I live less than a mile from an extremely successful and activist mega-church—though following the current fashion they have dropped “church” from their name leaving “community.” Which they certainly are, larger in fact than the town my mother grew up in.
They originally used the tagline “A real place for real people.” I suppose too many people reacted the way my 8-year-old daughter did at the time asking if that implied that people not attending, including herself, were in some sense not real. The tagline was dropped. The interesting thing about the tagline — and about churches bearing the familiar appurtenances of brands — is that it reflects the origins of this church. As I understand it, among the founders were folks who worked for an immense global consumer goods company here in town. The goal was to reach the un-churched, the done-with-all-the-mumbo-jumbo-over-churched, and to tap into that always vast reservoir of seekers during times of spiritual drought or transition i.e. change, i.e. all the time. So they went about creating a church to fill those needs using the time-honored tools of marketing—focus-groups, brainstorming, branding. One of the needs they evidently identified or perhaps it simply came up as a drawback of mainstream churches — was the lack of good coffee. So they provide good free coffee, their own blend. The local media made a big issue of this and the fact that you can take coffee into the sanctuary.
In addition to the coffee they have multi-media, contemporary music, affinity groups and the other necessaries of someone’s ideas about what church looks like in the 21st century. They are of course non-denominational or inter-denominational which can either liberate at last the powerful message of the Gospel or be used to cover a multitude of sins, depending upon your point of view and how they execute against their “brand.”
They are headquartered in what had been one of those huge hardware and building supply stores. They also have some outbuildings including what had been a car dealership — perhaps Oldsmobile (not Our Father’s) I don’t recall. All in all a very impressive campus as they say. Acres of parking too. I have never partaken in the life of this church though I have neighbors employed there (along with scores of others) and one of my cousins was involved in it early on.
Somehow it came to my attention that the pastor of this church had written a couple of books. I had met him twice—once years ago when he was making a pastoral visit to my cousin who had just given birth to her first child. And once when he was visiting my neighbor. I was interested in reading what he had to say. I have read a fair amount of theology (Christian and otherwise) and if the Kingdom of Heaven was being created a few blocks from my house I would at least like to know how they were going about it.
After reading his books I was disappointed. I thought there might be something new behind that glitzy electronic façade and the hip upbeat website. What I found was mostly old wine in new bottles. It reminded me of the efforts during the 60s and 70s to make Christianity more relevant, accessible and contemporary. During the 60s I lived in Wheaton IL, home of Wheaton College whose attendees included the late Billy Graham. Among my high school classmates was the son of the man responsible for the paraphrase known as the “Living Bible.” My 8th grade math teacher—a missionary on leave — tried to convert our whole class. I am familiar with fundamentalist Christianity — its allures and its deficiencies. These books reminded me of the longhaired youth pastors in their tie-dyed t-shirts strumming their Gibsons.
The first book attempts to be a guerilla manual for new Christians. It was slight but perhaps useful for someone wanting to place the overwhelming amount of dogma into a more practical context i.e. how does a “Christ-follower” actually live life? The 2nd book was more ambitious and more interesting in that it revolves around the central idea of fear versus freedom. He talks quite a bit about our fear-based culture, its implications and manifestations. He has some useful psychologically apt things to say about opening ones heart and changing ones behavior. This was encouraging, I expect because I agreed with some of what he had to say. The antidote to fear is acknowledgement and acceptance and for a Christian that means submitting to God’s will, God’s plans, God’s laws. Still basically onboard, not my specific paradigm but not obviously pernicious. Acceptance is the key to living in the present. God looks out for us and wants us to be free—lilies of the field, noting sparrows falling etc. But then there were the time worn canards of submission to authority: God then Pastor (or perhaps the body of the church) on down to the family. There was a tiny touch of misogyny here and there, along with homophobia. “Love the sinner and hate the sin” in this context is as discredited a phrase as “family values.”
There are three aspects of the book worth commenting upon.
1) Personal hubris. The author has a real lack of humility combined with enormous hubris and narcissism. For a pastor to sound like Jack Welch or Donald Trump is perhaps par for the course but nonetheless disturbing. This may be simply immaturity or insecurity or maybe he just has an outmoded vision of what success or leadership looks like. A dear friend always says that as soon as you begin to see yourself as humble you have already crossed the line into self-deception. And it does feel like narcissism of the dangerous anointed sort.
Henry Adams wrote about teachers in an essay about Harvard College (which he had attended and where he had taught) that appeared in the North American Review in 1872. It may be relevant because what is a pastor but a teacher? And the same temptations and predilections perhaps apply to both of these critical professions.
“. . .no instructor can well be allowed to forget the fact, which, nevertheless is extremely apt to be forgotten in practice, that the teacher exists for the sake of the scholars, not the scholars for the sake of the teacher.”
“. . .the habit of instruction and the incessant consciousness of authority tends to develop extremely disagreeable traits in human character, especially wherever character naturally inclines toward selfishness. . .”
[I’m aware that the very act of writing an essay like this brings me close to the same issues I am talking about in a critical way--hubris, having all the answers etc—and I apologize if that is how I sound. I’m also aware that is always easier to tear something down than build something up and I have nothing much in the way of institutions to offer in the place of the mega-church. But that indeed is the point; unless they are absolutely impeccable and self-aware, institutions, especially those promising a secure or better path through this vale of tears, can quickly become an impediment or substitute for the individual spiritual work we all need to do all the time. And when Lord Acton made his famous statement in 1887 that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely he wasn’t talking about a dictator or a demagogue he was talking about the Pope, the leader of the largest and original Christian church which today has a billion members. Institutions that promise freedom and salvation and people who claim to have answers deserve our scrutiny, divorced, if possible, from our personal needs and predilections.]
The author confesses to some tiny sins and then goes on to talk about the forces of evil arrayed against him. He also offers a list of things he could be bitter about (trespasses as it were) and isn’t and a list of his fears that didn’t materialize. If this were not a book written by the spiritual leader of a huge powerful flock it would almost be amusing enough for a parody.
2) In one brief mention that I take to be a counter to the house church movement (more on that in the following essay) the author says that no house church could send hundreds of people to work on AIDS hospitals in South Africa. Obviously he is a fan of the American conceit that big is better and biggest is best. I’ve no doubt that those planeloads of people did some good work in Africa but it is just the same old missionary work with larger numbers. Helping people with an agenda. Which certainly is better than not helping at all.
I also recall seeing a photograph in a local paper of a white churchgoer (perhaps the pastor) having his feet washed by a small black child. It is true that I may be overly sensitive to some issues—as I am no doubt completely oblivious to others—but that photo struck an almost laughably sour note. To add that the composition of the church seems pretty homogenous is unnecessary.
3) Part of the author’s personal freedom granted him by his liberating relationship with God is riding a motorcycle without a helmet. Helmets, which he freely admits are a personal choice where it is legal not to wear one, constrict or limit ones freedom. I know what he is talking about. When I was involved with motorcycles nobody wore a helmet except on the racetrack. But I was a teenager then, if I rode a motorcycle today I would wear a full face helmet and leathers. What is a little bothersome about this is again the lack of, or shallow nature of, his insights. In a coda to the book he talks about hitting a deer on a bike in CA, flying through the air, etc, and of course emerging unscathed. We never hear much about the deer except that it was splattered and is referred to as a would-be assassin. God saved his Harley riding boy as surely as He sacrificed the deer.
It would have been a more effective story—however tragic for his family and parishioners—if he had perished while taking the risk God had freed him to make. If God had called him home and St. Peter had presented him with a real motorcycle such as a Ducati to replace his Harley. Obviously I am happy he wasn’t injured and truly wish him no harm at all in body or mind but to conflate the real freedom offered by the radical message of the Gospels with feeling the wind in your hair while riding your hog is a bit ridiculous. Not to mention bringing in a “miracle” to prove your point. The motorcycle riding and the whole tone smacks more than a little of the Muscular Christianity movement.
The old message of the Bible being the word of God is here, and as usual is used to justify submission to temporal authority. A Liberation Theologist he is not. There is intolerance hiding under a mantle of love and grace and exclusivity masked by a very calculated gloss of inclusiveness. It all smacks of spiritual materialism which never leads to anywhere real.
And the real human need to create institutions that promise freedom in bulk like Costco is itself an old one and one with a sorry history. Martin Mayer wrote a book about ten ordinary German citizens who became Nazis. It was called “They Thought They Were Free.”
The book did answer my curiosity as to what they are up to at the mega church. It also confirmed my long held sense that the revolution will arrive person by person and often, and of necessity, in opposition to those institutions professing to have the answers and the secrets and dispensing them to the chosen. As I read the Gospels one of the things Christ seems to do is wash away all those lines we all draw minute by minute in the sands, ever separating, ever parsing, and ever excluding.
Coda: Because I wrote about the book without having it in hand I picked it up when we got home just to see if I was being grossly unfair or inaccurate. I had marked passages of the book with a red pen—something I almost never do. I guess I had the sense I was going to write about it or else I thought there was going to be a quiz.
A couple of my marginal notes say things like: “Good,” or “An element of truth here.” I suppose I was trying to give him the benefit of the doubt. Certainly his theme of freedom from fear is something I am interested in. A few extracts from the book:
“Like wars that last years and have complexities that sometimes escape the public eye, the fight for our internal freedom takes time, as well.”
Obviously I think the fight for internal freedom takes time (and perhaps therapy and certainly work and introspection) but how curious is the allusion to what must be the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. I don’t know whether he is coming from the Cheney—we know things you could not handle—point of view but it does partake of that old exclusionary device always used by the power structure whether Church or State. And though this is a snarky comment to be sure, the author of these books does not strike me as someone who has delved into all the ins and outs of Middle Eastern foreign policy and the roots of fundamentalist terrorism. So unless he knows something I don’t know I’d say he is walking his own talk, believing in authority. Admirable.
On sex outside marriage: “. . .if we are not in a marriage, it only results in memories and emotional carnage that we’ll have to spend a long time healing from. It will be something we’ll want to hide from the person we truly love in a few years—and that produces guilt and shame.”
Certainly that can be the case, and is for some people, but I don’t think abstinence—implied here—is the complete answer to healthy human sexuality in 2010. Guilt and shame are the issues but his emphasis is sorely misplaced.
On his standard restaurant tip of 20%: “For some 20% is generous. But what I really love is when I’m served by a single mom and I get to tip 25%”
Almost beggars comment but does indicate again the massive hubris combined with lack of introspection.
At one point where he is talking about the small group process and the internal critiques I wrote in the margin: “Old model for control. Stalin to Jim Jones” Ouch. Harsh.
On authority—obviously out of context so unfair. And it is true that he makes a point of his submission to his board of spiritual directors.
“When you have a difficult employer, submit. Be aware that you aren’t privy to all the things they know, so you have to have some level of blind faith. Honor that person, because when you do, you are honoring the value of authority, and being conscious of God.”
“God establishes hierarchy. It is how he organized the world to work.”
“When we submit, the system works. When we don’t submit, it doesn’t.”
“That makes me want to be even more diligent in stemming the rebellious tide that has swept our nation.”
I assume that last one doesn’t refer to the Tea Party movement or the State’s Rights people. Kind of scary stuff really and to my mind it doesn’t really pick up the message of the Gospels. Constantine would have had no problem with it though.
Overall the book reminds me of a story Jiddu Krishnamurti told in 1929 when he gave his famous speech dissolving the Order of the Star—which at that point had 60,000 members and of which he was the leader.
It seems that the Devil was walking through a crowded market with a friend of his. A man stooped in front of them and picked up something off the ground. The Devil’s friend asked him what the man picked up. The devil said it was a piece of the truth. Very bad for you, I suppose, said the Devil’s friend. Not at all, said the devil, I’m going to help him organize it.
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