I'm still reading Total Truth, by Nancy Pearcey. I hope to finish it this week and have a full review up by week's end or the beginning of next week. Just thought I would throw a nugget out for discussion. This is on page 261 (don't know if the page numbering will be the same in the new edition) in chapter 9, titled "What's So Good About Evangelicalism."
In every historical period, the religious groups that grow most rapidly are those that set believers at odds with the surrounding culture. As a general principle, the higher a group's tension with mainstream society, the higher its growth rate.
"Religious organizations are stronger to the degree that they impose significant costs in terms of sacrifice and even stigma upon their members," write Finke and Stark. Why? Because religions that demand a lot also give a lot. A frankly supernatural religion may demand more from adherents than a watered-down gospel of "reasonable religion" or social activism. But in turn, it gives much greater rewards in terms of doctrinal substance, intense spiritual experience, and a sense of direct access to God. As Finke and Stark comment dryly, "people go to church in search of salvation, not social service."
What's your opinion on that? Here's a few of my own knee jerk reactions.
I can think of anecdotal evidence for and against this idea. I grew up in Jacksonville, FL and the biggest church in town, bar none, was First Baptist Church. This church fits Pearcey's, and Finke and Stark's description to a tee. The church lives in extreme tension with mainstream society in Jacksonville and also has grown to become the largest church. I haven't lived in the Jacksonville area in several years so there may be some bigger churches now, but First Baptist is still as big and influential as ever.
Most towns that I am aware of have churches like this - conservative, evangelical, fundamental, and extremely at odds with surrounding society, and oh yes, they are huge churches.
Similarly, charismatic churches are some of the largest and fastest growing churches in America and around the world. With their emphasis on the supernatural and practice of speaking in tongues and the like, they engage in many things that are at odds with mainstream society. And, many seem to grow very quickly.
Thom Rainer's book, High Expectations, bears out this thesis.
On the other hand, there are other religious groups which are at even greater odds with mainstream society that continue to be marginalized. The Jehovah's Witnesses come to mind immediately.
On the other hand, some of the largest and fastest growing churches (in America anyway) are explicit in conforming to the surrounding culture. This is what Willow Creek and Saddleback and now the Emerging Church are all about. Bill Hybels started Willow Creek after extensive door to door surveys of nonbelievers, seeking to ascertain from them the kind of church they would attend.
Of course Willow Creek and Saddleback and at least some of the emergent folks say that they have kept the core Christian message central and have only changed the methods. And I do believe this - I have a good, theologically conservative and doctrinally sound friend who was at Willow Creek recently and heard a message that he describes as being as biblical and gospel oriented as anything you are likely to hear in a presbyterian church.
But the point is that in these cases, regardless of the message, all of the trappings of the church have been changed to explicitly accomodate the culture.
So, I don't know. I agree with what Nancy Pearcey has to say here and I would agree with it regardless of the results. Christianity and the Christian church as a whole, is a distinctly counter cultural movement. So, even if this didn't produce church growth we would still be called to be in tension with the world around us.
In thinking about this, there are a few follow-up questions I would ask of myself and others.
1. In what ways are we called to be in tension with the world around us? In other words, we are told that, as far as it is possible we are to live in peace with all men, so where does the tension come in? Certainly if our message is not in tension with the world around us then we aren't preaching the gospel. But where do we go from there? How about the accoutrements of ministry?
2. What is proper biblical tension and what is obnoxiousness?
There are more questions to ask, but I think the overall point is on point - rather than hindering us, maintaining our counter cultural identities will help us grow.
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