Yesterday I posted on Thomas Bergler’s Christianity Today article on the Juvenilization of American Christianity, which was an adaptation of his similar book. Here’s how the thesis goes:
Beginning in the 1930s and ’40s, Christian teenagers and youth leaders staged a quiet revolution in American church life that led to what can properly be called the juvenilization of American Christianity. Juvenilization is the process by which the religious beliefs, practices, and developmental characteristics of adolescents become accepted as appropriate for adults. It began with the praiseworthy goal of adapting the faith to appeal to the young, which in fact revitalized American Christianity. But it has sometimes ended with both youth and adults embracing immature versions of the faith.
One of the big reveals was the state of adolescent Christianity can be described as Moralistic Therapeutic Deism. Christian Smith and Patricia Snell coined this phrase in their book Souls in Transition, which they wrote in response to their research into teenage and young adult beliefs. MTD paints a dim picture of teenage and young adult religiosity: they are “moralistic” in that they believe that God wants us to be good and religion is supposed to help us be good, but religion (especially any one particular religion) isn’t needed to make us good; their faith is “therapeutic” in that God wants us to feel good, so both God and religion are valuable because they help us feel better about our life problems; and it is “deistic” in that “God” is part of the equation, yet stands far removed from their everyday lives and certainly doesn’t make any particular demands on that life.
The thing is, though, I don’t think such sentiments are reserved merely for teenagers and young adults. I see the same thing among the general adult population of mainstream Evangelicals. In one regard makes sense because, as Bergler argues, the secular youth culture adopted by Evangelical youth groups and programs now dominates the general church life of adult Evangelicals.
Without being overly reductionistic, I would like to suggest another reason why Moralistic Therapeutic Deism is becoming the adjective of religiosity for not only Evangelical teenagers and young adults, but now the general adult population of mainstream Evangelicalism: the neglect of historic Christian orthopraxy, including creedal orthodoxy.
The term orthopraxy may not be as familiar as the term orthodoxy, which means “right belief” or “right doctrine/teaching.” Orthopraxy is similar but emphasizes “right practices.” For a very long time Evangelicalism has been loath to resemble anything similar to the kind of traditionalism you’ll find in higher ecclesiastical institutions, like the Catholic Church or Anglicanism or even most mainline Protestant churches, which includes reciting and anchoring oneself in the creeds. Some of this goes back to 18th century revivalism. Some of this goes back to the mid-19th century Evangelical Alliance, and the likes of Spurgeon and Moody.
Much of the recent neglect, however, can be traced to the Seeker Movement of the 90’s, which sought to bleed churches of anything that was overtly Christian, or maybe better put, that was overtly Traditional. So the organ was replaced by the guitar. The cross came down. The rock concert light show replaced stained glass. Jeans were in, hymns were out. The Eucharist (or “communion” for the less post-liturgically minded) dropped nearly out of sight to a four-times-a-year “celebration.” And on and on.
Which brings us to one of the most neglected aspects of Traditionalism: the Creeds. Ironically the chief defenders of the historic Christian faith in America are the very ones who neglect the very foundation to that faith, the major Church Creeds. Furthermore, the foundational theological writings of the Church are also often neglected. Being “a man of one book” (i.e. the Bible) at the neglect of the theological writings of men behind the Creeds, as the General Baptist Magazine put it in 1854, and the Creeds themselves is the result of the explicit biblicism that has always marked Evangelicalism. It isn’t that Evangelicalism doesn’t adhere to historic Christian orthodoxy, it’s just that the foundations to the orthodoxy—mainly the major Creeds of the Church and also the historic writings of the Church—are simply neglected and overlooked.
So over the last two decades, American Evangelicalism has neglected the “right practices” of the historic Church and neglected the foundation of “right beliefs” of the historic Church, the Creeds. Is it any wonder that American Christianity is, as Bergler puts it, juvenile?
This is one of the reason why I wrote a hyperlocal prayer book series for my West Michigan community, called PRAYERS FOR MY CITY. The reason I wrote this series is because I believe the American Church has lost the plot to Her story both theologically and practically. And so I’ve sought to help the West Michigan Church recover that plot by helping Her rediscover the practices of the historic Church through praying with the historic Chruch. Here’s how I put it in the introduction:
Some have lost the plot theologically. They have reimagined the major “pieces” to the Christian faith to such an extent that they’ve “given up the farm,” so to speak. Here, Jesus is viewed as a great moral teacher on the same level with Gandhi; sin is not my problem because I am not the problem—my environment around me and what happens to me is the problem; and, in the end, everyone wins because love wins. That’s not what this book is about, however; that’s for another book, another day.
Others have lost the plot practically. They have reimagined how you practice the Christian faith, both privately and publicly. Some of these churches have bled their sanctuaries of identifiably Christian symbols, replacing them with klieg lights and fog machines. Some have downplayed central Christian practices like Communion, “celebrating” this holy sacrament once a quarter, if that. Others have replaced ancient prayers and songs with modern songs and prayers, falling into the trap one person has called the imperialism of the present—the assumption that the present and contemporary is usually always better than the past and ancient. And then there are those who seem content to organize their rhythm around the American calendar, rather than the Church’s calendar.
That’s what this book is about. That’s why I believe such a book like this is so important, and so important right now. This book is about encouraging the Church of [West Michigan] to recapture the Church’s practices, symbols, and rhythms through one particular historic Church practice, in order to re-root and reunite [West Michigan] churches in the historic Christian faith.
Don’t get me wrong: I’m all for connecting the Christian faith to our 21st century experience. I’m all for reinterpreting and reimagining aspects of that faith’s practices in order to do so. But it seems like what has happened is that the fundamental practices, symbols, and rhythms that belong only to the Church have been replaced with practices, symbols, and rhythms that belong only to pop culture.
And I can’t help but think that some of the reason why we’re loosing the plot theologically is because we’ve lost it practically. There’s a fine line between contextualizing and catering. Sure it’s fine to reinterpret and reimagine how the church looks in any given culture—the church will and should look different in Brooklyn than in Boise, as well as in Brussels and Bejing. But at what point does contextualizing the Christian faith in a particular culture turn into an effort at catering to every impulse and whim of that culture? And if we are catering to our culture at the praxis level, what makes us think that we won’t also cater to our culture at the doxy level?
As I wrote, “For decades, historic church practices have been neglected in favor of contemporary ones. While many of these contemporary churches are very concerned with the historic Christian faith, I can’t help but think generations of neglected practices are now also leading to neglected beliefs.”
I can’t help but think part of the reason we’re loosing the orthodoxy battle is because we lost the orthopraxy one long ago. Right practices are just as important as right beliefs. While many in Evangelicalism are insisting that we need to return back to the way the Church has always believed—and I’m there with them—I would like to suggest we also need to return back to the way the Church has always practiced—and I think one of the ways to do that is to return back to how the Church has always prayed. Perhaps re-rooting ourselves in the practices of the historic Church will help re-root and reunite ourselves in the historic Christian faith itself.
(If you’re in West Michigan and are interested in discovering and connecting to historic church practices, might I suggest starting with praying with the church by praying for your city? If you’re interested in this prayer book series, you can buy your city’s prayer book from me for $9, including shipping—either for Grand Rapids or Muskegon, Holland is coming this Fall. You may also purchase eBook versions or print versions from Amazon or Barnes & Noble, too, at this site.)
Trackbacks/Pingbacks