Author Archives: Rob Harrison

The Jesus heresy, take 2

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I wrote, back in January, about what I called “a sort of Jesus-only Unitarianism” that characterizes much of our popular evangelical piety in this country, as reflected in the songs the American church sings, and the dangers of that. Now, along comes Collin Hansen, in a web-only review for Christianity Today of Stephen J. Nichols’ book Jesus Made in America: A Cultural History from the Puritans to the Passion of the Christ, to point out, inter alia, some of the reason why:

Jesus is easier to conform to our culturally-comfortable faith than either his Father or his Spirit.[Nichols] admires the evident devotion to Jesus in much contemporary Christian music. But he shows how lyrics “safe for the whole family” begin with sub-Christian notions of romantic love and neglect the biblical record, not to mention the rich descriptions in the Nicene and Chalcedonian Creeds.”Like a good boyfriend, Jesus shows up at the right moment, says the right thing and knows how to hug,” Nichols writes after surveying popular Christian radio hits. . . .”How ironic it would be if American evangelicalism reduces its message to such a saccharin-sweet package, not to keep up with religious pluralism or because of some philosophical or theological shift but merely because it falls victim to its own commercial success,” Nichols muses.Focused for so long on the enemy outside, evangelicals may now face a far more dangerous foe: themselves.

Candle Room

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On a completely different note, this is a short documentary about a young Orthodox candlemaker, Peter Kavanaugh, and his work; it was directed by his younger brother David, currently a film student in Santa Fe. (In the interests of full disclosure: their father, Dr. Patrick Kavanaugh, is the music minister and worship leader at our church, and I think very highly of both Peter and David.)

Setting the record straight

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There have been a lot of folks on the Left beating up on evangelicals for, well, not beating up on Sarah Palin. “She’s a working mom, her oldest daughter is pregnant before marriage, she . . . she . . . what do you mean, you don’t want to tar and feather her?! You hypocrites!” Such folks would do well to read the thoughtful reflections of Dr. Alan Jacobs and the Anchoress on this issue. (And if that doesn’t work, they can try Thomas Lifson.)And speaking of Alan Jacobs, I could wish more people on both sides of the political fence understood this:

It’s actually possible to have some sympathy for a political candidate—to think that a candidate is being treated unfairly—whom you have no plan to vote for. It is not the case that all compassion is partisan.

Snapshot of the presidential race

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As of this evening, in the RealClearPolitics national polling average, John McCain has a 2.9 point lead over Barack Obama. That’s within the margin of error, of course, but still, it’s a pretty good bounce.
Much depends, of course, on whether the bounce is transitory or hangs around for a while, but there are reasons to think it might stick. One is that the huge edge in voter identification that Democrats enjoyed—it was 6% in November 2006 and had climbed over 10% this past May—has been steadily eroding; by last month it was down to 5.7%. Now, according to the Gallup/USA Today poll, that edge has dropped to just 1%, which is less even than the Democratic Party had in 2004. Another is that according to the Rasmussen tracking poll a higher percentage of McCain voters than Obama voters are certain about their vote (41%-38%); not only is Sen. Obama behind in the polls, more of those who say they plan to vote for him are open to changing their mind. It’s also worth noting that the ABC poll reports a 20-point swing in Sen. McCain’s favor among white women; Gallup finds a smaller shift among all women, but a huge shift in support among independents (now 52%-37% in his favor). As well, after all the talk about Sen. Obama reaching beyond the Democratic base, pursuing a 50-state strategy and drawing votes from Republican evangelicals, the focus is back on swing states and he’s doing no better with evangelicals than Kerry did.That said, if you take RCP’s electoral map with every state projected one way or the other, they do still give Obama/Biden the win in electoral votes, 273-265:
That’s somewhat misleading, however, because most of the state poll numbers they’re using are pretty old. Thus, for instance, New Hampshire:
As you can see, their average gives Sen. Obama a paper-thin lead—but the newest poll there was finished on the 18th of August, and the others are one and three and a half months older. Given that Sen. McCain has gained a fair bit on Sen. Obama in that time, it would seem likely that New Hampshire is now leaning the other way; and if you flip them and leave everyone else the same, you get a 269-269 tie.Other interesting cases to consider include Michigan, Pennsylvania and Colorado:


In Michigan and Pennsylvania, Sen. Obama’s decent lead in the poll average is based largely on old polls; in the one up-to-date poll in each state, his lead is razor-thin—one point in Michigan, two points in Pennsylvania; when the other polls catch up, they will likely show the effects of the McCain bounce. At this point, while you’d have to say both are leaning toward him, the tilt would seem to be very slight; both states are very much in play. As for Colorado, there we see no such pattern, but there is a poll not included in this average, commissioned by the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which shows Sen. McCain up by two. Given that Rasmussen in Colorado shows no signs of a bounce for the McCain campaign, there doesn’t seem reason to expect the other polls to move significantly in his direction, leaving Colorado also leaning slightly against him.Others might ask, what about states that could flip the other way? What about Ohio? Well, take a look:
At this point, the numbers on Ohio don’t look promising for the Obama campaign; yes, the average is quite close, but the only recent poll, Rasmussen, gives Sen. McCain a seven-point lead, whereas even after the Democratic convention, Sen. Obama was only up two. Virginia‘s more interesting, though:
There, we have two polls which are up to date, and both show a two-point lead for Sen. McCain. He ought to be able to carry the state, but he’s not going to be able to take it for granted—it appears that the Old Dominion could readily go either way.So what does this all mean? Well, on my read, the truest picture of the race is this:
Looking at that, I tend to think there’s more opportunity for the GOP to pull states out of the Democratic column than vice versa; the momentum is going their way, and Sarah Palin looks like someone who will have particular effectiveness appealing to blue-collar Democrats in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Minnesota. Sen. Obama doesn’t have a similar advantage to help him go after states like Ohio, Virginia, Missouri and Florida.That, of course, is as of now; we need only look back at the serpentine course this presidential election has already taken to be reminded how quickly—and strangely—things can change. Certainly there’s no room for overconfidence on the part of the GOP; they’re in a dogfight, and at best have an even shot at coming out on top. But when you consider that most pundits expected them to be all but writing the concession speech at this point of the campaign, an even shot looks pretty good.

The attractional church: a paradigm for abusive ministry?

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(Note: this was originally posted on August 28—and then had the misfortune to be swamped by political commentary. I’ve bumped it up in hopes that folks who might be interested who might have missed it before will catch it.)

I want, if I can, to start a conversation here. Over the past year or so, I’ve gotten acquainted to one degree or another, starting through Hap, with a lot of people who’ve left the church, either temporarily or for good, after being hurt by churches with a bad approach to ministry—people like Erin, Barry, Tyler Dawn, Barb, and Katherine Gunn—along with others like Kathy Escobar and Heather who had reason to leave but didn’t. (This is not by any means an exhaustive list.) I’ve also continued to chew on what it means for the church to be missional; along those lines, I’ve appreciated Jared Wilson‘s ongoing work contrasting the missional paradigm with what he calls the attractional-church paradigm. For those of you who haven’t followed that, you can find his overview here, and his ongoing overview at SearchWarp in Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8.

Now, up until recently, I thought of these as just two separate phenomena. On the one hand, you have bad churches. On the other, you have a bad ministry paradigm. I’m starting to wonder, though, if there might be a connection.

What got me thinking about that was Jared’s post “Mega(church)lomania”, in which he linked to and quoted a post by a Dr. Jim West called “Speaking Of The Outrage That Is The Mega-Church…” that I found very interesting. First, let me note one of Jared’s comments on Dr. West’s post:

When I agree with folks who are harshing on the megachurch vibe, it is typically because what I see them criticizing is the attractional model of church, and while I’ve gone on record several times acknowledging that there are certainly aspects of our ecclesiology and methodology that can be attractional, I think the attractional mode of “doing church” is counterproductive to discipleship. (Because it doesn’t work.)

Now, with that in mind, here are some of Dr. West’s comments on the megachurch, which as Jared says apply not to the size of the church but to its approach, and are really a critique of the attractional model in all sizes of congregation:

Mega churches exist for one simple reason—the accumulation of wealth. Churches, you see, once upon a time would grow, flourish, and in order to extend their ministry establish mission churches in areas where no church work existed. Their goal in the establishment of such churches was to realize the goal of local churches sprouting up everywhere. Neighborhood churches, though, over time, became too small and offered too little to the consumeristic American who wanted more and more.

So, in order to quench the unending thirst of American Christians, Churches ended their missionary outreach and instead of planting small churches in local neighborhoods they began drawing people from miles and miles away. This allowed them to offer more glitzy programs for the thirsting public (a public which thirsts not for righteousness but for entertainment). It also allowed them to collect larger offerings and once that pandora’s box was opened, it became a free for all for as many members as possible concentrated in the fewest churches possible.

Churches turned inward rather than outward . . .

Born then was the mega church and at her helm, the millionaire (or close to it) mega church pastor. Said pastor now had a vested interest not in missions and church planting but in making sure that 1) no one left (so that money wouldn’t seep out) and 2) no one found out how much they actually earned as chairman of the board of the local church corporation (in the most demonic sense of the word).

The mega church is, in other words, the church turned in on itself. It is the logical conclusion of a christianity that has lost its way and which instead of doing the work of the ministry now becomes itself the sole recipient of any and all ministerial efforts.

Now, I know full well that everyone’s story is different. If you go to Barb’s blog and read her posts on why she and her husband left their church, you’ll find elements of charismatic/Pentecostal thinking that figure strongly in the story. For Erin, there was the”Better Christian Woman” box into which her church tried to squeeze her. No one’s experience exactly conforms to the experimental model. That said, I do think there’s a common theme that runs through a lot of them, anyway, and it’s the attractional church paradigm. It’s the church that has turned in on itself and exists for the accumulation of resources (not just wealth, but also people, prestige, and influence) and the building up of the glory of its leaders—because in that mindset, the people of the church are there for the sake of those leaders, to serve their purposes, and over time, tend to come to be treated accordingly.

Along with that, since the numerical success of such churches depends on quick attraction, there’s a need to preach a sort of quick-fix instant-oatmeal version of Christianity; my wife today called it a form of spiritual crash dieting, the sort of thing that in the short term helps you look good for the people you want to impress but in the end just screws up your metabolism. Not only is this kind of thing not the gospel preaching of Jesus that gives real life, but it sets up unreasonable expectations—see how easy this is? Follow these 27 simple steps and you too can have your best life now!—and if you can’t live up to those expectations and look just as good as everyone else, well, there must be something wrong with you and you must not be much of a Christian.

The result of this? Burnout. Jared captures it well:

[Christine] Wicker surveys attractional church burnout, which I’ve witnessed numerous times personally. Committed Christians are used up and spit out in service to the Program, and if they ever so much as suggest something isn’t right, they are accused of being immature and told to go self-feed or whatever. Church isn’t “for them,” they are sometimes told, which is doubly hurtful when the volunteer is a believer who was a seeker or baby Christian when they first entered the church. The church itself makes it clear the volunteer has outgrown the church, and then it will act surprised or indignant when the volunteer realizes he has outgrown it and takes his service elsewhere. . . .

Conversion to disillusionment averages about 8 years. That’s not a very good track record and does not bode well for the attractional future.

As I say, I could be off base; but what folks like Kathy Escobar and Tyler Dawn are talking about, from one side, and what others like Dr. Jim West and Jared Wilson are talking about, from the other, sounds like pretty much the same lump of coal to me. And why shouldn’t it be? When you have congregations that have come to exist for the accumulation of resources, driven by the consumerist mindset, should we be surprised if they turn out to be organizations that burn out those who want to serve, and chew up and spit out those who dare to ask questions or challenge the leadership?

What I want to invite you to do, then, is to think about this, talk about it, and tell me if you think this makes sense. I’ll try to contact all the folks I’ve actually named in this post to see what each of you have to say, but I certainly want broader input as well—if you have a thought, pro or con, or if you have a question because I’ve been “clear like mud,” please fire away regardless. Leave a comment here or post about it on your own blog, whichever you prefer (though if you do the latter, please leave a link in the comments here so that I don’t miss what you have to say); I just want to get the conversation started.

Persistent prayer and the faithfulness of God

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Hap has a really good post up on prayer, as of yesterday, which I commend to your attention. I’ve written about some of this before, here and here; for some people, faith and belief and persistent prayer come easy, but I’m not one of them. I don’t know whether the man in Mark 9 meant the same thing when he cried out, “Lord, I believe! Help my unbelief” that I do—but it’s something I find myself praying a fair bit anyway, because trust comes hard, and I just have to believe that God’s answer to prayer is dependent on his faithfulness, not on my faith. And I do believe that, because prayer isn’t about us changing God, but God changing us, and his faithfulness is neither contingent nor in short supply: it is unending.

Barack Obama’s Ayers challenge

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When reports of Sen. Obama’s connection to Weathermen Bill Ayers and Bernadette Dohrn first surfaced, he tried to dismiss Ayers as “a guy who lives in my neighborhood,” and Ayers’ misdeeds as ancient history. Skeptics pointed out that Ayers’ radical views aren’t past tense, but very much present tense, and saw Sen. Obama’s association with him, along with his close relationship with people like the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., as evidence of his comfort with radical leftist views, and of a general “no enemies to the left” policy.And that was about as much as people thought about it, until recently. I’m not sure who first raised the question of why Sen. Obama, with a pretty thin résumé that’s particularly lacking in executive experience, was no longer taking credit for his time as chairman of the board of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC), a foundation which Ayers helped found. Given that the foundation had a considerable amount of money (I’ve seen the figure $50 million bandied about, but I don’t have any hard data), this would seem to be experience well worth talking about. Given that, why was Sen. Obama keeping it so quiet?Stanley Kurtz decided to try to find out—and that’s when the fun began. When he asked to see the CAC’s internal files, held by the Daley Library at the University of Illinois-Chicago, he was initially told he would be allowed to do so, and then the library began stonewalling him, offering a shifting collection of reasons to justify their actions.When Kurtz subsequently went on WGN-AM in Chicago to talk about his efforts with radio host Milt Rosenburg (audio here), the Obama campaign exploded. Rosenburg’s producer, Zack Christenson, invited the campaign to send someone to appear on the show with Kurtz, but they refused; instead, they tried to defeat the story by brute force. The campaign sent out an e-mail urging supporters to complain to WGN, calling Kurtz a “smear-merchant” and a “slimy character assassin” “pushing lies, distortions, and manipulations” via “divisive, destructive ranting.” Quite a lot of opprobrium for a guy who was just trying to get at some documents—he hadn’t even said anything yet. The e-mail also implicitly accused WGN of preventing the Obama campaign from responding to Kurtz, when in fact it was their choice not to send someone on the show.Now, this suggests one of two things. One, it’s possible that the Obama campaign’s reaction was justified by something truly explosive in those files. Honestly, though, that seems unlikely to me; I suppose nothing is impossible, especially in Chicago politics, but short of the CAC funding Sen. Obama’s 2004 run for Senate, it’s hard to see where there’s room for a true scandal in there. The most that would seem likely would be evidence that Sen. Obama and Bill Ayers were in fact close friends and associates.If that’s the case, then the Obama campaign appears to be overreacting in truly startling fashion. For one thing, it already seems pretty clear that Bill Ayers wasn’t just “a guy who lives in [Sen. Obama’s] neighborhood”; as Kurtz notes in the article linked above, the information that is publicly available leaves little doubt that they worked together pretty closely, and on a friendly basis. But if all there is in the CAC records is confirmation that they worked together and that Sen. Obama was comfortable with Ayers’ efforts and positions—well, honestly, conservatives already suspect that, liberals don’t care, and I don’t see that being an issue that sways a lot of folks in the middle. They probably half-suspect it as well, but it was a few years ago, and there are really more important things to worry about. If that’s all it is, the Obama campaign shouldn’t have tried to fight Kurtz; they should have just let him have his access, dig up what he’s going to dig up, and report it, then weathered the dust-up and gone on, confident that by November it will all be old news. Fighting as they did, if it wasn’t absolutely necessary, only hurts their candidate by drawing attention to the story and making it look as if he has something to hide—or, worse, something to be afraid of. That suggests that Sen. Obama’s biggest challenge isn’t Bill Ayers: it’s his own campaign.Update: of course, that assumes that Ayers doesn’t keep stirring the pot with stuff like this . . .

I am the descendant of the original spinner

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I don’t know what to make of this tidbit that John Steele Gordon pulled up, but it’s interesting. It also makes my great-great-ever-so-great-granddaddy look like a pretty conniving politician, which isn’t an image I’d ever associated with him before.

When William Henry Harrison ran for president in 1840, his supporters put out one of the earliest pieces of American political ephemera, a handkerchief printed with scenes of his life. It featured, of course, the Battle of Tippecanoe, but it also showed his supposed birthplace: a small log cabin with smoke curling out of the chimney. Just plain folks was Ol’ Tippecanoe.There was only one problem. William Henry Harrison, in fact, was born at Berkeley Plantation, one of Virginia’s grandest 18th-century houses, on the James River. It was the home of his father, Benjamin Harrison, who was governor of Virginia and a signer of the Declaration of Independence. The lawn at Berkeley was capacious enough for the Army of the Potomac to camp there during the Civil War.The Whig campaign of 1840 accused Harrison’s main opponent, President Martin Van Buren, of being an aristocrat, eating off gold spoons in “the Palace.” But Van Buren’s father had been only a simple farmer and part-time tavern keeper.It was all exceedingly fake. It also worked: Harrison clobbered Van Buren in the election.