Preface
Robert Boyle, illustrious scientist and Fellow of the Royal Society, described how, while in Geneva on a continental holiday, he underwent a conversion from nominal, unthinking Christianity to committed Christianity. As a result of his experiences, he stressed the need for Christians to have what he called an “examined faith.” [1]
John Stott, discussing Paul’s letter to the Christians in Philippi, drew attention to the importance for all Christians to heed the apostle’s exhortation to “contend for the faith of the Gospel.” He continues, “This describes a combination of evangelism and apologetics, not only proclaiming the gospel, but also defending it and arguing for its truth.”[2]
Echoing the views of Robert Boyle and John Stott, Mark Noll says, “If what we claim about Jesus Christ is true, then evangelicals should be among the most active, most serious, and most open-minded advocates of general human learning.” [Read more…] about Time to discuss faith, psychology and neuroscience?
evangelicals
Omri Elisha: The Frustrations of Socially Engaged Evangelicals
I’m reading and blogging about Omri Elisha’s Moral Ambition: Mobilization and Social Outreach in Evangelical Megachurches, an ethnography of two evangelical megachurches in Knoxville, Tennessee. See my introduction to the series and my follow-up post about Bible Belt Christianity.
In Chapter 4 of Moral Ambition, anthropologist Omri Elisha profiles four evangelical leaders who
personify the activist orientation of evangelical social engagement, and embody the virtues, struggles, and moral ambitions that go along with it. (87)
While each of the four had his or her own reasons for becoming socially engaged, Elisha suggests that the general narrative of their lives represents a kind of “second conversion,†as do the lives of many missionaries, evangelists, and other Christian activists:
Typically, it was sometime after they became professing Christians that they were convinced of the theological imperative to serve the poor and needy, and decided to convince others to do likewise. Although not conversion testimonies, their reflections on the revelation process were often testimonial in tone, especially insofar as they would claim to have found the true meaning of God’s grace only when they stopped focusing on themselves and learned to adopt a compassionate disposition toward others. (87)
Elisha matches each of the profiled individuals with a Biblical archetype that captures the theme of their life and work. (Their names have been changed to preserve their anonymity.)
- The Apostle, Paul Genero, the organizer of a ministry coalition called Samaritans of Knoxville who was extremely active in encouraging churches to increase their social engagement
- The Teacher, Stacy Miggs, a former marketing professional turned a homeschool mother and a leader in her church’s outreach efforts, who sought to help others exercise their “gift of mercyâ€
- The Prophet, Jim Elroy, the director of one of Knoxville’s largest homeless shelters and a high-profile advocate for the poor through his public speaking and writing
- The Missionary, Margie McKenzie, director of one church’s social outreach ministry who had become active with inner city causes, as well as giving aid and assistance to people with HIV/AIDS, after chaperoning a teen short-term mission to inner city DC
The work of these four indviduals is inspiring and personally challenging. I was struck, however, by the frustrations they faced in recruiting volunteers and generating interest in structural change. [Read more…] about Omri Elisha: The Frustrations of Socially Engaged Evangelicals
Evangelicals and Suffering (When God Talks Back)
Last week, in my discussion of what evangelicals can learn about themselves from T.M. Luhrmann’s When God Talks Back, I mentioned our approach to suffering. Originally, I wasn’t going to write another post on the book, but I wanted to come back to this important topic. Luhrmann discusses suffering in a chapter titled, “Darkness,” along with the related issue of feeling distant from God. Early in the chapter, Luhrmann describes the Vineyard’s approach in this way:
Churches like the Vineyard handle the problem of suffering [in a different way than traditional theodicy]: they ignore it. Then they turn the pain into a learning opportunity. When it hurts, you are supposed to draw closer to God. In fact, the church even seems to push its congregants to experience prayers that fail [due to their boldness]. (268, emphasis added)
Luhrmann observes that Vineyard churches and other evangelicals face two challenges that aren’t faced by certain other branches of Christianity or Judaism:
- Evangelicals expect an intimate relationship with God. Unlike traditions that few God more distantly, evangelicals want daily closeness with him.
- Evangelicals, particular of the Vineyard variety, expect God to answer big prayers. Luhrmann goes so far as to say that the Vineyard practically sets up its members for disappointment through its encouragement to prayer for healing and success (e.g. being accepted into certain college).
Times of suffering and spiritual dryness are inevitable. How, then, does Luhrmann see evangelicals addressing them? [Read more…] about Evangelicals and Suffering (When God Talks Back)
Talking Amongst Ourselves (When God Talks Back)
Last week, I shared a few lessons on talking with non-evangelicals that I had taken away from T.M. Luhrmann’s When God Talks Back. This week, I’m going in the opposite direction. What are some things that evangelicals need to do better?
Accept our creatureliness. When describing Luhrmann’s work to evangelical friends, one of the main questions is, “Doesn’t this explain God away?” That is, if our ability to pray and to hear from God in prayer is related to certain psychological traits, then doesn’t that mean that God is just a psychological phenomenon?
Luhrmann herself rejects that line of reasoning. She is very clear throughout the book that she’s not investigating the existence of God or making any claims about his existence based on her research. Further, I’m not sure that discovering a psychological structure connected to the act of prayer says anything more about the existence of God than discovery of the optic nerve says about the existence of the Mona Lisa.
Historically, evangelicals have been very nervous about the physical aspects of the mind. We’re getting much better — I’ve seen incredible progress on the topic of mental health just in the years I’ve been a believer. This nervousness, though, is connected (I think) to the modern tendency to see ourselves as superior to and separate from our own bodies. This, in turn, is a rejection of our limits and, ultimately, our mortality. We are not only our bodies, but, as bodily creatures made by God, our bodies are an integral part of who we are. As Christians, after all, we profess believe in a physical resurrection, which suggests that there’s something important about this hunk of flesh. [Read more…] about Talking Amongst Ourselves (When God Talks Back)
When God Talks Back by T.M. Luhrmann
For the past several weeks, I’ve been reading T.M. Luhrmann’s When God Talks Back: Understanding the American Evangelical Relationship with God. The book addresses a simple, but profound, question from the perspective of a nonbeliever: how can seemingly rational, otherwise normal people claim to discern God’s will, to hear God’s voice, and, sometimes, to even see or feel spiritual beings? Luhrmann asks this with genuine curiosity, both personal and professional. A psychological anthropologist who has written previous books about modern witches, Zoroastrian Parsis, and American psychiatry, Luhrmann spent four years attending Vineyard churches and participating in Bible studies, prayer groups, and church seminars in preparation for the book. In addition to her own observations, Luhrmann ran the Spiritual Disciplines Project, an experiment at Stanford to explore how spiritual practices like prayer and Bible study affected individuals’ perception of spiritual things. When God Talks Back is the result of these observations, experiments, and Luhrmann’s synthesis of the literature on Christianity and other religions.
Much of the book focuses on sensory perceptions of “unnatural†phenomena — voices, visions, physical sensations of people who are not there. Augustine’s conversion story in his Confessions is a great example of this. While alone under a fig tree wrestling with whether to follow Christ, he hears a child’s voice singing “Tolle, lege, tolle, lege — â€take and read“ in Latin — but he knows somehow that isn’t just a child’s voice. He picks up a Bible, reads the first verses that he finds (Rom. 13:13–15), and â€all the shadows of doubt were dispelled” (Confessions, Book VIII).
Luhrmann chooses to examine Vineyard churches because she notices that experiences like these, as well as the more common process of discerning God’s will through prayer, study, and community, are much more common and accepted as authentic spiritual encounters in evangelical, charismatic, and Pentecotal churches than in the mainline Protestant church in which she was raised. In her research, Luhrmann finds that sensory experiences like these are much more common than some might think. Between 10% and 15% of the population volunteer when asked that they have heard voices or seen people who they knew “weren’t there.†The number rises to nearly 50% when the question is accompanied by a prompting example.  [Read more…] about When God Talks Back by T.M. Luhrmann