Something Seriously Wrong with Much of American Christianity

What other factors seem to be contributing to the movement towards a defined, structured, participatory liturgy? I have seen some who have come through our ministry as a fairly traditional, but not legalistic, Baptist church embrace Anglicanism. I have been committed to expositional preaching even when dealing with issues or topics, so we don’t lack for structure or depth. I would be curious to know what others are seeing and experiencing.

Jeff

I grew up Methodist (Episcopal), and for those who don’t know Methodist history, the Methodists/Wesleyans were basically shown the door by the Anglicans about 250 years back, but they’ve retained a lot of the benchmarks of the Anglicans. Also, I remember going to a funeral about 20 years back at an Episcopal church, and was reminded of some things I really do like about this tradition.

1. The Episcopal tradition has Bible readings in each service, typically an Old Testament, a New Testament, and a a Gospel reading. During the funeral I mentioned above, my thought was “these guys get to ignore more Scripture halfway through a service than I hear in my church in a month.” The presentation of the Word does not depend solely on the pastor’s sermon in this tradition.

2. The buildings, organs, and stained glass. Ahhh…….there is something to be said for architecture and furniture that says “you are not in an ordinary lectur hall”, but rather “the high ceiling here is supposed to point you to Heaven.”

3. They very often hire trained musicians—even with the same hymns, the standard of musicianship is generally higher.

4. They often use a slightly different group of hymns—“hymns” in our circles refers mostly to 19 century and later. In theirs, it often means the great work of the Lutherans and others in the 16th and 17th centuries. Ahh…..

The flip side is that the ministry of the pulpit is too often neglected, and obvious conclusions of Biblical interpretation are often ignored. So I’m not going to “cross the Thames” any time soon. That noted, there is some very real good to be had by adopting some of the best of what they do.

I think there is a definite sense among some of the young that church has become too shallow in a number of ways. I have heard of a couple Baptist-raised kids I know in their late teens/early twenties leave for Anglicanism or Catholicism. The young are also less grounded, so focusing on the important things is often seen as less important as what they can obviously see — the forms.

After salvation, I was raised in a fundamental Methodist church. While we were hardly as liturgical as Lutherans or Anglicans, there was still a lot more than at most Baptist churches. After I went away to college and then didn’t move back home, I realized that fundamental Methodist churches were extremely scarce, so I ended up joining and attending Baptist churches, which, although they felt much less like church to me, were the ones that were doctrinally closest in many ways to what I knew. A few years ago, my current church restarted/replanted, and we became a Bible church in name, rather than Baptist, but we are still baptistic in nature. One thing I have missed all that time, though, is the more liturgical nature of my home church growing up.

I have no desire to join an Anglican church to retrieve some of that, because of the doctrine and teachings (the important things I mentioned above). I have been blessed that the churches I have been a part of since college have been mostly solidly biblical and expositional rather than the “hobby-horse”-style preaching in many fundamental churches. However, I have for a long time felt that except for the preaching, most of the Baptist churches I have attended have felt too relaxed, and more like a social club than like (what I see as) the way a church ought to be. I realize that much of it may be my upbringing or cultural, but churches that have a much more serious tone in their worship, singing, reading of scripture, etc. make me feel much more like I’m entering God’s presence. I’ve told my pastor that if I chose my church by worship style rather than by what is true, I’d probably be Anglican. But of course, my “feelings” should not be what I am using to choose a church.

And that’s at least part of the problem with both the young and the extremely relaxed nature of many evangelical churches today — the young put much more stock in, and follow their feelings, and these churches don’t really “feel like church.” Even one of my own kids mentioned that to me as a young teenager. Modern worship even in conservative churches doesn’t feel very much like church to me either, but I was raised decades ago, and my upbringing focused a lot less on my feelings than what most kids today receive. Still, I think that by making church (even unconsciously) feel more relaxed and comfortable to those coming in, it seems like more serious aspects of worship have been lost. I think it should seem different to enter a house of God than my local social club or get-together. Even though not much of the truth is present in Anglican or Catholic churches, there’s no doubt that when entering one of those churches, one gets an entirely different impression of the seriousness of what goes on there than one does at most modern evangelical churches, and at least from my view, that makes it easy to see why we have some of the next generation defecting to those churches.

Edit: Looks like Bert and I were going in a similar direction with our posts at the same time. I wasn’t really intending to copy what he said, but I agree with his post.

Dave, if it weren’t presumptuous on my part, I’d say “great minds think alike”. As is, you’ve got to deal with the shame of agreeing with me! :^)

Seriously, it’s good to see similar notes from the more conservative part of Methodism—my experience was with the UMC, which has been “stinking up the joint”, theologically speaking, since the 1960s. But that noted, there is yet something good remaining.

One thought regarding Dave’s comments; it is often extremely discouraging to me when I notice that too many “fundagelicals” understand the lifestyle that is taught in their particular church/Bible college, but do not seem to have a good grasp of historic theology. I’m talking about things like the principles in the Apostles’ or Nicene Creeds, the theological Fundamentals, the Solas, the Trinity, and the like.

This is very significant when I see fundagelicals cross not only the Thames or even the Tiber—or perhaps the Bosphorus at times—but even the Great Salt Lake, if you catch my drift. Those who understand the significance of the Trinity or the Fundamentals should not be easy prey for Mormon “elders”, and since we’ve dropped the ball in terms of historic theology, our kids all too often ARE vulnerable to Mormonism.

In a manner of speaking, this is a Matthew 23:23 case—many of the things we’re doing are indeed valuable, but God calls us to do the “Big T Theology” things, too.

[TylerR]

Olson writes:

When I was growing up in the “thick” of American evangelicalism pastors were expected to preach convicting sermons that challenged congregants to change in profound ways. For example, “Listen for God’s call to become a missionary” was a common sermon theme. I well remember my youth minister—a lay person with a secular job—responding to such a sermon, giving up everything, and going to New Guinea as a missionary. It was all very dramatic. I well remember a leading member our church publicly repenting of his racism and changing completely. Back then, evangelical sermons had “bite.” Not “beating up the congregation” but not just affirming them and their basic lifestyles.

Olson is likely onto something here, too. If there is one, overarching generalization to be made, I think it’s that the bland, plain vanilla flavor of evangelical Christianity makes it easy to leave one church and switch seamlessly to another. Walmart or Safeway (in the Midwest, Safeway is Jewel-Osco)? Sure, there are some cosmetic differences, but does it really matter?

Tyler, this is the same Olson who rejects his upbringing because it was “too fundamentalist”???? Seems a little inconsistent to me.

[Don Johnson]

TylerR wrote:

Olson writes:

When I was growing up in the “thick” of American evangelicalism pastors were expected to preach convicting sermons that challenged congregants to change in profound ways. For example, “Listen for God’s call to become a missionary” was a common sermon theme. I well remember my youth minister—a lay person with a secular job—responding to such a sermon, giving up everything, and going to New Guinea as a missionary. It was all very dramatic. I well remember a leading member our church publicly repenting of his racism and changing completely. Back then, evangelical sermons had “bite.” Not “beating up the congregation” but not just affirming them and their basic lifestyles.

Olson is likely onto something here, too. If there is one, overarching generalization to be made, I think it’s that the bland, plain vanilla flavor of evangelical Christianity makes it easy to leave one church and switch seamlessly to another. Walmart or Safeway (in the Midwest, Safeway is Jewel-Osco)? Sure, there are some cosmetic differences, but does it really matter?

Tyler, this is the same Olson who rejects his upbringing because it was “too fundamentalist”???? Seems a little inconsistent to me.

Not that inconsistent. Olson is more or less taking the good, and rejecting the bad, of his spiritual upbringing. He rejects, apparently, the part of his upbringing that was “too fundamentalist” in his view, but is thankful for the fact that the preaching there was distinctive and called men to repentance. It might also be that the good examples he remembers were not those who were “too fundamentalist” in his view.

Now precisely what he means by “too fundamentalist”, I’m not quite sure. I can hazard a guess, but I’ll leave it as “I don’t know” for now.

He is spot on with lamenting the pathetic nature of American “evangelicalism.” Too much of it is a feel-good club with people of equal status patting each other on the back. “Sermons” are self-help or positive. People seek “the worship time” over anything in the sermon. The “worship team” plays “sets” like they are at the club or on the road rockin’ from night to night. Sunday school has been replaced by gathering in upper-middle-class living rooms to “share” what they think.

Makes me weep and cry out to God. Father, please help me find like-minded people around me to stop this madness and truly worship you together.