Classic iMonk Post
by Michael Spencer
From August, 2004
One of the axioms of my critique of evangelicalism is this: methodology creates theology. By this I mean that when evangelicals have adopted particular methods, such as the evangelistic sales pitch or the powerpoint designed sermon, they will soon develop an accompanying theology, generally morphed in the direction of justifying and spiritualizing what they are doing. Therefore, the most pragmatic of churches are usually the most defensive and the least self-critical about their innovative methods. Churches who do this for decades have all the characteristics of the vault at Fort Knox.
Of course, one might expand this critique in a number of ways. We might say that methodology has created theology, which has, in turn, created more methodology. It’s a circle, a cycle that goes on and on. Which brings me to the question of “what is the result?” And the answer: the corruption of individual Christian spirituality itself, something abundantly evident among evangelicals today.
Let me illustrate. Which of the following is going to attract evangelicals? Which expresses the personal spirituality of the typical evangelical? Which best describes what appeals to you and me?
1) Our church decides to have a prayer emphasis. We have a 24 hour prayer clock and sign up for 15 minutes to pray in the worship center. We have a seminar on prayer featuring a well-known teacher. We sell books on prayer. We have themed t-shirts about prayer with cool mottos and witty art. We have special prayer meetings at designated homes. The youth have a prayer walk. Prayer testimonies are featured in worship all week. A praise and worship band is coming to lead a musical concert of prayer. Here- have a free pen and a balloon. Prayer and pizza for the youth happens on Saturday. The Children’s Choir is doing “Billy, The Praying Bicycle” in the evening service.
Or…
2) The pastor preaches on prayer, and encourages members to pray every day for the church, missions and themselves. He recommends you read J.C. Ryle’s “Call to Prayer.” Accountability groups for personal prayer are encouraged as well. Then, it’s up to you.
Of course, I hope you will agree that while we understand the second option, we also know that our evangelical spirituality is drawn toward the festival of events in the first option, an option that actually promotes not so much prayer, but events and actvities somehow related to prayer. Kind of.
Our spirituality has become corrupted by methodology that emphasizes evangelical Christian subculture, a subculture that looks to activities, conferences, concerts, products and many other outward events to measure spiritual reality.
When I was growing up, our church had evangelistic visitation one night a week. On that night, we were supposed to go out and knock on doors in the neighborhood and do evangelistic sales pitches. We trained for this, using all the latest SBC materials. This night was promoted endlessly in all the usual ways. The training was offered constantly. You easily picked up the message that the “real” Christians in our church were the folks out knocking on doors on visitation nights.
Now, relational evangelism with our friends and neighbors was mentioned in our church, but all of us knew that “real” evangelism was that weekly foray into the neighborhood. And if we never witnessed to another person, if we never mentioned Christ to our co-workers or relatives, it was no big deal, because true spirituality had you down at the church for the evangelism event. The event was our focus, not the personal reality of evangelism in my own life. In other words, we were shaped by this emphasis on an event rather than by a balanced, Biblical and humble approach to evangelism.
I hope these two illustrations move us down the road I want to travel. We need an honest discussion of personal spirituality among evangelicals, because we are not in good shape. Southern Baptist teacher of spiritual disciplines Don Whitney has many wonderful insights on Biblical spirituality. His emphasis is very healthy: Basic disciplines. Primarily individual disciplines. Simple disciplines. Whitney has a much needed ministry, because these things, while talked about, are almost unknown in the real lives of many evangelicals. If it doesn’t come to us in concerts, conferences, celebrities, consumer goods and the general noise and racket of the evangelical subculture, we probably aren’t doing it.
We have become people who must be in a crowd or at a special event to feel we have fellowshipped with God or known the power of the Spirit. We must have products to buy to feel we are following Jesus. We must decorate our cars, walls and bodies with slogans and art to reassure ourselves we are Christians. We want Christian entertainment, and we call it “worship”, but that is almost nonsensical in any ordinary sense. When we must have a stadium, a six-figure audio visual set up and a major league praise team to have worship where “God shows up”, who are we fooling?
The simple disciplines of the inner life escape us. We rarely pray, but we have all Stormie’s books on prayer. We rarely evangelize, but we’ve been to all the seminars and can use the Evangecube with skill. We can’t stop complaining about the boring worship at church, but we’d drive 500 miles to hear Third Day. We don’t read the Bible and we don’t read books about the Bible and we don’t train our minds, but then why should we? Pastor Rick has been to the grocery store and brought home all the verses we need on every topic, illustrated and alliterated. We aren’t talking to unbelievers, and we can’t turn off television- Christian or otherwise- long enough to read a book. We can go to a Beth Moore study, but we can’t go to the scriptures on our own for 15 minutes a day.
We’re pitiful. I’m pitiful. What are we doing with our lives? And how the heck did we convince ourselves that membership in the mall and the amusement park is following Jesus, loving God and serving our neighbor?
We sign up for mission trips, but quiet, consistent service that doesn’t end in applause and a good cry is hard to find among evangelicals. It’s too hard for us to lay aside our comfort and selfishness to do service without being surrounded by all our friends. The inner life, the daily call to individual discipleship, the genuineness of Biblical spirituality- we only know these to the extent we can have them sold to us in the currency of our evangelical subculture and packaged for us in events and products that make us feel special. We can be bribed and we can be flattered. And we will call it Christianity.
When I look at my life, I long to have the kind of spirituality I see in the lives of those who value solitude, love to read the Bible, know how to pray and find quiet ways to love and serve others without applause. I want my life to show the evidence of the Spirit of Jesus and not the imprint of all the religious hucksters and hawksters that need my butt in their seat and my dollar in their cash register.
I want to do these good, simple, and beautiful things because they are what I passionately desire in my life. I want them to be in me because they are real, not because they are promoted with a pizza fellowship for everyone who comes all five nights.
In the center of our campus is a poem that all of us who work here have heard a hundred times, but it says something important that is rapidly vanishing in these days of subcultural spirituality.
Father, where shall I work today?
And my love flowed warm and free.
Then He pointed out a tiny spot
and said, “Tend that for me.”
I answered quickly, “Oh no; not that!
Why, no one would ever see,
no matter how well my work was done;
not that little place for me.”
And the word He spoke, it was not stern;
He answered me tenderly:
“Ah, little one, search that heart of thine.
Art thou working for them or me?
Nazareth was a little place,
and so was Galilee.”
The Internet Monk Archives 
And all of it CHRISTIAN(TM) instead of that Secular Heathen books & music!
Ever heard of “Of the World but Not In It”?
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In Campus Crusade I heard stories where people forsaked their classes for spiritual events. I also heard of cases where students were “called” into the middle of God knows where in Africa to support Crusade mission projects. They would put a year of their life hold, schooling on hold and do that. They delayed a career, the interest on student loans grew, and they did this will begging and pleading for support from everyone they knew. And all the while those who did not go or who didn’t step up were almost shamed into not being serious Christians. Cause as we all know…a missionary in Uganda is a million times important than a personal banker at Wells Fargo.
It’s just as bad at Crusade Christmas conferences in whatever city…San Diego, Seattle, Minneapolis, etc.. They will do this alter call and ask people to commit to the “gospel” after college for a couple of years. So drunk on emotion, sleep depreived, and after being love bombed by 1,000,000 new friends people will be like, “I’ll do it!!!” Koolaide anyone?
In my particular case God’s will caused a burn out in Washington, D.C. And it was here that I reached my tipping point, just exhausted and fried. Good thing I was not in the middle of Tanzania, Thailand, Egypt etc.. and went through a spiritual crisis like the Christian Monist did.
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Wait to she gets into Christian music and spends $50.00 to $75.00 on new books and music released each Tuesday at Family Christian, Lifeway, etc.. NOW that is markeing….
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Kind of like the way that missions trips have become ways to play tourist in Africa or South America. You get to do somethng for a brief time, spend a couple of days sight seeing. Then you come back and everyone “ooooo and ahhhhh” at you. What was responsibility? Getting out of work obligations or community events. Giving yet one more false impression to people that “I’m a serious Christian” (foaming at the mouth when one says this…)
It’s awful. Christians don’t know a lot of responsibility.
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This morning I read Wendell Berry’s short story “Jonquil for Mary Penn” and felt at peace all day. Michael Spencer’s prose largely reinforces the vibes of that story. Highly recommended by me.
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It’s also the idea behind any of the “third orders” – i.e., ordinary, workaday men and women vowed to the spirituality of Francis or Dominic or Mother Teresa.
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He overstates his case. I understand he is doing it to make a point. But the caricature he draws, I have only rarely encountered in my many years of evangelical travels. He identifies a real problem but most people and churches evidence a milder form of it.
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P.S. Fish — as I understand it, “bringing God into your daily occupation” instead of “full time God-work” is also the theme of St Therese of Lisieux’s “Little Way” — the idea that Holiness can be found in everyday routine instead of a string of Damascus Road moments.
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“Drop what you’re doing and do God-work” is also the essence of Clericalism, i.e. that only Priests, Monks, Nuns — or their Evangelical Equivalent, Pastors, Missionaries, P&W Singers, and “full time Christian workers” — are Godly Sheep and everyone else is a Goat.
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“Subcultural” as in “pertaining to a subculture” or as in “inferior to culture”?
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Yes, I think its a really important point that gets missed a lot. Some things are set apart and special, but it’s sad to see people divide the holy/the world and God’s work/secular life into separate categories. Not because some things shouldn’t be special, but because it leaves the rest of life unredeemed and downplayed.
Long ago, I visited a Christian group at prospective college, and had one of the young ladies there explain to me that she considered herself a soldier of Christ disguised as a college student. Not a Christian college student, but a pretend student who was really a Christian. Perhaps later she was planning to become a pretend teacher or a pretend doctor, who was “really” a Christian. At the evangelical liberal arts colleges, professors try very hard to get people to “integrate” their faith with “everything else,” but there is still a tendency among students to view “real service” as pastoral or missions work, and real worship as praise and worship at a weeknight gathering.
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Chaplain Mike’s words on bringing God into one’s every day occupation rather than thinking that all of us should drop what we are doing and go do God-work have really helped me.
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Apparently this precluded fulfilling such mundane obligations as studying, which I suppose is not considered very “spiritual.”
Ever heard of “Corban”?
That’s also why high-involvement campus Christian groups like the Navs have a rep for high flunkout rates.
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I know that even writing this makes me a terribly cynic, but we had the same thing happen a few times at my evangelical college. There would be an outpouring of the spirit, and some individuals felt it necessary to devote full-time energy and attention to meetings. Apparently this precluded fulfilling such mundane obligations as studying, which I suppose is not considered very “spiritual.”
Cynic that I am, I rode the whole thing out by writing research papers.
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I agree that a greater sense of balance is needed in today’s evangelical environment. I don’t see anything wrong in granting ourselves the freedom to enjoy ourselves as Christians and celebrate and even worship in fun ways — so long as we keep our primary focus on seeking His kingdom and His righteousness.
Unfortunately, evangelicals are being conditioned to equate their own entertainment and enjoyment with His kingdom. If it feels good and it’s got a Christian label on it, then it must be of God.
I think the church in all its forms and institutions needs to do a better job when it comes to honest, open, uncensored self-examination and constructive self-criticism. Where is the church board of elders or denominational convention or magisterial council that really (and I mean really) allows for and addresses the truly important but often dangerous questions to be openly asked and discussed?
Maybe it would open Pandora’s box, but I think that if we could learn to do it while maintaining love and unity, such a practice would go a long way toward keeping the church between the ditches.
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I mean, what is this absolute OBSESSION with marketing church to teenagers? I would bet it is is at least a $100M industry, if not a billion-dollar one.
Wait, I think I just answered my own question.
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The last time I got angry at my daughter, it was over youth group activities. They are marketed to teens no differently than cereal is marketed to toddlers.
When she cancelled a multi-day babysitting gig to attend yet another youth retreat, foregoing the (good) money she would be paid (because mom and dad have lots, right?) and leaving those parents in an bind with no childcare, I hit the ceiling. Her response? “But it’s church, dad!”
And she never got another call to babysit for them. Fired, basically.
Or tests. It’s not a problem that everyone has a major algebra test on Monday. Everyone will just take their books on the retreat and the leaders will block out an hour for study. Yeah, right.
The church is not teaching my child responsibility. It is doing just the opposite for the sake of pumping up its numbers. She needs to be focused on her grades and getting into the college she wants to attend, but the church’s goal is to sell activities to teens with the goal of getting as much of their time as possible.
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+ a bazillion
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Those are excellent cautions, K.W.
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I tend to be quite cynical myself about all the path-of-least-resistance religious practices we find in Christendom. We Americans have definitely adapted the “work smarter not harder” philosophy into a “worship ought to be fun” mentality, and refuse to do anything for God unless we enjoy it, on the grounds that if we’re not enjoying it, it’s not God. We’ll give money to homeless shelters (though not an amount that pinches our budget any; it has to be from our discretionary surplus) because it gives us a nice warm sense of self-satisfaction. But we won’t clean them. We’ll wave signs at pro-life rallies, but we won’t offer foster care to a pregnant teenager whose parents kicked her out because she made them grandparents too prematurely for their taste.
Still, I would caution against going overboard with the “following Jesus ought to be hard” rhetoric. Not because it makes us sound like grumpy old farts (“In my day, we listened to four-hour sermons with no amplification, no air conditioning, and no lattés to keep us awake!”) but because the way some of us talk, it makes it sound like God isn’t happy with us unless our devotion involves more suffering than joy—as if God is a comsic sadist whose plan to turn us into the image of His Son involves us embracing masochism as a lifestyle.
Jesus didn’t want to suffer; He did it because it had to be done in order to achieve the Kingdom. He had to “man up,” as it were, and did so. We have to do the same where God leads. But if He doesn’t lead that direction—if we’re pursuing suffering for its own sake, like certain flagellants or self-mortifyers—that’s devotion gone horribly wrong. If we’re rejecting anything good God might have for us on the grounds that we ought not enjoy anything God put into this world, and save all our joy for heaven, we’ve gone too far.
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This is exactly the kind of consumer religion that burned me out my first year at an SBC-affiliated university. As soon as I opened my mouth about it, I was labeled a cynic.
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*Spencer
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+2!
I would comment, but Spenser nails this one so completely, my compulsion is the quote the whole thing.
“I want to do these good, simple, and beautiful things because they are what I passionately desire in my life.” I love this.
(Now. Please, I beg you: Nobody write a fill-in-the-blank workbook about this concept, especially not if it is divided into 10 lessons for “small group ministries”.)
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+1
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