trading faith for faith: a critique of reasons for unbelief

A battle has raged for years between Evangelical Christians and those who claim skepticism/agnosticism/atheism on the grounds of critical thinking. The accusations are of garden variety: Christians allegedly aren’t able to think for themselves or keep an open mind. The charges are usually levelled by those who used to be believers, charges lobbed with all the zeal of a fresh convert.

One website I have become familiar with is manned by a former Christian trying to figure out “what it means to be an unbeliever and a skeptic.” I don’t mind that people choose to abandon their faith, that is, it does not offend me. Perhaps it should, but that’s not the point. That said, it does profoundly bother me when they proclaim their new gospel with little intellectual integrity or currency. To be clever or witty is not to be mistaken with being thoughtful or reasonable. It makes for good punditry, but awful, imbalanced rhetoric. (I’m looking at you, Mencken.) In other words, politicians ought not be mistaken for intellectuals; whether one wants to admit it or not, the battle for a dominant particular cultural theistic paradigm is more political posturing than anything else.

Plainly, there is no such thing as open-mindedness. To be open-minded does not say as much about a person as it does contrast from someone else. If someone claims to be open-minded, she says nothing about herself as much as she does those who she assumes are supposedly closed-minded. Ironically, the claim of open-mindedness actually is closed-minded, but under the pretense of relativism, she can claim nothing about herself as much as she can fling an under-the-radar ad hominem at someone else. It’s no different than a politician claiming to be ‘progressive’. What is that, anyway? What constitutes your progress? Without an assumption of something that is either status quo or regressive, the progressive has no leg on which to stand.

The issue here is assumption, particularly epistemic assumption. No one lacks epistemic assumptions, every person has a set of parameters by which he or she understands the world. So, the recently-converted unbeliever claims on the grounds of thinking for himself, presuming that believers do not think for themselves. Or that they have developed critical thinking capacities that preclude religious belief, presuming that religious believers are intellectual neanderthals.

In the interest of full disclosure, it comes as no surprise to many of you that I hold a particular disdain for the subcultural foolishness and accidental hubris of pop Christianity, I lament the general lack of theological development in our churches from clergy and laity alike, stupidity drives me batty and I generally have a low view of humanity. If that were all there was to it, I’d be a pretty miserable person. That said, I am moved by nobility and goodness, extraordinary acts of valor and beauty, celebrate in communities that have found a way to eschew mediocrity spiritual and social and am unafraid to act in sacrificial compassion for those around me. I refuse to be defined by the things that would keep me merely a cynic and nothing more.

It seems that our defiant agnostic friends would, in a great and terrible kicking against the goads, rather that they were simply not those people. Critical thinking, then, is a cop out, if for no other reason than the truth: critical thinking itself cannot and does not automatically render religious faith to be false. Critical thinking is not designed to deny the existence of things, but to affirm, leaving the a-theist, a-gnostic, un-believer in a most undesirable position: if the point of the aforementioned is to carve out a position that refutes supernatural or religious activity, why all the bluster? As has been said elsewhere, if there is nothing, from a purely materialist perspective, why (again, causally, not metaphysically) is there anything at all?

In sum, perhaps the time has come to doubt doubt, a point Michael Polanyi makes in his tacit epistemology. This falsification-run-amok has caused much harm to the intellectual cause. It’s easy to negate, it’s more difficult to affirm. Negation comes in the critique of something already presented, while the task of epistemic affirmation requires the enterprising and courageous mind to construct a case for something. The epistemic affirmation process requires, at its core a + b = c. The negation is a parasite to the affirming host. Rather than building a case for a-theism, the process ought to be a case for something else, for example, nihilism.

The absurdity of arguing against something that, in the mind of the skeptic, doesn’t exist reaches epic proportions. In a post next week on sailerb, I shall demonstrate why the Pfeffergorgles should have nothing to do with northwestern Iowa.

This is not to say that there is no place for critical thinking: clearly, there have been varying levels of crappy arguments for different things, from Xeno’s paradox to the earth-centered universe to the existence of God. The philosophical task involves the critique of substandard arguments, and standard arguments ought to withstand criticism. There is a level of quality control involved here, let there be no doubt. In fact, this work is an exercise in critique. I digress.

If critical thinking isn’t enough, there’s always science. Indeed, our friend also claims that reading science books (“with an open mind”, he proudly proclaims) helped to “[remove] layer after layer of propaganda”. Now, what exactly about science delivered him to salvation? Old-earth and (presumably Darwinian) evolution. This is a circumstantial ad hominem: the inference here is that young-earth creationism and intelligent design are non-negotiable aspects of Christian faith. This is patently false, moreover, they have nothing to do with Christian soteriology. Like much of what one will see coming from people like our unbeliever, it is a red herring.

I would agree that there is far too much happy, thoughtless chugging of the kool-aid in Evangelical church circles; our response to Darwin has been tepid at best. That said, there are two major points that have been deliberately left out of the general conversation. First, the line of thinking that faith and science are at odds with one another is a philosophical fiction, and actually couldn’t be further from the truth. Religion is often the strawman by which those who hold to naturalism (atheism repackaged) create their aire of dominance. Second, the acceptance of evolution does not, by any means, delegitimize Christianity. The head gasket of a car engine does not blow because someone purchases a car.  When it is also considered that a hyper-literal interpretation of Genesis is fundamentally improper, then the idea that evolution ruins faith is almost laughable. I am willing to concede, again, the fact that our churches have by and large abandoned the scientific conversation, but in the same way, science has generally abandoned faith. It’s a two-way street, paved not by science, but by philosophy.

Science is an extension of empiricism. For centuries, it was natural philosophy, a way of understanding the world around us. Today, it lurches toward scientism, the idea that science is the only way to properly interpret reality. There is one glaring problem, though: science, the process of understanding the empirical world, is reliant on epistemic assumptions, if for no other reason than everything can be reduced to one fundamentally unjustifiable premise. Science not only has its limits, it is, by definition, limited. Science cannot affirm or deny the existence of anything beyond the observable world, which makes Dawkins’ task, amongst others, utterly vain.

What can science do? It can provide powerful explanatory ability, help us understand and harness the capabilities of the world and its resources, provide us a means by which we can use technology as a tool to help (or sometimes, harm) humanity. It is reliant upon the observer or participant. It is not designed to provide us with a why, particularly, a why that is there is no why. And, in the process of understanding the world, it, like critical thinking, is designed to affirm truth and refute error. It also has been the means by which scientists for centuries until late have found a place of worship.

Science is always philosophical, but philosophy is seldom, if ever, scientific. That which is more limited has less explanatory power.

Even in these two instances, it is clear that the idea of science and critical thought somehow negates Christian faith is little more than a red herring, a diversion from the affirming task naturalism consistently fails to undertake. Through circumstantial ad hominem and a lot of clever sound and fury, there is little beyond the presentation that would constitute serious reflection on a very serious matter of personal worldview.

I grant that some of these matters cause serious questions for the theist, and we ought to consider them: if evolution has taken place, what do we do with Christian salvation? Is evolution a legitimate way to understand the creation of the world? If so, why is it that so many other fields of science have moved past the 19th century, while the origins of the universe have apparently been settled for nearly 200 years? Or could it be that Darwin’s work was a product of the times, a work fueled with the spirit of the Enlightenment? Could it be that Darwin, who clearly was inspired by/borrowed from Hegel, Lyell and LaPlace, simply applied a philosophical paradigm to the observable world? Even Newton got trumped. Why not Darwin?

This is what we have by the very pen (or, in this instance, fingers) of our friend: “I was an evangelical Christian for over a decade, completely convinced that God was real and Jesus was alive today. I attended Bible college to train to be a pastor. I worked at a Christian church for many years. I have ‘led people to Christ.’ I have left tracts in bathrooms. I have knocked on hundreds of doors asking people to repent and believe in Jesus. . . . I no longer believe in a personal God or that Jesus was born of a virgin, worked miracles, and rose from the dead. I don’t believe in heaven or hell, angels or demons, holy books or prophecy. I don’t believe the earth was created 6,000 years ago, or that God intelligently designed every species.”

What does he believe? As a self-professed “unbeliever” and “skeptic”, he believes that Christian faith is false, and that there is no way to know anything with certainty.

Problem one: faith cannot be false, a faith claim is a belief claim. Truth and falsehood are terms reserved for facts, not beliefs. Problem two: he is certain that nothing can be certain. However, he is certain that critical thinking works and that Darwinian evolution is factual. He is also certain with regard to probability. (Never mind that Pascal was certain about probability, and yet held firmly to his Christian beliefs.) A skeptic, by definition, doubts the possibility of real knowledge. Why science? Why logic? In spinning himself out of one alleged delusion, he has strangled himself with another.

So, what we have is a person who simply no longer wants to be a Christian, and believes he is warranted in doing so. And that would be fine: he is welcome to find his own way. I have no relationship to him and have no way to provide insight or investment into his life. That said, his reasoning for abandoning faith is little more than one watery excuse after another. He is not interested in declaring what actually happened to change his mind, or in building a case for a better worldview. He is only interested in differentiating himself from his subjective cultural experiences in a setting that affirmed young-earth, literal six-day creation and demanded that he and his friends go door-to-door with tracts and win the lost for Jesus. And in his attempts to say “I’m not one of them anymore,” all he has are generalities: Christians don’t think for themselves, believe in science or probability, ask tough questions, can’t imagine the Bible as anything but literally written by God, and are closed-minded anti-intellectual bigots who believe that God literally created the universe in six days about six to ten-thousand years ago. He may as well be campaigning against bleeding heart liberals or tax cuts for the rich.

In all honesty, I pity him; that his experience in Christian faith was so intellectually vapid that he felt the need to throw the baby out with the bathwater. But I have no pity for his reasons, as they are insulting to anyone who is interested in thoughtful discourse. He is entitled to his reasons for walking away, but he ought not presume to insult the intelligence of his audience, many of whom simply accept his conclusions as true. Preach it, brother!

In reality, his new-found faith is no more reasonable than the faith he left. His new faith is, also, quite unreasonable. He just doesn’t realize it yet.

http:// unreasonablefaith [dot] com [slash] about

Analysis of the AG Trust: part three

Research and Development

“The very first project of the new Assemblies of God Trust is to commission a remake for the Foundations For Faith course to bring its approach into modern times. Six years equals a generation of elementary kids. We are over six generations behind.

Does learning doctrine have to be boring? Can learning doctrine ever be really fun? The group of children’s pastors we brought together to rewrite the curriculum believe it can and will be fun.

The new approach will not change the 16 Fundamental Truths, but will enable us to more effectively teach the next generations — generations who don’t know what it is like to live without a computer, Game Boy, Xbox or cell phone or the Internet.

The Research and Development Initiative of the AG Trust will provide the funds to enable our Fellowship to produce innovative, cutting-edge educational materials to teach timeless truths to all ages.”

Research and development usually entails working on developments and ways to improve or redesign what a company has to offer. One will note, however, that at some point, Ford stopped developing the Pinto once they found out that car exploded from a fender-bender.

You can read the Statement of Fundamental Truths here. The problem that arises from efforts called “research and development” in regard to the 16 tenets is that there is something else called “doctrinal purity”. In fact, what the Assemblies is talking about when it comes to updating Foundations for Faith has nothing to do with research and development and everything to do with repackaging for subsequent generations.

And there is nothing wrong with updating for future generations of young people (and old people, for that matter), provided that what is proclaimed as truth corresponds rightly with theology and is properly epistemic. The fact that the curriculum has not been updated in six generations (for whatever reason, Christians love to refer to people in terms of generations) shows that doctrinal purity, and not research and development continues to be at the fore. The firebrand pastor has been dictating–and still does dictate–how things are operated from Springfield to its affiliated district offices.

I appreciate the tough spot in which the leadership of the Assemblies of God finds itself, from the very top to district officials to university presidents and presbyters. On one side, there is scholarship, some of whom are pastors and faculty, who stop short, in classrooms and offices, of saying that the Statement of Fundamental Truths is broken and needs a revisit and renovation. The intention, generally, is not spite or ill-will, but preservation of the movement and or intellectual integrity.

The other side–again, generally–are those who find Jesus to be the answer to all the questions, who think the solution to real-life societal and ecclesiastical issues is more of the Holy Ghost, who find these serious questions to be a sign of apostasy and a pre-tribulation, premillennial rapture of the church and represent a desire to resort to primitive Pentecostalism.

Both sides are guilty of one thing: appealing to doctrinal purity. In terms of doctrinal purity, the latter has a natural, home-field advantage; while the former needs to watch the tongue for fear of being placed under suspicion. Faculty at A/G Bible colleges don’t get tenure, at last check, but a series of one-year contracts. If they don’t like you, they can replace you, saying they choose not to renew a contract. And they have not been afraid to replace, because those administrators are beholden to regents, many of whom represent the latter.

Tenure is a controversial topic right now in education in general. I believe tenure should remain a part of the academy, but not in its current–unaccountable and broken–form. And if that needs reexamination, so does this concept of “doctrinal purity”.

What you’ll notice by the above link to doctrinal purity is that there is no direct link to anything about the A/G’s Commission on Doctrinal Purity. Their fingerprints are all over anything that has anything to do with doctrine, position papers or theological development (if there is any) coming from headquarters. It’s like Orwell’s Ministry of Truth, or the Gestapo: faceless and beholden to its own special interest.

The 1800s brought about a number of significant developments in American religious life: the Second Great Awakening, the rise of the tent meeting, the Holiness movement and the crisis cults. When one also considers the number of catastrophic events endured by the United States in the 19th Century–two economic collapses, the War of 1812 and the Civil War, Lincoln’s assassination, the oppression of the American South by carpetbaggers and robber barons, etc.–it creates the perfect stew for the explosion of Pentecostal and charismatic Christianity, first in Europe in the 1890s, then here in America, incidentally, in yet untamed Kansas on New Year’s Day 1901.

I make a brief historical pitstop to say this: nothing that happens anywhere in American life occurs in a vacuum. The flowering of tongues as a new Christian distinctive is neither a sovereign move of God nor an overreaction of human limitation pressed against an undefinable, unqualifiable experience. [Though, in the interest of full disclosure, I tend to think more toward the second than the first.] That statement alone will rankle more than a few, but it’s the truth: it corresponds with reality and is epistemologically sound. Everything that happens with the birth of modern Pentecostal Christianity makes perfect sense when given a historical backdrop. It does not diminish the events, it makes them real. Reality lends these things gravitas.

And reality, frankly, is not what we do very well.

Among the other religious developments were the crisis cults, and Christian flash-in-the-pan heresies: the rise of the Amish, the Mormons, the Jehovah’s Witnesses, their heritage found in the Millerites (as we’ll see, the Holiness movement is a child of Miller as well), Latter Rain, multiple anointings/blessings (Charles Parham himself preached somewhere between 10-12 ), the Social Gospel, and one could by extension include the Ku Klux Klan and other supremacist movements as well. They all–minus the Social Gospel–preached sanctification as isolation: the Amish still drive buggies, the Mormons moved west, the JWs essentially hid until the date of the end came and went (…and came, and went…and came, and went…) and the Holiness movement latched up with everything from abolition to temperance, beginning what I have long referred to as “bomb shelter Christianity”.

The reality of the matter is that movements that heavily rely on “doctrinal purity” are fundamentally unsure. And you cannot hold something as fundamentally true when it has not happened, thus eliminating the final four of the 16 tenets. So, in the face of anxiety and uncertainty, and in the effort to assert a fully-human existence, a movement needs purity, and to vigilantly defend itself against thorough examination, even from itself.

This disturbing trend exists in all the crisis cults. The Assemblies, itself not a cult by any definition, would be wise to step away from such a sordid, unwitting relationship and allow itself to be scrutinized, examined and reworked for the sake of integrity in theology and openness to criticism; at the very least, for its very viability in the near future. If what we believe is true, we ought to welcome it. If what we believe is not properly theological, then we as those bound to truth, should be welcoming of examination. This is not mere semantics or word-play: little things matter. A statement of faith not only allows for institutionalized opinion, but for open and honest scrutiny.

The fact is that the Assemblies of God excels in doctrine, but suffers in theological development. A wholly Pentecostal theology has been sought, but by those who have been kept on the outside (Amos Yong, Clark Pinnock, et al) or forced out, when faced with a preponderance of the evidence (Edith Blumhofer, et al): and these are the people, off the top of my head, who have done the research and attempted to offer help for development!

The Assemblies needs to raise capital to develop a theological task force–many of whom are already in house–to move past fundamental truths and toward sound Pentecostal theology. Simply retooling Foundations for Faith and making the 16 tenets palatable for a new audience is unacceptable when there is so much more work to be done. In this respect, the A/G is no different than the federal government’s answer to problems in education: throw more money at it and make it more entertaining, make them take tests and meet centralized standards. The conscience of the Assemblies is clearly part of the religious right, though unable to be a part of the political process. What business does a generally-conservative laissez faire voting bloc have working within methods that are clearly progressive/statist? (Pro-lifers should also be put on notice this way.) Change the culture and you change things, change things at the top and you can expect two responses on the ground: muted, suppressed hostility or unconscious acceptance.

A conscious people wouldn’t need to fear the approval or contempt of “doctrinal purity” in the first place. Thus, it appears that the AG Trust is banking on unconscious donations based on thoughtless acceptance. After all, thinking about the matter at hand only seems to get one in trouble. There is a better way, and there is hope for the future. The AG Trust  as it is now is neither. The frustrating fact is that it could be a catalyst toward both.

Respectfully submitted for your consideration. Part four forthcoming.

Analysis of the AG Trust: part two

“Let’s keep our brightest and our best.”

“The data shows [sic] that if we can get our AG students to attend one of our AG schools, they have a much better chance of spiritual survival.”

These statements, made virtually sentences apart best summarize the fundamental disconnect between the church and the academic worlds, though my remarks will cover more than this.

At last, the Assemblies of God has realized that it costs too much to attend an Assemblies-sponsored university!

This is the component of the Trust that is the most frustrating: great, because students desperately need the assistance, and not-so-great for a number of reasons.

First, it fails to acknowledge the scores of AG alumni who are saddled with overwhelming debt loads. If money were blood and the Assemblies a body, this is putting a band aid on a deep puncture wound, untreated for 70 years. To recognize this is to the credit of the denomination; to those who are just finishing off their loan payments, just starting their loan payments or just finished defaulting on their student loans, this is icing on the cake.

True to the nature of millennial movements, the Assemblies of God has acted reactively instead of proactively, reactionary instead of prophetic. An endowment or trust fund-type program is long, long overdue. And, to embark on this enterprise now is bad timing: university endowments are losing money, as this story from the Indianapolis Star bears out. A trust or endowment that is not managed well will not bear interest worth handing out to students, much less any interest at all, and the last thing the Assemblies needs is to run this ambitious effort like a pledge drive or with faith promises. A down economy will not make faith promise-givers promise-keepers. (With all apologies to Bill McCartney.)

And, make no mistake, this economy has come unhinged from reality. What is happening in the markets, in my most amateur opinion, is not reflective of reality. In a time when funds are losing value by the week, is it worth the risk of thousands of church dollars? As I said in part one, less dollars means more troubles up top, not to mention pastors’ salaries being threatened. Can a church, right now, afford to pay pastors twice, which is the essence of the Next Generation fund? Can many churches really afford to pay pastors at all?

Now, to speak directly to the aforementioned quotes, what kind of quality does the Assemblies expect from its youth when they imply that their best and brightest will walk away from faith if they don’t go to their schools? What kind of best and brightest are we raising, if we have come to expect them to, under statistically realistic circumstances, fail?

The logical fallacy put forward here says that Assemblies of God-sanctioned schools are academically rigorous and spiritually vibrant, and your kids will fail without it.

Youth pastors: your kids are going to fail.

Senior pastors: your kids are going to fail.

Parents: your kids are going to fail.

What the AG Trust unintentionally says is that, according to UCLA, A/G churches are blowing it at a two-thirds clip, but they’d rather put the blame on an 18-year-old who either cannot afford a Christian college or chooses to go to a secular institution!

In a not-so-incidental twist of irony, Ralph Riggs, the man for whom the Trust’s scholarship is named, put it this way: “If they are lost, we are to blame.” [Wood, "Passion for the Future," p. 8; italics mine]

The reality of the matter is that quality and quantity are not any more connected than Genghis Khan to the assassination of Lincoln. Big youth groups do not show that the ministry to youth is successful. Big churches do not mean that the ministry to the community is successful. Church-going children is not sufficient evidence for meaningful development.

All of these things are neglected when people choose to hide behind polling or statistics. In this case, a scare tactic is substituted for meaningful examination of the reasons why the students are leaving the faith at a conservatively-estimated 70%. (The statistics I had heard while involved with Chi Alpha were not the same as the ones promoted by the AG Trust. Those numbers were closer to 90%. Much more ominous a number, much more revealing than a simple fraction. Regardless, the truth is that the pattern is growing more and more marked as we march along.)

The old, 20th Century church model said that the church needs to be all things to all people, a one-stop shop for all things Christian, a bomb shelter from the evil, nasty outside world. That obsolete thinking–a paradigm that never really worked in the first place, mind you–helps guide the AG Trust; in this case manifested as protection of youth from the world around us. These same kids are–right now–either hopelessly disconnected, or well-exposed. The raw either-or of the predicament shows that the Assemblies hasn’t done a very good job developing people, much less preparing students for ministry or life. Who should worry about backsliding when our students are either too invested or not at all? Over-investment is not a sign of health: it’s a sign of overcompensation.

Riggs, again, looms large: “If they are lost, we are to blame.”

My bias is coming out most obviously here: the AG Trust gives reason for Chi Alpha to worry about the legitimacy of the support from A/G churches, the General Council and US Missions. While Wood’s contribution to the COCHE report delicately walks the high wire between support of AG colleges and Chi Alpha, the fact is that this is an overt attempt to give the moral and financial highground to AG schools, especially when many churches and youth pastors tend to view non-AG-school-attending graduates as less valuable. When coupled with the fact that the statistic used from UCLA is a statistic borrowed directly from Chi Alpha’s research department, this line of thinking grows less conspiratorial and more legitimate. Anecdotally, a recruiter from an Assemblies of God university told me as much with a straight face. This isn’t a partnership or networking, they simply don’t trust Chi Alpha to do its job.

Speaking of Chi Alpha’s job, the three-fold mission of Chi Alpha is as follows: 1) Protect the Investment; 2) Reach international students; 3) Reach the campus with the gospel, essentially in that order. Chi Alpha is a branch of US Missions. Missions organizations exist to spread religious belief. Why, then, is the principle method of growth coming from church kids?

Let me be clear: I believe in campus ministry. I devoted my career in ministry–even, as it turns out, sacrificed my career in ministry with the Assemblies–to the cause of reaching college students. My internship with a noted chapter of Chi Alpha taught me something very profound, amongst other things I value greatly: a ministry can exist on a campus without ever being a part of campus. The majority of students in that organization were church transplants, many of whom came from the same churches. I do not say this with malice or any ill-will toward my chapter, I have great friends there and I value my time spent there, but the reality is that, whether in church or elsewhere, numbers do not tell a whole story, and responsibilities can be shirked when the numbers will deflect criticism.

What I’m getting at here is that big Chi Alphas and Assemblies colleges can suffer from the same problem, but instead of raw numbers for XA, one can look at percentage of capacity or enrollment ratios for the colleges and commit the same logical fallacy. Enrollment is up, things are great! We have 100 students, things are great! Enrollment is down, what’s wrong with us? Our XA was at 100 but is now at 25, what’s wrong with us? The campus ministry gets more credit for growth, and more criticism for declination. The college may get less overt criticism, but continues to get funding; while a Chi Alpha campus missionary might well lose his or her income!

Indeed, this tells a better, more true-to-life story, and offers a better message: if we are really interested in seeing our students keep the faith, they need to be out where their faith can be tried and tested, not where they are assumed to be righteous. As one of my mentors once told me: the easiest place to backslide is Bible college!

If that weren’t enough, here’s a dirty little secret: according to people who know, Chi Alpha consistently produces better pastors and missionaries than their Bible college counterparts, both in terms of longevity and in terms of spiritual reproduction.

That is not to say that the AG Trust is worthless because AG schools are worthless, that would be a misunderstanding of what I am trying to convey. As I submitted in part one, and am reinforcing now, our churches are not doing the job they set out to do, but instead are suffocating in self-interest, protecting the Assemblies instead of engaging culture. Again, reactive instead of prophetic.

While we’re here, it must be at least taken into consideration that because the denomination, like other denominations, has a tendency to protect itself, that domestic missions efforts have to be to parts of our society that are decidedly not covered by our core demographics. In this way, Teen Challenge and inner-city efforts are celebrated, not unlike the overt preference of the Assemblies to overseas missions. The fact of the matter is that the fellowship is comprised largely of white, upper to middle-class families of middle age and older people. Teen Challenge and inner-city efforts are different; like missionary efforts to non-Eurocentric nations, they share an exotic quotient.

Efforts like Chi Alpha, though, end up muddied by the fact that the majority of college students are the product of white, upper to middle-class families. It is no surprise that churches tend to ask what they get in exchange for campus ministry support, or hold funds hostage in campus cities unless the Chi Alpha missionary funnels students into their pews. Is it any surprise that churches have young adult or college and career ministries in direct competition with a Chi Alpha chapter, or worst of all, don’t even know (or care) that an Assemblies-sanctioned ministry is at work in the midst of campus life? Or those churches will support international student ministry efforts but eschew XA? Cynically stated, foreigners are sexy, Americans just need to get involved in a church. (Or Bible college. I digress.)

Arthur Holmes put it best: Christian colleges do not exist to educate, but indoctrinate. (Ironically, Holmes was a professor at Wheaton.) They are in the retention business first and foremost. Statistics like those the AG Trust offer, coupled with the fear tactics the AG Trust and its partners have a tendency to employ, only make Holmes’ argument all the more accurate. (Why else would Evangel–the AG’s preeminent, if not only, liberal arts university–catch so much flak? Or have a strong alumni financial support network?) If the Assemblies of God is to place the future of the church in the hands of its offspring and trust its fate to be vital and transformative, it will not do so by pushing A/G colleges or creating a trust fund, though those may be well-intentioned and good ideas. It will do so only by building and developing real people to survive and thrive in the real world, a process that, when applied to college-aged people, happens too late. That kind of development comes from healthy churches and healthy families bringing up well-adjusted, disciplined kids.

Additionally, at last check, most colleges and universities in the Assemblies are either land-locked or suffering from enrollment decline. So many Assemblies high-school graduates cannot go to an A/G school not only because it’s too expensive, but also because they physically can’t be there. And because many of those schools for whatever reason have an allergy to off-campus living, the problem can’t be solved aside from building funds and property development.

And for one final reason, numbers drives for Assemblies of God-sponsored institutions of higher learning, both financial and physical, cannot work:

Most Assemblies of God high school graduates simply don’t want to go.

The numbers, as they are, bear this out. The fact that graduates reject Bible college is not the same as them rejecting their faith. Cost can be overcome, provided students want to be there. Harvard, Stanford or a solid state school are all a world apart from Southeastern or Evangel. I’m not picking on Southeastern or Evangel, either; the fact remains that, for whatever reason, these campi are not atop many prospective students’ wish lists.

Sometimes, the better course of action is to respond to the reality of big-picture situations than force your way to an unlikely ideal. The Trust, unfortunately, is clearly neither a response, nor is it likely to move the Assemblies toward its ideal.

Respectfully submitted for your consideration. Part three forthcoming.

Analysis of the AG Trust: part one

For some of you, you’re looking at this and saying “huh?” That’s OK. If you don’t want to delve into church business, statistics and other nonsense, I don’t mind; feel free to peruse other posts out here. No hard feelings.

Several months before I allowed my ministerial license with the denomination in which I was raised to expire, I received a package introducing and outlining a trust designed to help provide payment assistance for would-be ministers’ student loan costs. In that package was a pamphlet, some additional materiel and, of course, a pledge form and return envelope.

The AG Trust is a great idea, but, with all sincerity and good will intended, too little and too late. I hope to spell this out clearly over the next week or so.

A few years ago, the denomination’s Commission on Christian Higher Education (now referred to as the Alliance for Assemblies of God Higher Education) released a report entitled, “Is the Lower Cost Worth the High Price?” The report, a collaboration between then-Secretary, now-General Superintendent George Wood, Christian college consultant Steven Henderson and the director of Assemblies of God Christian Higher Education, Dayton Kingsriter. The resulting product was an impassioned plea for greater enrollment of Assemblies of God high school graduates into A/G colleges and universities.

While the reasoning for the report was ostensibly to protect Christian youth from the dangers of backsliding at a public or private secular institution of higher learning, a glance at the statistics from the past two to three years shows a stagnation of growth in the fellowship, essentially zero growth in the higher education sector and a general “brain drain” of laypeople and ministers from the denomination. (Summary and comprehensive statistics can be found here.)

[In the interest of full disclosure, I am a former minister in the Assemblies: my license lapsed at the turn of the calendar year. That said, I hold no grudge against the denomination. The reason I write about this is because I spent a number of years working in the campus ministry arm of the A/G (Chi Alpha) as a student, volunteer, intern and candidate for ministry. So an enterprise attempting to energize an under-appreciated, under-utilized demographic gets my attention, as well it should.]

The Trust is rooted in three initiatives: “church multiplication”, “training new leaders” and “research and development”. For reference and ease, quotations, unless otherwise noted, come from the AG Trust’s official website, aogtrust.org.

Church multiplication

“We must have vibrant, evangelistic new churches reaching out to the 18,000 communities in the United States that are without an Assemblies of God church. With your help, the Assemblies of God Trust will help make it happen.”

There are a number of problems here. First, the stated goal is to invest in areas where there is no present church affiliated with the Assemblies. These communities are likely small to mid-sized towns and cities. Said towns and cities are a small percentage of the state or general populace. Speaking from a purely fiscal perspective, why should this denomination spend thousands of dollars on planted churches in communities that are either 1) a blip on the map; or 2) stretching thin the supply line for pastoral support?

In all likelihood, smaller cities and towns already have entrenched churches, which already have the cultural highground. Why would the Assemblies risk planting churches in these areas? Further, if there was an Assembly in one of these communities in the past and it shuttered (the ugly upshot of the Decade of Harvest, according to Blumhofer, et al), would it be prudent to plant a new one? And what of church planters; many of whom are decidedly uninterested in rural or smaller communities detached from urban areas? Given the targeted demographic, the black-framed glasses-wearing, soul-patch fronting former youth pastor cum home missionary doesn’t fit the bill, in my opinion.

Second, an analysis of the converse of the above quote betrays another picture entirely. Here’s what it says: “We have stagnant, self-interested established churches reaching out to the x communities in the United States that have an Assemblies of God church.” [x is, of course, the variable of communities that have A/G presence.] Granted, that’s not true, there are great Assemblies churches as well as less-than-stellar ones. This could very well be an accdiental example of overstating the need, in this instance, throwing every other A/G church under the bus. When we consider that the prospective charter membership is comprised of ministers, A/G college alumni, select laypeople and those already established churches, it’s smart to pitch the trust in a way that doesn’t stomp on toes.

…but here’s the problem with being nice: it doesn’t solve the problem, the problem being that the big picture is bleak, growth is at zero, an entire demographic (18-30) has almost entirely abdicated the movement and where there are congregations, they are graying. Where there are gray hairs, there is less income; less income, less offerings; less offerings, big problems up top. So, they’re essentially selling a revolution to the bourgeoisie, should the trust be effective in stimulating the economy of the church, against whom they would revolt! I don’t get the feeling the Bolsheviks or Sandinistas asked for permission before taking over, much less an allowance to make it happen.

As an aside, one is forced to ask a question of A/G management: Is the converse statement true? If not, why are most church planters entering suburban/exburban America and places where there are already Assemblies churches in proximity?

Concerning the established churches and established ministers, the preferred way to enter full-time ministry is for a would-be pastor to go through Bible college. Should a freshly-graduated Bible college alum head out straightaway into planting a church? If established churches balk at the idea of having a young senior pastor, and those in campus ministry–a field, I would argue, that is pitted in direct competition with planting–aren’t allowed to head straight out from the college to the field, why have a church planting major?

Additionally, what meaningful difference is there between those in pastoral studies and church planting? That question goes two ways: educationally (is there a dichotomy in curricula and why?) and institutionally (is there a departure in philosophy and why?) Most of all, why plant when you all but admit that the way you do spiritual business is failing, or at best, not optimal? If most pastors go through the Bible college experience, what, if any, difference is there between a church planter and one headed into traditional church ministry? To borrow from one of my seminary professors, what’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.

Statistics of church plant closures are nearly impossible to come by, and probably with good reason. Anecdotally, and I have offered this elsewhere courtesy a public statement from a faculty member of an Assemblies of God Bible college, 90% of graduates who enter full-time ministry are out within ten years of graduation. (When factored against a statistic like nearly nine of ten Evangelical youth group-going, high school graduates walk away from their faith after one semester at a non-Christian college or university, the problem becomes much more striking. More on this in the next part in this series.) A fair and reasonable guess is that the successes of these plants are dwarfed by the failures, while an educated perspective goes on to say that many of those who do ’succeed’ do so by adopting to the methods of the traditional Assemblies of God church model. The dressing is a little different, the coffee may be a little better and there may not be an organ, banner or tambourine in sight, but the end result is probably something that is more or less more of the same.

And what is to come that, 30, 40, 50 years down the line, will rescue church plants from a legacy of mediocrity? For that is what Superintendent Wood all but says about the current state of the union.

I would love to be wrong on this, but if the Assemblies of God is staking their future as a movement in casting wide the seeds of church plants, it doesn’t appear to be an idea that is considerate of current socio-political cultural motif, a wise investment of money and energies, or presented in a way that adequately or accurately stresses the necessity for such capital.

Respectfully submitted for your consideration. Part two forthcoming.

In praise of spirit over letter

With all the hubbub surrounding politics regarding deregulation and oversight, it seems a good time to mention a few related things.

One of the things that makes Christian theology beautiful is its spiritual revolution over the letter of the law. It is this philosophical shift that inspired American limited, restricted government, enshrined as a constitutional democratic republic. (For the record, I choose my words carefully: I do not advocate that this is a Christian nation founded by Christians, however, we do see a clear influence of, amongst other motivations, the scriptures in the formation of America.) As we see a concept of Christian liberty as taught in the New Testament (a proper reading of the New Testament proclaims what we should or can do, rather than what we cannot), we see in the Constitution clearly defined limitations on government, not citizens. Sadly, that concept has been routinely ignored, particularly in recent years by all parties and branches in government.

With the controversial bailout package passed by Congress came much discussion about the sources of our recent economic meltdown. Typically, Democrats blamed deregulation while Republicans blamed lack of oversight.

Constitutionally-limited government is predicated upon the decency or goodness of a nation’s citizenry. Tocqueville said it thus: When America ceases to be good, America will cease to be great; noting that the concept of American liberty was so intertwined with fervent preaching of the Gospel that it was clear the source of goodness was in the churches and places of worship from city to countryside.

Decent people need not be placed under the thumb of excessive stipulations or legalities. Decent people accept people who will preside over and defend constitutionally-limited government, which is why we have presidents and not kings, premiers, chancellors or tyrants, as well as a Congress that has specifically enumerated powers. When decent people preside over the halls of government, there is no concern for trespassing on those powers because their role is clear, defined and accepted: service, not dominion.

Again, an axiom found in scripture that has lasting repercussions beyond spiritual affairs: Where there is no vision, the people cast off restraint.

People who need strict boundaries and black and white rules are people with no sense of responsibility or self-control. Because they lack a basic inner sense of right and wrong, and have never been exposed to the concept of natural law, they are hardly more than animals: selfish creatures constantly starved by the insatiable hunger for self-gratification. People who are dangers to themselves because of their reckless self-interest are people who need straitjackets and restraints.

Self-interest, and a good dose of deception, caused the fall. Self-interest is the antithesis of liberty.

Federal codex and regulations now exceed 25,000 pages of legal mumbo-jumbo, while the Constitution has been replaced with the US Legal Code, full of enough thou shalt nots to make even the most embittered wayward soul, having a propensity toward complaining about faith-based legalism, cringe. Clearly, we are a people who are a danger to ourselves governed by people whose self-interest is political ideology instead of the vigorous defense of the Constitution and their fellow Americans.

Clearly, we are a people who necessitate tyranny. As Tarkin aptly put it: Fear will keep them in line.

Which brings us to the current economic meltdown. Things were allowed to get this bad by everyone:

-Government which held mortgage lenders hostage in the name of politically-correct egalitarianism and then got into the debt management business with high risk mortgages via government-sponsored entities. The same party that advocated the destruction of black neighborhoods in the name of public housing projects passed the original Community Reinvestment Act and its modification, which is directly to blame for the mess we’re in right now;

-Banks and other financial entities that offered variable and adjustable rate mortgages with impunity and disregard for their own well being (see also: Countryside, amongst others), as well as buying up bad debt portfolios from others (see also, Brothers, Lehman, amongst others);

-Those who borrowed without consulting an attorney or doing due diligence before signing the paperwork for their own inevitable execution;

-Government again, for failing to do anything until there was no choice but to engage in socialism the likes of which may completely destroy free enterprise in America;

-And finally, taxpayers for not throwing a second Boston Tea Party over such a blatantly risky, taxpayer-funded, Yuan-funded potential fiscal apocalypse.

The reality of the matter is that this mess is neither the Democrats’ nor Republicans’ responsibility. It is not because of regulation, deregulation or oversight. It is because we are a nation of irresponsible, nihilistic sub-humans, by irresponsible, nihilistic sub-humans and for irresponsible. nihilistic sub-humans. ‘People’ hardly suffices to adequately explain who we have become in ‘civilized’ society.

Corporate lawyers pour over legislation in order to find loopholes, so they can do what is wrong without breaking the law. McCain and Feingold were able to get campaign finance reform from dream to reality, only to see the 527 nightmare, while a certain presidential campaign is living high off the hog thanks in part to donations amounting to just underneath the disclosure threshold. In a culture poisoned by power and greed (in no particular order), what do you expect? 501 tax exemption, a perfectly-decent allowance for charitable organizations, has allowed a whole bumper crop of crisis cult health-and-wealth ‘churches’ that live apart from the burden of taxation, only to line the pockets of sleazy snake oil salesmen preaching their offensive and heretical doctrines, while well-intentioned organizations trying to attain 501 status to do meaningful religious or charitable work need to go through miles of red tape to the status so many others appear to abuse.

[EDITORIAL ASIDE: Given the cultural climate we have now, further given that we will be facing up to a trillion-dollar deficit in the upcoming months, rest assured that balancing the budget will include finding fresh manflesh for the Uru-khai. Churches and synagogues, the cross hairs are upon you, your property and your income, I mean, donations, irrespective of who heads the next administration. The sun is setting on you because of those who abuse the privilege of exemption. Indeed, night cometh, when no man can work.]

I advocate neither morality nor Christianity as the solution, mainly because mob rule is already entrenched within our borders. The only stability that will come will be by force and not from the goodwill within us as people. It has already begun, and while I do not hold any particular eschatological stance, mostly because there is so much work yet to be done that it is utterly presumptuous and absurd to look to the stars, we can see the foundations of [potentially friendly, potentially not] totalitarianism laid in our civic and federal halls.

When America ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.

The principles of American liberty are beautiful, yet nothing compared to the liberty of following the way of Christ. Reason, charity, faith and self-government are ideals nearly lost in the throes of those blindly following Hegel’s dialectic (on both sides). As a philosopher, a Christian, a theologian, husband, brother, son and human, existence without these core tenets is existence bound first by chains of the soul, then by chains of the body.

We spent decades fighting for the full liberty of our human brothers because of the color of their skin. We spend millions of dollars fighting for the liberty of oppressed people in the Middle East. Why are we not vigorously defending the liberty of America? How can we assail tyrannous ideology overseas and ignore the rising tyrant(s) within our own borders? Or overturn the death-inducing letter of the law there, but to return to the death-inducing letter here?

Where is the spirit of the law in American society today?

Straight talk, my friends

The first real entry here shouldn’t be about politics, but it is. Such is the the season.

When I found out that John McCain was going to do a barnstorming tour of Wisconsin this week, I decided that, since I have never been to a presidential rally, this would be as good a time as any to go. You see, Wisconsin outside of Madison and Milwaukee is seldom a hotbed of national politics. George HW Bush was here way back when on his whistle-stop tour by rail. Other than that, and an appearance by Howard Dean and John Edwards back in ‘04, Central Wisconsin goes largely unnoticed: Dave Obey’s rotting corpse gets reelected every other year for whatever reason and life goes on as it usually does. With a case of beer and a snap to attention at the very utterance of the name. (Lombardi. Or Miller Lite.)

So wife and I decided to take the afternoon off and head up to Mosinee, where Straight Talk Air would touch down and greet the throngs of supporters. (To be fair, it’s probably a good thing Mac wasn’t piloting the thing.) We arrived at CWA, were directed to alternate parking and lo! there were cars as far as the eye could see. As well as a line that stretched for a half-mile (longer by the time we got closer to the hangar.) In union-friendly, good ol’ boy Central Wisconsin, no less!

Let’s put it this way: in 1984, when Reagan ran wild over Mondale, only one county in Wisconsin fell in the Mondale category. That would be Portage, right here in the 715. Not the People’s Republic of Dane County, not the recovering socialists comprising Milwaukee County. Portage County.

So we parked, got in line and waited. And waited. The line slinked along at a snail’s pace, thanks to intense security detail and people who apparently didn’t realize that the less they brought with them, the faster they could get whisked through the metal detectors and wands. Which reminds me, those Secret Service guys are efficient; why can’t they do the airports, too?

While we inched closer and closer to the hangar, we began to hear angry voices on bullhorns. muffled-muffled-GEORGE BUSH AND JOHN MCCAIN!-unintelligible-muffled-SEND JOBS OVER-muffled-COUNTRY CLUB FIRST! COUNTRY CLUB FIRST! Sure enough, some union guys were there, mostly peaceful, mostly civil, but these two buffoons, one in a Bush mask, the other in McCain’s likeness, were on a bullhorn with background music so awful a wedding DJ would cringe (Tainted Love followed by Funkytown, for instance) and occasionally engaging in some kind of vertical breakdancing, using the terms loosely. At first it was irritating, but then it became quite funny, so the protesters, as lame as they may be, score bonus points for having a sense of humor. Some of the people in line for the rally jumped the line to get their pictures taken with them.

For the record, there were about a dozen protesters. There were over 2000 people for the rally.

Two points about Secret Service people: 1) They can be incredibly rude, as we found out when we chose a line and they decided to tell us to pick a line when we were already in our chosen line; 2) The suited ones you expect to turn and say “Missster Annnderson,” have really sharp ties.

So we finally made our way through the security detail and went out to the tarmac, where the rally was staged. Apparently we weren’t sexy enough to get onto the bleachers, so we got to stand with the peanut gallery. We stood in line, we waited for security, we walked through to the tarmac and got to stand for another hour.

The rally was to start at 2.30. The flight didn’t arrive until 3.

My back began to hurt around 3.05, in a certain sign of the impending Sirviopocalypse.

One of the area high schools’ marching bands played any number of songs that may or may not be found in a truck stop’s compact disc collection, people continued to file in. Aside from the wind, it was a beautiful, cloudless, warm but breezy day, a rarity around here for this time of year. A perfect day to wait around for a presidential nominee.

The mayor of Mosinee, a classic northwoods guy with a pompadour and a lumberjack goatee with absolutely no charisma or stage presence whatsoever, began the festivities just before the scheduled start of the rally, inviting numerous northwoods Republicans to the stage to warm up the crowd. As hokey as it may be, I find the old-time stumping for a candidate charming. Apparently so did the rest of the crowd, howling, cheering and booing at all the apropos moments.

When they exhausted the Republican officeholders, they turned to the pledge of allegiance. Then to the national anthem. Several more selections from the best of your local best of the 80s 90s and today radio station courtesy the slightly flat Wausau West band when filler was needed. A local minister offered an invocation. Then, in what appeared to be a last resort, a pro-life doctor with even less stage presence than our poor, outmatched Mosinee mayor was in mid-speech when a glimmer appeared in the Eastern sky. Some present may have thought it was the tearing asunder of the sky, heralding the Second Coming. In any case, she was prompted to mop-up her most boring oration. All the while, volunteers began to hand out pre-made signs, regular campaign stock and thunder sticks. Suddenly the bleachers where the cool people (read: some veterans, some black people and other non-caucasian folks and a mix of others, incidentally including my dear family friends who practically raised me from across the street when I was young) looked just like they do on the news!

[EDITORIAL ASIDE: Nothing irritates me more about modern theatrics than the insipid advent of manufactured fandom; signs made or handed out for people to wave as they would their own, thunder sticks, political correctness. From the 2000 RNC, to episodes of Family Feud, to American Idol to today's rally I absolutely HATE contrived signage and propaganda. Really, you think the Jones family has fans in the crowd who brought signs? You ever stop to think that those little mind-numbed blondies in the front rows of American Idol sway with their hands raised to every single slow song?! I want my own signs for my life. Feel free to add suggestions in the comment box. I digress.]

As the plane landed, little girls screeched as though John McCain were John Lennon. There was no real need for that.

The jet taxied next to our rally site and the back doors popped open. People got excited, only to realize a legion of Secret Service guys came out. And then the press corps. And then the back door closed.

The front door then popped open. People got excited, cameras were clicking everywhere. More Secret Service people and staffers. Finally, the PA blares the introduction of Senator and Cindy McCain, and then they appeared. I had read earlier this week that Palin would be there, too, but she wasn’t. People were excited for McCain, but every Palin reference sent the crowd into a frenzy. She’s a popular girl, especially in these parts where she sounds exactly like one of us. Except that, for most of the time, I don’t sound like that.

The rest of the rally was more classic stumping. I snapped a ton of pictures, and got pretty good at taking shots with my arm extended up and out, the rally shot. McCain had his usual statements, the far-too-interjected ‘my friends’, talked about creating jobs and jump-starting the economy, cutting spending and waste and got lusty boos whenever he invoked the name of the junior senator from Illinois. Par for the course.

I don’t agree with McCain on a lot of things, which is why I deliberately curbed my enthusiasm at the rally. His idea about government taking over mortgages makes the libertarian in me cringe. His campaign finance reform was well-intentioned, but isn’t working the way he may have wanted it to. I was strongly opposed to the bailout for corporations who give lots of money to campaigns and parties, which was a total Catch-22 for a presidential candidate. But when I look at McCain, I also see a guy who probably believes what he says, and you can’t say that for a lot of politicians, including his main opponent. Including our current president.

There’s another thing about McCain that gets lost in the shuffle: he’s actually much better in person than in the media. He has a commanding presence that doesn’t translate through cameras and commercials.

He’s also pretty quick-witted, another thing that gets lost in debates and sound bites. He would improvise and wander off the script, engage in gentle self-deprecation and allow for human moments with the crowd. Unfortunately, this is the tube culture, and most will never see, much less care, how charismatic the senator really is.

The rally ended, and he went around glad-handing supporters and attendees. Wife and I were able to have enough forethought to know that McCain would probably go all the way around the perimeter to meet as many people as possible. So, instead of the glut of people who stayed where he was, we went to where we anticipated him to be, and it paid off. The media began to shift over, Secret Service began to eye us all down and then John and Cindy McCain were right in front of us. We got to shake his hand, wife got Cindy, too.

Now, what do you say to a senator, much less a senator running for president, a guy who meets a million people a day and probably won’t remember the encounter beyond simply being there? To be fair, McCain looked every one of us in the eye and offered his gratitude for our being there, which was really cool, but when the time came to shake his hand, I momentarily froze. What do I say? Good luck? Thank you? Stammer and guffaw in starstruck-ness? So, my mind blanked out and the first thing that popped out was…

“Give ‘em hell, Senator.”

Give ‘em hell? Is he Truman? Is this the 50s? What in the crap are you thinking? Really? The best thing you could think of is “Give ‘em hell“?

I’m an idiot.