the personal journal of Brent Stewart
Many books on the current state of the Christianity dwell on the gap between “the modern culture” and the church. These books acknowledge the fundamental dissonance between the two, but focus on bringing Christian worship and church practices into the current world. Calvin Miller makes the case that the Evangelical movement has fundamentally lost touch with it’s values, and without rediscovering these values has nothing to say to larger society.
After the introduction, the majority of the book deals with the problems of the modern church. Mr. Miller makes some really incisive comments, such as describing the emptiness of the mega-church experience. He disagnosses other problems of the church, such as “Christian Materialism” (the drive for consumerism that pervades even believers). I was picqued by his discussion of the anti-intellectual bent of believers because I’ve been personally frustrated by rejection of empiricism and the scientific method by my Christian brothers and sisters, but Miller actually focused on the arts (for example, calling Harry Potter demonic because of the fantasy setting). He quotes Charles Malik in saying, “I must be frank with you: the greatest danger besetting American Evangelical Christianity is the danger of anti-intellectualism”. There’s also a really good discussion of the vapidness of modern church members, what he calls “Christian Narcissim” because of the way members leave churches over the slightest disagreement and the way non-denominational churches have broken Christianity into a million bespoke belief systems.
Given the insightful dismembering of modern vanity-driven worship, I expected the conclusion to suggest specific remedies I could suggest to my church. There are some, such as a re-focusing on the Word and the balance between passion and discipline. I also appreciated Mr. Miller’s points about rediscovering the rich intellectual history of the church and the role the Creeds played in defining beliefs without prescribing practics. Still, he is very discouraging about the prospects for church revival in the short term and even more for where that leaves society. The book jacket mentions that he’d previously written over sixty books and that this was the last (he passed in 2012). Perhaps his discouragement is rooted in the tired viewpoint of the runner at the end of the race, but I came away feeling that there is material that was left unexplored.
If you are interested in the Christian Church and it’s capacity to impact the larger world, this is a worthwhile book. It’s a fairly easy read (a couple hundred clearly written pages). The diagnosis made excellent points and as soon as I felt triumphant that “we don’t do that” I was greeted by a skewering comment that hit home. It’s not clear which way to go from here, but Mr. Miller at least establishes where we are and that is a necessary first step, I suppose.