not cogently framed. But let's just stick to megachurches and so forth here.
So, Mr. Carlton: it's interesting that you discern a counter-megachurch movement which you call the "emerging church movement". The thing about it is, in sociological terms, the megachurch movement - air-conditioned evangelism, whatever you want to call it - is still "emergent", and what you're talking about is part of it even as it runs counter to it.
One problem is that what Dr. Mangum says is almost completely abstract. His words could be and indeed have been used to characterize almost every abortive "new movement" in American religion over the last 75 years or so. More to the point is that he and Biblical Seminary (its name notwithstanding) are weak on Christian theology. I could demonstrate this from any piece of theological reasoning produced by his school; but there's no need to go that far, because the proof is contained in his origin. He's American, and that means that the probability of his having gone even as far as the 19th century Catholic Church in terms of theology is very small.
The history of American religion is basically one of discarding centuries of traditional interpretation. And whether this is done because of inclination or deprivation, the result is that the American evangelical church usually finds itself standing in a wilderness with a Bible, and its preachers make holy hash of that Bible. Later, of course, they become very mediatic, very slick. Bishop hardly had to go to yet another "political scientist" (Univ. of Maryland, James Gimpel) to find support for the observation that evangelical churches, mega or not, have "emerged" from their hillbilly origins not because of better theology, but because of better PR.
But in religious terms, it just is not true that "...you find a mash-up of theologies and spiritual practices among these communities struggling to rise." What you find is this mashup struggling to make sense of the Bible, and in almost every case failing miserably. Carlton could have claimed a lot more "energy" for this sub-emergent set of phenomena. I'm amazed at the way Christian rock has managed to produce a Doppelganger of every single genre of popular music (metal, grunge, punk, rap, techno, etc.) complete with costume changes, fan mags and glib lyrics centered on the person of Jesus. (The word ICHTHUS mean anything to you, Billy?) And certain marketing-savvy preachers have incorporated this kind of activity in their presentations.
But the theological content of American evangelical churchgoing is NULL. I have never seen any of those folks produce a correct interpretation of ANY PART of the Bible (with the possible exception of some aspect of Christmas), much less a profound or innovative one.
Why is this? It's because evangelical worshippers don't know how to read the Bible, and neither do their preachers - who, as we have already been told, seek only conformity and profit, and to maintain a kind of political control over congregations that really don't know what religion is, or what the Bible is supposed to mean (one reason why completely cockamamie, Dan Brown-type interpretations are so popular among those folks).
Now, that's pretty much all there is in Carlton's post, except for the paean to somebody named Shane, who is the new Mother Teresa, but who didn't manage to say anything worth quoting (and after all what apothegm was M.T. herself ever credited with).
We could briefly note the intermediate situation of the "mainline" churches. I can't say anything about evangelical JUDAISM, but I know that in many parts of the US Presbyterian and even Catholic worship services have been "Baptistized." This is a sort of Big Sort phenomenon; it is as if a new generation of churchgoers only knows one way to do things...and it's a way that has zero theological content. The new Presbyterian moderator is a facilitator, not a theologian.
The Episcopal Church is an outlier. The Epicopal Church actually recognizes that Catholicism is the basis of Biblical interpretation - not the end of it, but the millennial foundation, and those who have cast that aside suffer from religious autism. But the Episcopal Church itself is suffering from administrative problems. The African parishes are the main support of the clerical pension fund. That's why support for gay tolerance is not universal. In fact, one could say that LBGT tolerance on the part of progressive Episcopalians has been very courageous, since the splittists will apparently succeed in splitting the church, and may impoverish the half dedicated to Christian tolerance and a refusal to judge one's fellow.
I won't forget to let the other shoe drop. American evangelicals believe that there is a secure Biblical foundation condemning homosexuality; but that is a naive reading, and one supported upon too few texts. In the time period associated with those texts, there was no such thing as loving homosexuality; moreover, sexual immorality of all kinds was not only rampant but associated with many unexplained diseases the Bible lumps together as "uncleanness." In other words, the notion of safe sex was impossible. And it was not the case that sex within marriage was safe and tension-free! Indeed, all sexuality was dangerous and mysterious.
Furthermore, there is no Biblical support for the crusade on behalf of "the unborn." In point of fact, there are numerous instances in the Bible alluding to mothers that smash their newborns' brains out against rocks. These are examples of post-natal abortion, the only kind known to the ancients. This may seem as grim as the inflammatory photos anti-abortion forces used to use, but such decisions are reached every day by mothers in places like Darfur, who have to decide whether or not it makes sense to nurture a particular life, and who must decide which child is most valuable.
Continuing, it is true that medieval Catholicism almost foundered against the rock of Jesus' condemnation of wealth. If any Biblical doctrine deserves to "emerge" from the fakery of evangelism as a doctrine, it is this: Jesus says, riches blind you to Heaven. Period. Full stop. And the only cure is to give them away.
Here's a suggested corollary to the Big Sort: let's say that the development of American evangelical religion has similarities with the development of American housing developments. Surely this is supported by Bishop's book. First there are ring roads, then subdivisions, then malls, then megachurches. Rinse, repeat.
And now, there is a housing crisis precisely because no repeat is possible. Housing prices decline; malls empty out; people walk away from their homes; people lose their jobs; congregations of megachurches fill up with poor people; finally, somebody gets the idea of turning the big megachurches into dormitories for homeless folks...
Nahh, nevah happen. But how will American "emergent evangelism" respond to economic crisis? As the Periphery Triumphant collapses back in the direction of the Center, what will happen to the Big Sort? Well, sorting = negative entropy. A sorted population in effect has a lot of energy ready to be released as the sorting order takes in more and more chaos.
Of course, in this case chaos has elements of reality. The Big Sort in American religion has been more of a Big Snort. What is "emerging" is the breakdown of a carefully maintained sociological fantasy.
That's one thing wrong with Bill's book. It's thin. "The Big Sort" is enough of a sound bite to carry the cover of an expensive book. But it's not a broad explanatory concept capable of organizing a new, more accurate perception of sociological trends. It's true in some ways, and false in others; it's fairly trivially true.
And that's why the discussion of it has been so perfunctory.
July 23, 2008 9:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Check your calendar.
July 23, 2008 11:29 PM | Reply | Permalink