This is my religious autobiography, intermingled with an analysis of Robert Wuthnow's After Heaven: Spirituality in America since the 1950s. Enjoy.
A Spirituality of Dwelling in the Incarnation
Spirituality in the United States has undergone profound change. The spirituality of dwelling that allegedly prevailed in the 1950s depended on unimpeded transmission and repetition of religious practices, and community orientation. Wuthnow rightly asserts that such spirituality is unlikely to survive the rapid change that this nation has seen. That shift from dwelling to seeking is quite apparent, yet the solution of a “practice-oriented spirituality” is little more than platitudes, speaking to a need that is not filled with generalities. God, ever-present as the Father, the Son Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit, reminds us in the Scriptures and by his very presence that this culture is not so much faster, more materialistic, or any more lost than the one to which he spoke in biblical times. As we have learned from seeking, the certainty of faith and of God’s presence cannot be manufactured; it must be hard-won in spiritual battle. That battle is with ourselves, and with the culture in which we live. That Wuthnow uses such familiar terms to Christianity shows the empty victory of our return to “discipline” in the evangelical culture of the 1980s. My suggestion is an incarnational dwelling in Christ, with an implicit assumption there is such a thing as “mere Christianity.” It may involve the outright repudiation of “foundational theology”—that is, doctrine built upon a series of if-then statements, the result of which was firm denominational boundaries and open conflict. My own story will illuminate how this might be accomplished, and to affirm the general trend in American culture noticed by Wuthnow, (going from dwelling to seeking, and now stuck in the middle). Though I assert that this incarnational trend is more than just a digging in of the heels, and a culture war will be to no avail. The language of Christian faith ceased to be offensive, in the parable sort of way, because the wider culture diluted the meaning of the words by mistaking the universality of Christian concepts for a lack of specificity. In light of this, evangelicals have turned to smaller more fluid groups to rebuild their institutions, and more specific messages and means to carry them.
I was born on January 30, 1980, in a suburb of St. Louis, Missouri. My father was a restaurant manager, and my mother is an account executive for a large company. My father’s family was nominally Catholic, and he left the Catholic Church at the age of ten, vowing never to return, stating that “They’re all a bunch of hypocrites.” Interestingly, my father’s apostasy prevented my baptism as an infant. My mother’s family has been notably irreligious. Her father was an atheist for 36 years. That has changed radically since my mother’s childhood. Our home, however, was entirely secular at the beginning. In 1986, my mother joined Alcoholics Anonymous, so the dynamics of our home changed slightly at that point, in that we acknowledged as a family that God now existed, though I nor my brother felt any need to call on God. My parents got divorced in 1982, and my mother had lost a companion to a swimming accident involving alcohol in 1986, prompting the change. After another broken marriage, my mother became a Christian in the spring of 2000. After feeling the effects of that marriage (which gave me a sister) I knew that God was watching, and hated injustice, and had been merciful to me and my family. It could have been far worse. Having encountered several Christians during my childhood at what always seemed the perfect time, I was finally lured into the Christian fold in 1997 by an FCA meeting prior to the school day, specifically by the public reading of Scripture. I do not know why I came to those meetings to this very day. These events may explain my quick embrace of a Calvinistic soteriology in college in 1999. It made perfect sense to me, and it still does.
We should place these things in the context of Wuthnow’s analysis now by noting the informal nature of the organizations that led to the conversion of my mother and me. AA is exactly the kind of seeker-friendly place that Wuthnow puts forth as the norm, while FCA’s nondenominational structure can bring it to places that a church cannot go. Yet it is also notable that these served as “stepping stones” to evangelical church settings. I believe that the Catholic Church is the epitome of dwelling-oriented spirituality, and the limitations noted by Wuthnow have been directly experienced by members of my family. However, we have seen spirited defenses of traditional Catholic doctrine in television and in print, as well as the internet by James Aiken, and by the Eternal Word Television Network, among others. The latter most especially has taken Roman Catholicism from a praxis-oriented faith to more of a unity in faith and practice, similar to Protestantism. I think that this will lead to stronger alliances between evangelicals on both sides the family, so to speak. Wuthnow has been correct to say that divisions run through denominations, not between them. But he underestimates the value of clubs and support groups, as well as the media, to be devices for networking for some to subvert the denominational structures altogether. Thus, they may not be the result of seeker-oriented spirituality, but rather shock-troops in a new Christian renewal. Many of these organizations find themselves populated by large numbers of young people. Organizations like FCA and many others have seen significant growth post 1990, well after the “decade of discipline.” Rather than getting resources from institutions, these groups are providing resources in the form of members, and their structure may be softening the doctrinal divisions between denominations once these people join established churches. Since the formation of some of these organizations has been in the aftermath of a culture war that has been lost, it has been quiet and unnoticed. There is nothing confused about this particular message. It’s going to be awhile before we see the effects of decentralization. It benefits these groups to lower their profile; it keeps the culture wars out of the work of churches. The cultural malaise is distressing, they might say, but also beneficial. No one is paying any attention. It is not cultural disengagement, but impacting culture in smaller doses. It makes sense for Wuthnow to highlight the fluidity of “buffet” spirituality; they’re the only ones talking. Churches have not all resorted to a “lifestyle witness” approach, either. Wuthnow goes to great lengths to show a Christian evangelical message as one among many, that some would simply market their faith as the best option, with utilitarian motives. But in addition to choosing cultural battles more carefully, evangelical leaders are beginning to realize “the medium is the message.” Inclusive, non-offensive messages calling for a return home from the 60s netted leaders with what they would describe as false converts, committed only to the most general of spiritual principles. The liturgical movement that is still growing among some evangelicals serves to redefine boundaries, placing the emphasis back on doctrine and confession, and away from market-driven strategies that drew people looking for a crutch. These messages have become more overt, yet less visible.
To conclude, the dwelling spirituality that prevailed in the perceived rise of evangelicalism in the 1980s lacked substance because it was utilitarian. Wuthnow traces an important pattern in the death of generational spirituality. But he is not demonstrating the inadequacy of a spirituality of dwelling; rather a kind of seeking masquerading as dwelling. In response, he proposes spiritual practice as an alternative to seeking and this new pseudo-dwelling. But without the particulars being named, answering “In whom do you trust?” every spiritual practice will be either flatly utilitarian, or transient. My Christianity does not merely help me cope with life. It is not a self-help program with a Christian label. It is the truth, and nothing more. The changing winds of popular spirituality are of no concern to me. We should have anticipated what Wuthnow is showing us: the decline of influence for churches in American culture. But I do not think that the loss of influence in wider society means that they have been fundamentally altered by the culture. We have learned quickly from our market-driven mistakes. The medium is indeed the message, and what was sown now has been reaped. Yet this dwelling in the Incarnation is the best answer. Dwelling as defined by Wuthnow was another form of seeking, (which is utilitarian) both before the cultural revolution, and in the return to discipline. He makes his lone error by supposing that the call for discipline was what remains of dwelling.
A Spirituality of Dwelling in the Incarnation
Spirituality in the United States has undergone profound change. The spirituality of dwelling that allegedly prevailed in the 1950s depended on unimpeded transmission and repetition of religious practices, and community orientation. Wuthnow rightly asserts that such spirituality is unlikely to survive the rapid change that this nation has seen. That shift from dwelling to seeking is quite apparent, yet the solution of a “practice-oriented spirituality” is little more than platitudes, speaking to a need that is not filled with generalities. God, ever-present as the Father, the Son Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit, reminds us in the Scriptures and by his very presence that this culture is not so much faster, more materialistic, or any more lost than the one to which he spoke in biblical times. As we have learned from seeking, the certainty of faith and of God’s presence cannot be manufactured; it must be hard-won in spiritual battle. That battle is with ourselves, and with the culture in which we live. That Wuthnow uses such familiar terms to Christianity shows the empty victory of our return to “discipline” in the evangelical culture of the 1980s. My suggestion is an incarnational dwelling in Christ, with an implicit assumption there is such a thing as “mere Christianity.” It may involve the outright repudiation of “foundational theology”—that is, doctrine built upon a series of if-then statements, the result of which was firm denominational boundaries and open conflict. My own story will illuminate how this might be accomplished, and to affirm the general trend in American culture noticed by Wuthnow, (going from dwelling to seeking, and now stuck in the middle). Though I assert that this incarnational trend is more than just a digging in of the heels, and a culture war will be to no avail. The language of Christian faith ceased to be offensive, in the parable sort of way, because the wider culture diluted the meaning of the words by mistaking the universality of Christian concepts for a lack of specificity. In light of this, evangelicals have turned to smaller more fluid groups to rebuild their institutions, and more specific messages and means to carry them.
I was born on January 30, 1980, in a suburb of St. Louis, Missouri. My father was a restaurant manager, and my mother is an account executive for a large company. My father’s family was nominally Catholic, and he left the Catholic Church at the age of ten, vowing never to return, stating that “They’re all a bunch of hypocrites.” Interestingly, my father’s apostasy prevented my baptism as an infant. My mother’s family has been notably irreligious. Her father was an atheist for 36 years. That has changed radically since my mother’s childhood. Our home, however, was entirely secular at the beginning. In 1986, my mother joined Alcoholics Anonymous, so the dynamics of our home changed slightly at that point, in that we acknowledged as a family that God now existed, though I nor my brother felt any need to call on God. My parents got divorced in 1982, and my mother had lost a companion to a swimming accident involving alcohol in 1986, prompting the change. After another broken marriage, my mother became a Christian in the spring of 2000. After feeling the effects of that marriage (which gave me a sister) I knew that God was watching, and hated injustice, and had been merciful to me and my family. It could have been far worse. Having encountered several Christians during my childhood at what always seemed the perfect time, I was finally lured into the Christian fold in 1997 by an FCA meeting prior to the school day, specifically by the public reading of Scripture. I do not know why I came to those meetings to this very day. These events may explain my quick embrace of a Calvinistic soteriology in college in 1999. It made perfect sense to me, and it still does.
We should place these things in the context of Wuthnow’s analysis now by noting the informal nature of the organizations that led to the conversion of my mother and me. AA is exactly the kind of seeker-friendly place that Wuthnow puts forth as the norm, while FCA’s nondenominational structure can bring it to places that a church cannot go. Yet it is also notable that these served as “stepping stones” to evangelical church settings. I believe that the Catholic Church is the epitome of dwelling-oriented spirituality, and the limitations noted by Wuthnow have been directly experienced by members of my family. However, we have seen spirited defenses of traditional Catholic doctrine in television and in print, as well as the internet by James Aiken, and by the Eternal Word Television Network, among others. The latter most especially has taken Roman Catholicism from a praxis-oriented faith to more of a unity in faith and practice, similar to Protestantism. I think that this will lead to stronger alliances between evangelicals on both sides the family, so to speak. Wuthnow has been correct to say that divisions run through denominations, not between them. But he underestimates the value of clubs and support groups, as well as the media, to be devices for networking for some to subvert the denominational structures altogether. Thus, they may not be the result of seeker-oriented spirituality, but rather shock-troops in a new Christian renewal. Many of these organizations find themselves populated by large numbers of young people. Organizations like FCA and many others have seen significant growth post 1990, well after the “decade of discipline.” Rather than getting resources from institutions, these groups are providing resources in the form of members, and their structure may be softening the doctrinal divisions between denominations once these people join established churches. Since the formation of some of these organizations has been in the aftermath of a culture war that has been lost, it has been quiet and unnoticed. There is nothing confused about this particular message. It’s going to be awhile before we see the effects of decentralization. It benefits these groups to lower their profile; it keeps the culture wars out of the work of churches. The cultural malaise is distressing, they might say, but also beneficial. No one is paying any attention. It is not cultural disengagement, but impacting culture in smaller doses. It makes sense for Wuthnow to highlight the fluidity of “buffet” spirituality; they’re the only ones talking. Churches have not all resorted to a “lifestyle witness” approach, either. Wuthnow goes to great lengths to show a Christian evangelical message as one among many, that some would simply market their faith as the best option, with utilitarian motives. But in addition to choosing cultural battles more carefully, evangelical leaders are beginning to realize “the medium is the message.” Inclusive, non-offensive messages calling for a return home from the 60s netted leaders with what they would describe as false converts, committed only to the most general of spiritual principles. The liturgical movement that is still growing among some evangelicals serves to redefine boundaries, placing the emphasis back on doctrine and confession, and away from market-driven strategies that drew people looking for a crutch. These messages have become more overt, yet less visible.
To conclude, the dwelling spirituality that prevailed in the perceived rise of evangelicalism in the 1980s lacked substance because it was utilitarian. Wuthnow traces an important pattern in the death of generational spirituality. But he is not demonstrating the inadequacy of a spirituality of dwelling; rather a kind of seeking masquerading as dwelling. In response, he proposes spiritual practice as an alternative to seeking and this new pseudo-dwelling. But without the particulars being named, answering “In whom do you trust?” every spiritual practice will be either flatly utilitarian, or transient. My Christianity does not merely help me cope with life. It is not a self-help program with a Christian label. It is the truth, and nothing more. The changing winds of popular spirituality are of no concern to me. We should have anticipated what Wuthnow is showing us: the decline of influence for churches in American culture. But I do not think that the loss of influence in wider society means that they have been fundamentally altered by the culture. We have learned quickly from our market-driven mistakes. The medium is indeed the message, and what was sown now has been reaped. Yet this dwelling in the Incarnation is the best answer. Dwelling as defined by Wuthnow was another form of seeking, (which is utilitarian) both before the cultural revolution, and in the return to discipline. He makes his lone error by supposing that the call for discipline was what remains of dwelling.
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