Tag Archives: evangelicals

Possible issues with interstate megachurch sites

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American megachurches have had multiple satellite sites for years. But now at least several have pursued satellite sites in other states:

Pastor Mark Driscoll’s megachurch recently announced plans to expand into Portland, Oregon, and Orange County, California, using multi-site campuses that feature live bands and a sermon piped in from the main campus in Seattle.

The move is part of a trend among megachurches to extend their brand of church to new communities, in hopes of reaching unchurched people with the gospel. But critics fear the out-of-state campuses turn churches into franchises like McDonald’s or Starbucks.

The reason for the new campuses is simple, according to the Mars Hill website.

“Oregon needs Jesus Christ,” claims the introduction of the new location. “The city of Portland is known for many things, but the gospel of Jesus is nowhere on the list.”

What might be the issues with this and responses to these issues?

1. It is unclear how far away a satellite campus has to be to be objectionable. Let’s say Willow Creek opened a satellite campus in northwestern Indiana, still within the Chicago region. Is this a problematic interstate campus or not? The distance between Seattle and Orange County or between Oklahoma and Phoenix does seem larger.

2. The McDonaldization/commodification/branding of churches seems to go against the local community aspect of church. This seems to be typically related to the popularity of a particular pastor/preacher who could draw a viable audience all over.

2a. There is a strong case to be made for emphasizing local community or even a parish model. But, evangelical churches left this behind a long time ago so is this simply a logical extension of this trend?

2b. How much of opposition to these new sites is based on the need for community in church versus how large churches tend to draw their members from existing churches rather than from non-attendees? If a megachurch satellite moves into an area, local churches may lose congregants.

2c. How much will this matter in the future as anybody with an Internet connection can easily access sermons and podcasts? If the primary purpose of a satellite church is to share a sermon, people can get this elsewhere.

2d. This is a reminder of the pastor-centric nature of many evangelical churches.

3. It would be interesting to hear discussions within megachurches that go forward for interstate sites: what is the primary motivation for doing this?

Os Guinness on how evangelicals view and use sociology

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Os Guinness tries to explain how evangelicals view and use sociology:

CP: How are we as Christians failing to live the Way of Jesus?

Guinness: Sadly, when we look at many movements within evangelicalism today, the world and the spirit of the age are dominant, rather than the Word and Spirit.

I feel this very deeply as one trained in the social sciences. When I wrote “The Gravedigger File” nearly thirty years ago, very few evangelicals knew much about sociology. It was considered a “dangerous” field, along with psychology. Now it is cited almost universally, especially in the constant quoting of the latest statistics. I have heard mega-church sermons in which “Gallup or Barna says” far out-stripped “God or the Bible says.

But whereas sociology was once unused, it is now used uncritically. One of the key places where sociology should be used is in analyzing “the world” of our times, so that we can be more discerning. To resist the dangers of the world you have to recognize the distortions and seductions of the world. I have revised and updated my book under a new title, “The Last Christian on Earth”, but understanding the world through cultural criticism, as this parable encourages, is still unfashionable. Rather than use sociology that way, most pastors use it in a way that leads to adapting to the world, and they are encouraged to do so by half-baked versions of “seeker-sensitive” mission, and so on.

Guinness suggests sociology is used by evangelicals in several ways:

1. As a source of data. Several commentators have suggested in recent years that this data is often used in an alarmist way and to rally people to a particular cause or way of thinking. See an example here.

2. It is used by religious leaders who are trying to adapt or connect to culture rather than critique or understand culture.

From what Guinness is saying, it sounds like evangelicals are taking what they want from sociology rather than engaging with some of the bigger ideas and methods of the discipline. This seems to fit with the pragmatic culture of evangelicalism that is always looking for ways to reach the broader culture without thinking everything through.

I would also argue with the suggestion that sociology is no longer viewed as “dangerous” by many evangelicals. They may hear sociological snippets at church but I think there is still a decent amount of resistance and more so than psychology.

Sorting out the statistics about Christians and divorce

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BeliefNet.com has a useful summary of a recent discussion that includes sociologists: do Christians divorce as frequently as other Americans?

1. Data from The Barna Group suggests that born-again Christians divorce at a similar rate as the general population. This seems to be tied to Barna’s particular definitions:

Barna’s statistics are tied to its highly specific — and controversial — definitions of born-again Christians and evangelicals.

For instance, Barna labels Christians “born-again” if they have made a personal commitment to Jesus and believe they will go to heaven because they have accepted him as their savior.

Evangelicals, on the other hand, are those who fit the born-again definition but also meet seven other conditions, including sharing their beliefs with non-Christians and agreeing that the Bible is completely accurate.

With these stricter definitions, Barna can claim that Christians and other divorce at similar rates.

2. Several sociologists, including Bradley Wright and Brad Wilcox, suggest there is a different story regarding Christians and divorce. Wright, for example, looked at General Social Survey data and found that higher rates of church attendance were related to lower rates of divorce:

Wright combed through the General Social Survey, a vast demographic study conducted by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago, and found that Christians, like adherents of other religions, have a divorce rate of about 42 percent. The rate among religiously unaffiliated Americans is 50 percent.

When Wright examined the statistics on evangelicals, he found worship attendance has a big influence on the numbers. Six in 10 evangelicals who never attend had been divorced or separated, compared to just 38 percent of weekly attendees.

Wilcox came to some similar conclusions based on another data source:

“You do hear, both in Christian and non-Christian circles, that Christians are no different from anyone else when it comes to divorce and that is not true if you are focusing on Christians who are regular church attendees,” he said.

Wilcox’s analysis of the National Survey of Families and Households has found that Americans who attend religious services several times a month were about 35 percent less likely to divorce than those with no religious affiliation.

Nominal conservative Protestants, on the other hand, were 20 percent more likely to divorce than the religiously unaffiliated.

If Wright and Wilcox are correct, it is less about whether one calls themselves a Christian or meets a theological definition of being a Christian and more about the Christian actions that they undertake. If we take church attendance as some measure of spiritual commitment or beliefs, then it appears that going to church more is tied to getting divorced less.

Another part of this debate seems to be about how to define people as Evangelicals. Barna has a particular method as do others. One standard in the field of sociology of religion is to use RELTRAD, which accounts for both “doctrine and historical changes in religious groups.”

(I explained Wright’s argument in class recently and was asked if we could take Wright’s claims about church attendance as a causal argument: does going to church lead to less divorce? Or is it that people who divorce less feel more comfortable about going to church while those who are already divorced feel less comfortable in church and therefore go less? I’m guessing someone has answered this question.)

Comments on whether Evangelicals are generous enough

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A number of commentators, including a few sociologists (Christian Smith and Bradley Wright), weigh in on the question of whether Evangelicals are generous or stingy with their money.

Two points to take away:

1. Evangelicals are more generous than many people.

2. Evangelicals don’t come close to giving to their full capacity, let injunction the idea of giving 10% of their income.

Differences in political activism in mainline and evangelical pastors

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Christianity Today contrasts the political stances and activities of mainline and evangelical pastors. The data is summed up this way:

[A] new study from Calvin College’s Paul B. Henry Institute shows that for the past decade, evangelical pastors have been more likely to take public stances on political issues and candidates than have their mainline cohorts. Overall, some differences between evangelical and mainline clergy are shrinking as mainline pastors become more conservative and evangelical pastors become more socially active.

This is some interesting data: it suggests both mainline and evangelical congregations don’t hear much about politics even as pastors themselves took stands on particular public issues and a sizable minority supported a political candidate.

On the whole, however, it looks like there are not too many differences here between evangelical and mainline churches in these matters. Outside of more mainline pastors being more liberal on political and economic issues than their congregations, about half of evangelical and mainline pastors engaged in some form of political activity in church. Perhaps we would need some more data to find sharper differences (such as about the particular congregations and contexts where these sorts of activities took place – this could be found in the National Congregations Study) or more qualitative data that could provide insights into how politics is acted upon in particular congregations and through particular pastors.

When religious faith and unions come together

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Even though unions represent a relatively small percent of today’s American workers, they tend to draw a lot of attention. A story from the Chicago Tribune adds another dimension to the discussion: what happens when unions and faith mix?

Faith and work are inextricably linked for most of the working class, said Bob Bruno, director of the Labor Education Program at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

“For a lot of these folks, if a business doesn’t provide health care, it could be characterized as not taking care of the stranger on the road. It’s a sin,” said Bruno, who interviewed hundreds of low-wage workers in Chicago for his 2008 book, “Justified by Work: Identity and the Meaning of Faith in Chicago’s Working-Class Churches.”

About 91 percent of union members believe in God, and 25 percent pray several times a day, Bruno found in a survey of union members he conducted from 2005 to 2006. Eighty percent believe God performs miracles in the world today…

Organizations like Interfaith Worker Justice work to close the gap between low-wage workers, who tend to have a more emotional connection to their faith, and corporate executives, who, he said, have been found to see religion more intellectually.

“They try to bring the argument to the modern-day pharaohs,” he said. “‘Hey, you claim to be Christian, you claim to be a Jew, you claim to be Muslim, why are you treating your people this way? You can’t hide behind your glass office.'”

This immediately brings several questions to mind:

1. What percentage of union actions or labor strikes are motivated by religious values? In other words, how often are unions motivated by religion versus other motivations?

2. What happens when a union makes a religious argument to corporate executives? Do the corporations just ignore this part of the argument? What happens when the executive or the company is also religious – does this lead to a different corporate response?

3. How would a typical evangelical, one that lives in the suburbs, works in a non-blue collar job, and is conservative, respond to these arguments? Can corporations sin? Should or can unions be making these arguments?

39% of Americans now say marriage is obsolete

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More data suggests that definitions of family continue to change in the United States. According to research from Pew, about 39% of Americans now say marriage is obsolete:

About 29 percent of children under 18 now live with a parent or parents who are unwed or no longer married, a fivefold increase from 1960, according to the Pew report being released Thursday. Broken down further, about 15 percent have parents who are divorced or separated and 14 percent who were never married. Within those two groups, a sizable chunk — 6 percent — have parents who are live-in couples who opted to raise kids together without getting married.

Indeed, about 39 percent of Americans said marriage was becoming obsolete. And that sentiment follows U.S. census data released in September that showed marriages hit an all-time low of 52 percent for adults 18 and over.

In 1978, just 28 percent believed marriage was becoming obsolete.

What exactly people mean when they say marriage is “obsolete” is a little unclear: do they mean it is a dying institution? Do they mean that they won’t pursue marriage? Do they mean it is not a desirable goal?

But the same story also tries to suggest that it is not all bad news for marriage:

Still, the study indicates that marriage isn’t going to disappear anytime soon. Despite a growing view that marriage may not be necessary, 67 percent of Americans were upbeat about the future of marriage and family. That’s higher than their optimism for the nation’s educational system (50 percent), economy (46 percent) or its morals and ethics (41 percent).

And about half of all currently unmarried adults, 46 percent, say they want to get married. Among those unmarried who are living with a partner, the share rises to 64 percent.

The first set of comparisons of optimism about marriage and family versus other objects seems to be somewhat irrelevant. But there are still people who wish to be married – and I would be curious to know if there are traits or characteristics that mark this group.

What will be really interesting to see is how the current generation of kids, that 29% of kids under 18 who live with unwed or unmarried parents, responds to marriage when they are of age. There is nothing that says marriage rates have to decline over time just as there was never any guarantee that marriage would continue to be seen as a desirable life outcome for a majority of Americans.

As Christians, and Evangelicals in particular, have tended to promote “family values” and push the idea of marriage as a good for individuals, the church, and society, how will they respond to this data? Looking toward the future, will younger Evangelicals still desire marriage in the same way as previous generations or will the trends in broader society shape their behaviors?

Sorting the good from the bad statistics about Evangelicals

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Sociologist Bradley Wright talks with Christianity Today about his latest book: Christians Are Hate-Filled Hypocrites…and Other Lies You’ve Been Told: A Sociologist Shatters Myths From the Secular and Christian Media. Here is CT’s quick summary of the argument:

Young people are not abandoning church. Evangelical beliefs and practices get stronger with more education. Prayer, Bible reading, and evangelism are up. Perceptions about evangelicals have improved dramatically. The data are clear on these matters, says University of Connecticut sociologist Bradley Wright, but evangelicals still want to believe the worst statistics about themselves.

One question to then ask is why Evangelicals buy into these negative statistics. The subculture argument, when applied to evangelicals, might suggest that these numbers help keep people fired up by reminding them that the group could lose its distinctiveness if drastic action is not taken.

Wright suggests his goal is to encourage Evangelicals:

This is not a call for complacency but for encouragement. Why not say, “We’re reading our Scriptures more than most other religious traditions; let’s do even better”? Instead, what we hear is, “Christianity’s going to fail. You’re all a bunch of failures. But if you buy my book, listen to my sermon, or go to my conference, I’ll solve everything.” These fear messages demoralize people, hinder the message of the church, and hide real problems.

I would like to see exactly what statistics he looks at and debunks. Wright is not the first to suggest Evangelicals have some issues with statistics.

An Evangelical emphasis on extrovertedness

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If you have ever gone to church and felt left out because you are quiet, reserved, or introverted, you are likely not alone. Adam McHugh argues that Evangelical churches tend to privilege the extroverted and equate faith with outgoingness:

Even more dangerous is the tendency of evangelical churches to unintentionally exalt extroverted qualities as the “ideals” of faithfulness. Too often “ideal” Christians are social and gregarious, with an overt passion and enthusiasm. They find it easy to share the gospel with strangers, eagerly invite people into their homes, participate in a wide variety of activities, and quickly assume leadership responsibilities. Those are wonderful qualities, and our churches suffer when we don’t have those sorts of people, but if these qualities epitomize the Christian life, many of us introverts are left feeling excluded and spiritually inadequate. Or we wear ourselves out from constantly masquerading as extroverts.

This is insightful. This may be linked to the typical Evangelical church presentation: generally loud music, brashness about the message, highlighting people in the church who are doing things.

I’ve often wondered why churches don’t feature more testimonies/stories/insights from “average” or “typical” congregants who have often lived rich lives of faith full of troubles and triumphs. These would be people that others could relate to. Congregants can learn from ministers and church leaders but they can also learn from the people sitting next to them.

Glenn Beck illustrates how Evangelicals are successful in American politics

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Sociologist Michael Lindsay examines Glenn Beck’s speech from this past weekend and argues Beck illustrates what Evangelicals do so well:

With those seven words, Glenn Beck accomplished two complementary but seemingly opposite objectives, much like [Rick] Warren does at the outset of his [The Purpose Driven Life] book. He diminished the crowd’s sense that they can do anything ultimately important while simultaneously endowing their attempts with a sense of sacred purpose. It’s as if Beck said to the throngs, “Put away your placards, and give up on your political machinations. We’re not in control.” But using the exact same words, he was exhorting, “We have a bigger obligation to play whatever role we are given in this larger divine drama.”

This relativizing/sacralizing of actions is precisely why evangelicals are so successful in American politics.

What Beck’s call to action will lead to remains to be seen. But, as Lindsay suggests, his uniting of faith and political action may very well influence the Republican Party in the near future.