Confounding Christian Stereotypes: Finding a New Christian Faith Along the Highways of America

Submitted by The Rev Eric El... on November 10, 2006 - 6:33pm.

Rev. Eric Elnes, Ph.D. Co-President, CrossWalk America Does your faith fit neatly into the “liberal, moderate, or conservative” box media pundits and others have created for you? If not, you’re not alone. As this week’s election results remind us, religious voters are not as tied to political parties as they are to certain principles. Your faith is quickly becoming part of an “inconvenient truth” that politicians, pundits and religious leaders ignore at their peril as they assess the undercurrents of Christian faith in America. This has been my observation while walking from Phoenix, Arizona, to Washington, DC, this spring and summer with CrossWalk America. As hundreds of thousands of people from around the world monitored our 2,500 mile trek on CrossWalk America’s website and blog, we met face-to-face with over 11,000 Christians, were hosted by nearly 150 churches, stayed in over 200 homes, and listened to thousands of faith stories. What we discovered on our journey is that Christianity looks very different at ground level than what has been commonly assumed – even by us! We had to jettison labels like “liberal,” “moderate,” and “conservative,” in order to describe accurately the kinds of faith we’ve encountered along the highways of America. What do you call a Christian, for instance, who is against abortion but works tirelessly on behalf of the poor? How would you describe a biblical literalist who believes in full equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered people? Are these people conservative, liberal, or moderate? While traditional labels fail to describe what’s going on, we’ve found that Christians tend to gravitate around three circles of influence. All three circles impact individual Christians and their communities, but not equally. We call them the circles of anger, angst and awe. Christians orbiting primarily within the influence of Anger are not hard spot these days. Whether labeled by others as “conservative” or “liberal,” these Christians are loudly decrying the decline or loss of their particular understanding of Christian faith in America. They are so busy crucifying those they deem to be crucifiers that they fail to share much light with the world. In Ohio we found the Anger voices among fundamentalist Christians calling for a spiritual army to “track down our adversary [liberals], defeat him valiantly, then stand upon his carcass.”(1) In Illinois we found them among Christian “liberals” who withdrew an invitation to preach after CrossWalk America was deemed to be too nice to those with opposing viewpoints. Yet on our walk we’ve uncovered far more Christians orbiting around the circle of Angst than Anger. Many of these Christians come from traditionally mainline churches – Presbyterian, Methodist, Lutheran, Episcopalian, United Church of Christ and the like. Having experienced a dramatic loss in numbers and social status since the mid-1960s, these believers express strong concern regarding the future of their churches and denominations – even the Christian faith itself. One of the most persistent comments we heard from these Christians is that they feel alone in their beliefs and that their values of inclusiveness and compassion for others are out of sync with both society and organized religion. The influence of Angst is not limited to Christians from mainline traditions. For instance, we found many evangelical and fundamentalist Christians who support the full equality of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered persons, or support separation of church and state. Rather than face opposition in their faith communities many bite their tongues or quietly join the “church alumni association.” Perhaps the most remarkable discovery in our journey was the presence of so many Christians who appear increasingly to be less influenced by Angst than by Awe. These Christians tell us they are discovering a faith that is more vital and fresh than they have ever known before. Time and again we heard comments like, “Something’s in the air,” “I can feel it – a growing movement out there.” Not all are able to describe fully the implications of their beliefs, but they are convinced that something big and wonderful is arising and beginning to shape. We found many of these Christians associated with the so-called Emergent Church movement – those twenty-somethings who grew up as evangelicals for whom major tenets of evangelical faith such as biblical literalism no longer makes sense. They’ve left their churches behind but haven’t left the faith. Now they gather in small “house churches” and discussion groups to find community and spiritual nurture. Much to our delight, we also found Awe-filled Christians amongst the traditionally liberal, mainline denominations. They tend to be older than the Emergent crowd, yet like them, these mainliners are forming house churches and fellowship groups to engage their faith in ways they believe more traditional churches are too timid to do. While these Christians may differ significantly from each other politically or theologically when single issues are all that is in focus, they are a remarkably cohesive group when the view is pulled back and the forest is discerned from the trees. These awe-filled Christians tend to be joyfully and unapologetically Christian, yet they appreciate other faith traditions as well, refusing to deny the legitimacy of other paths God may create for humanity. They tend to treat the scriptures as authoritative, though they do not necessarily read them literally. They also tend to value prayer, reflection and community dialog more highly than their peers, as well as care for the poor. These Christians tend to find God’s glory reflected in all of Creation, including the Earth and its ecosystems, the sacred and secular, the Christian and non-Christian. Typically they are not early as concerned with sexual orientation as their peers. Many, though not all, support the full equality of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered people. A surprising number are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgendered. Many of these Christians find no inherent struggle between faith and science, or doubt and belief, asserting that all these can serve as allies in the pursuit of truth. Most are also quick to affirm the separation of church and state, believing that religion is strongest when it is practiced freely. Why is all this stereotype-defying activity happening? In our experience, it is because the forces of Anger, Angst and Awe currently exert a stronger influence on Christians than do political or theological labels like “liberal,” “moderate,” and “conservative.” Understanding these influences is important not only because they help clarify what the traditional labels obscure, but because history shows a dynamic flow to Christian faith. Since the beginning, Christians have repeated a pattern that bears strong resemblance to one established long ago over the course of three days: Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Easter Sunday. Jesus’ original disciples experienced deep Anger over witnessing their Lord crucified on Good Friday. Anger soon gave way to the Angst of Holy Saturday when the disciples hid away in locked upper rooms afraid to come out, questioning the very future of their faith. Yet time moved on. After experiencing Holy Saturday’s dark night of the soul, Christ’s disciples discovered at twilight of a new day an empty tomb and a risen Savior. They moved from Angst to Awe, bearing witness to a God capable of making all things new. While these Easter Sunday voices currently comprise a minority voice within Christianity in America, history shows that today’s voices of Anger and Angst may very well become tomorrow’s voices of wonder and Awe. What CrossWalk America loves so much about the Beatitudes Society is that your voice reflects that of so many Christians we met this Spring and Summer on the highways of America who have stepped out of the angst-filled, locked upper rooms of Holy Saturday and are bearing witness in the public square to something new afoot in our land. The mid-term elections are only a dim reverberation of much deeper shifts that are counted in centuries, not election cycles. The faith itself is changing. Easter Sunday is upon us. We may only be at the earliest twilight hours of this new day, but just as surely as the sun rises on the horizon there is a new Christian faith emerging at the grassroots in America. It’s time to join hands and hearts with awe-filled evangelicals and mainliners, Republicans and Democrats, who live in red states and blue states, to become the early church of the 21st Century. ---------------------------- Dr. Eric Elnes is author of The Phoenix Affirmations: A New Vision for the Future of Christian Faith (Jossey-Bass, 2006) and co-president of CrossWalk America. His forthcoming book, Asphalt Jesus: Finding a New Christian Faith on the Highways of America, is scheduled for release in August, 2007, along with a film documenting CrossWalk America’s journey. Dr. Elnes blogs regularly at The CrossWalk America Blog. (1) Rev. Rod Parsley quoted in The New Yorker, July 31, 2006, p. 29

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