this book has been on my shelf for a long while waiting to be read, perhaps now is the time. Loved what you wrote above... I seem to think I am a bit older than you, but we are near enough in age that I resonate with much of what you share about your lived experience. Appreciated your recent video as well. I'm glad you still like this book... and have lived to appreciate Marsden, a number of his books were on my reading lists as a college student, seminarian and reader of american church history. This book I don't remember as being one of them. At 76 and with health issues and needing to think about living in a more a more supportive environment, I have been downsizing my library. Lots of old classics have gone away, but you have reminded me why I kept so many of them for so long. Because many of them are still full of wisdom and insight... I miss having them around. They are like old friends, but what must be done, must be done. Everytime I look at your bookshelves and Trips on your videos I feel a bit of jealousy.
The book I mentioned is William McLoughlin, "Revivals, Awakenings, and Reform." I read it in a graduate class taught by George Marsden. I've always appreciated George Marsden - he was my PhD advisor! Hope that clears up the confusion!
I had it straight for a bit while watching the video and then it went back into the fog... thanks for clarifying again... :-) a once discerning listener and reader, now not so much
In 1974, as a college freshman, I met a group on campus, and began to attend their Pentecostal church, "The Barn." For someone with a pretty typical Congregational/Methodist/Presbyterian upbringing (timid in attendance, strong in morals and work ethic), I found this group to be warm and accepting. We sat in jeans (verboten in traditional churches), played guitars singing to Jesus, and supported each other with love. We prayed for the ability to speak in tongues. When I got tonsillitis in the spring, the preacher played on hands for healing. I was not healed, (I mean, I had had tonsillitis before. Been there, done that, just go to a doctor, and get the penicillin. To the preacher at The Barn, I did not heal because I did not believe enough.
My parents were horrified about all of this. Coming home that summer, I tried to find a similar Pentecostal church (not a one). I wrote to my church friends, I prayed. And when I returned to college the next year, I made a beeline for The Barn. I vividly remember standing in the back watching the preacher lay hands on a member and praying in the spirit. I realized, clearly, this was not The Way. I walked out and never returned. By the time I graduated college, none of the freshman class of "jesus freaks" were part of The Barn.
It took me at least 15 years to be able to walk back into a church and not reject every word I heard. I talked to people of faith I had met and trusted, and asked them where they went. I became friends with an orthodox Jewish family, and so appreciated their understanding of God, the concept of tikkun olam and mitzvah. I started attending an Episcopal church, and felt like I had, after wandering in a desert, come home. It was okay to ask questions. Sometimes there were no answers. But the Episcopal tent was big, loving, and accepting. I have meet many people of many faiths who are open to questions, willing to share experience and doubt, and accepting of where each of us are in their faith walk. I look back at my time at The Barn as a crucible of sorts. I kept the nugget of love and acceptance and try to exemplify it always.
Growing up in a for generations forever Missouri Synod Lutheran church extended family, I never thought about it being a religion so much as a close knit family calling ourselves "Lutheran". I knew there were other Christians; we even hob-knobbed with Roman Catholics, tho' "Church of God" and "Assemblies of God" were all around. It was due to the mix of eastern and southern European Romans with southern border states refugees - who were 1/3 of the population, homesick and returning home as often as they could. The Italians and Polish couldn't do that. Then there were us German Lutherans with a smattering of other folks whom we'd evangelized door to door. All this Mo Synod kid knew was that we had the Bible right. From my comparison, it seemed that way to me (and still largely does). But I was blessed to have a mother who encouraged my inquiring mind to think on its own. By late pre-high school I was unsuccessfully urging we dispense with name drawing for which fellow students we would buy a Christmas present. By freshman year I knew evolution and the Bible were not really in conflict. By college I was urging my home congregation to take on the pressing mid 60s issues of the day, especially poverty and racial injustice. By senior year I was doing something similar as program director of the Lutheran student chapel, including accepting gay people, having myself befriended the nascent gay liberation movement. For a bit I was listening to Campus Crusade for Christ speakers, appreciating their reaching out to students with the Christian gospel - albeit oversimplified with "Four Spiritual Laws" and a tendency to interpret current events to predict some version of the "End Times".
Being at home Lutheran was getting harder and harder to be, but I knew I was nothing else theologically. Yet I wound up worshipping with Roman Catholic charismatic renewal "kids", attending orthodox Jewish schule for Yom Kippur and engaging with agnostics, athiests and even a buddhist here and there about the problems they had with Christianity. By the time I'd drifted from my pre-med zoology major, stumbling into the philosophy department and a new religious studies program, I was thinking of spending my life in street ministry. I turned down the School of Social Work in favor of an open ended Dr. of Ministry program at U. of Chgo. Div. School. From there to Hospital chaplaincy (never having left some form of hospital work) to Lutheran seminary in Chgo., and an internship in a south Chgo. racially mixed Lutheran congregation, I became hooked on urban ministry. Off to the "Seminary in Exile" formed during the ultra-conservative purge of the Missouri Synod, then to Times Square, finally for 30 years as pastor of a little congregation on Long Island mostly comprised of children of single parent-multiple father households, the mentally ill, recovering drug addicts and
alcoholics, other sundry poor, very few Lutherans and a good many I'd baptized. I'd had to shelve my academic mind and projects, but kept my hand in with my preparations for preaching, teaching and conversation with Lutheran and Roman Catholic colleagues, which led to a couple teaching stints. During all this career, I've encountered just about every version of alternative "christianities" and "spiritual" people one might imagine. I understood and sympathized with the disilussionment with "organized religion," although, protests to the contrary, there's no such thing as "unorganized religion." "Spirituality," maybe, as long as it's purely an individual affair. But I stick to my definition of religion I proposed in a college philosophy of religion paper: a person's understanding of ones place in the universe by which that person lives. Whether its shared or totally private, carefully thought out or simply felt or intuitive, all religion comes down to that. And as such, its in our nature, given our proclivity for the mix of feeling, wonder, questioning and thought. We also have a proclivity for wanting to know, for wanting to be sure, for assuaging our anxieties and fears, for wanting to belong and be safe. And we also can be perniciously suspicious about others who differ from us. First it's a survival instinct at work. Then it's tribalism. Then its whatever protectionism we devise to preserve them. And sure enough, along with exercises in power we are prone to enlist whatever "religion" we embrace in our service. Notice how benign the origin of religion can be until it becomes the tool of human protectionism. A desire to return to some form of "pure" religion is a romantic notion, a fiction as far as human flaws are concerned. I'm still - certain intellectuals protests notwithstanding - inclined to think it is with our human flaws we must contend if we are to give the benefits of whatever religion the best chance. There are no exceptions to this of which I know. That's where you'll have to take up the argument with me.
I too ordered a used copy at another sight even with a two day delivery postage charge I believe it is a good buy. Hey if it is underlined it will be a study help. Love your post from the Desert in Arizona. Have had some time there, but "home" desert is the Chihuahuan Desert of West Texas that 'runs' along side the Rio Grande Peaceful and alive --both of them. Happy you have some time there. See you for Class. Peace and Love may it be. Bonita
I just subscribed to reread and follow your updated thoughts on Christianity After Religion. I got to page 82 and laughed out loud regarding how much has changed post COVID. You wrote 10 years ago that General Social Survey data indicated public trust in religion trailed trust in the scientific community, medicine, US Supreme Court, and education. I feel like it’s been a post COVID race to lower public confidence for all of these institutions.
Thanks for a trip through some of my memories of the Sonoran Desert. (I lived in Mesa for seven summers in the 1990s.) As I looked around the desert environment, I often found myself scoffing at the coastal types (and mid-westerners, like much of my extended family) who would regard the landscape as godforsaken. No, I wanted to tell them, this place is not godforsaken; if is God-blessed. For is God were not in this place, there would be no life. That there is life is proof of God's presence.
I identify as a Catholic, however, I found my personal God in Alcoholic Anonymous. Now, at 80, I practice meditation and many Buddhist practices to further develop HOW to get there. The Church is great at telling us we should act ethically with humanity and compassion for all, but the Buddhists teach you how. I stay connected to the Catholic Church because of their commitment and teachings on Social Justice.
Your group sounds like just what we need- it's almost like going back to the beginning- house churches--gatherings of friends and families in intimate settings. Thank you-for your comment- and for offering a group that sounds as though it is deeply nourishing!
Off on a tirade about the evils of humanism in the public schools. I was mortified and began asking to myself that I would stop going to this church as soon as I left home.
this book has been on my shelf for a long while waiting to be read, perhaps now is the time. Loved what you wrote above... I seem to think I am a bit older than you, but we are near enough in age that I resonate with much of what you share about your lived experience. Appreciated your recent video as well. I'm glad you still like this book... and have lived to appreciate Marsden, a number of his books were on my reading lists as a college student, seminarian and reader of american church history. This book I don't remember as being one of them. At 76 and with health issues and needing to think about living in a more a more supportive environment, I have been downsizing my library. Lots of old classics have gone away, but you have reminded me why I kept so many of them for so long. Because many of them are still full of wisdom and insight... I miss having them around. They are like old friends, but what must be done, must be done. Everytime I look at your bookshelves and Trips on your videos I feel a bit of jealousy.
The book I mentioned is William McLoughlin, "Revivals, Awakenings, and Reform." I read it in a graduate class taught by George Marsden. I've always appreciated George Marsden - he was my PhD advisor! Hope that clears up the confusion!
I had it straight for a bit while watching the video and then it went back into the fog... thanks for clarifying again... :-) a once discerning listener and reader, now not so much
No worries!
In 1974, as a college freshman, I met a group on campus, and began to attend their Pentecostal church, "The Barn." For someone with a pretty typical Congregational/Methodist/Presbyterian upbringing (timid in attendance, strong in morals and work ethic), I found this group to be warm and accepting. We sat in jeans (verboten in traditional churches), played guitars singing to Jesus, and supported each other with love. We prayed for the ability to speak in tongues. When I got tonsillitis in the spring, the preacher played on hands for healing. I was not healed, (I mean, I had had tonsillitis before. Been there, done that, just go to a doctor, and get the penicillin. To the preacher at The Barn, I did not heal because I did not believe enough.
My parents were horrified about all of this. Coming home that summer, I tried to find a similar Pentecostal church (not a one). I wrote to my church friends, I prayed. And when I returned to college the next year, I made a beeline for The Barn. I vividly remember standing in the back watching the preacher lay hands on a member and praying in the spirit. I realized, clearly, this was not The Way. I walked out and never returned. By the time I graduated college, none of the freshman class of "jesus freaks" were part of The Barn.
It took me at least 15 years to be able to walk back into a church and not reject every word I heard. I talked to people of faith I had met and trusted, and asked them where they went. I became friends with an orthodox Jewish family, and so appreciated their understanding of God, the concept of tikkun olam and mitzvah. I started attending an Episcopal church, and felt like I had, after wandering in a desert, come home. It was okay to ask questions. Sometimes there were no answers. But the Episcopal tent was big, loving, and accepting. I have meet many people of many faiths who are open to questions, willing to share experience and doubt, and accepting of where each of us are in their faith walk. I look back at my time at The Barn as a crucible of sorts. I kept the nugget of love and acceptance and try to exemplify it always.
Growing up in a for generations forever Missouri Synod Lutheran church extended family, I never thought about it being a religion so much as a close knit family calling ourselves "Lutheran". I knew there were other Christians; we even hob-knobbed with Roman Catholics, tho' "Church of God" and "Assemblies of God" were all around. It was due to the mix of eastern and southern European Romans with southern border states refugees - who were 1/3 of the population, homesick and returning home as often as they could. The Italians and Polish couldn't do that. Then there were us German Lutherans with a smattering of other folks whom we'd evangelized door to door. All this Mo Synod kid knew was that we had the Bible right. From my comparison, it seemed that way to me (and still largely does). But I was blessed to have a mother who encouraged my inquiring mind to think on its own. By late pre-high school I was unsuccessfully urging we dispense with name drawing for which fellow students we would buy a Christmas present. By freshman year I knew evolution and the Bible were not really in conflict. By college I was urging my home congregation to take on the pressing mid 60s issues of the day, especially poverty and racial injustice. By senior year I was doing something similar as program director of the Lutheran student chapel, including accepting gay people, having myself befriended the nascent gay liberation movement. For a bit I was listening to Campus Crusade for Christ speakers, appreciating their reaching out to students with the Christian gospel - albeit oversimplified with "Four Spiritual Laws" and a tendency to interpret current events to predict some version of the "End Times".
Being at home Lutheran was getting harder and harder to be, but I knew I was nothing else theologically. Yet I wound up worshipping with Roman Catholic charismatic renewal "kids", attending orthodox Jewish schule for Yom Kippur and engaging with agnostics, athiests and even a buddhist here and there about the problems they had with Christianity. By the time I'd drifted from my pre-med zoology major, stumbling into the philosophy department and a new religious studies program, I was thinking of spending my life in street ministry. I turned down the School of Social Work in favor of an open ended Dr. of Ministry program at U. of Chgo. Div. School. From there to Hospital chaplaincy (never having left some form of hospital work) to Lutheran seminary in Chgo., and an internship in a south Chgo. racially mixed Lutheran congregation, I became hooked on urban ministry. Off to the "Seminary in Exile" formed during the ultra-conservative purge of the Missouri Synod, then to Times Square, finally for 30 years as pastor of a little congregation on Long Island mostly comprised of children of single parent-multiple father households, the mentally ill, recovering drug addicts and
alcoholics, other sundry poor, very few Lutherans and a good many I'd baptized. I'd had to shelve my academic mind and projects, but kept my hand in with my preparations for preaching, teaching and conversation with Lutheran and Roman Catholic colleagues, which led to a couple teaching stints. During all this career, I've encountered just about every version of alternative "christianities" and "spiritual" people one might imagine. I understood and sympathized with the disilussionment with "organized religion," although, protests to the contrary, there's no such thing as "unorganized religion." "Spirituality," maybe, as long as it's purely an individual affair. But I stick to my definition of religion I proposed in a college philosophy of religion paper: a person's understanding of ones place in the universe by which that person lives. Whether its shared or totally private, carefully thought out or simply felt or intuitive, all religion comes down to that. And as such, its in our nature, given our proclivity for the mix of feeling, wonder, questioning and thought. We also have a proclivity for wanting to know, for wanting to be sure, for assuaging our anxieties and fears, for wanting to belong and be safe. And we also can be perniciously suspicious about others who differ from us. First it's a survival instinct at work. Then it's tribalism. Then its whatever protectionism we devise to preserve them. And sure enough, along with exercises in power we are prone to enlist whatever "religion" we embrace in our service. Notice how benign the origin of religion can be until it becomes the tool of human protectionism. A desire to return to some form of "pure" religion is a romantic notion, a fiction as far as human flaws are concerned. I'm still - certain intellectuals protests notwithstanding - inclined to think it is with our human flaws we must contend if we are to give the benefits of whatever religion the best chance. There are no exceptions to this of which I know. That's where you'll have to take up the argument with me.
I too ordered a used copy at another sight even with a two day delivery postage charge I believe it is a good buy. Hey if it is underlined it will be a study help. Love your post from the Desert in Arizona. Have had some time there, but "home" desert is the Chihuahuan Desert of West Texas that 'runs' along side the Rio Grande Peaceful and alive --both of them. Happy you have some time there. See you for Class. Peace and Love may it be. Bonita
Looking forward to your updates.
I thought I had this book, but alas I didn't, so I just ordered a used copy on Amazon.
Such a bargain!
Yes, I’m a paid subscriber.
All good then!
Would love to join the book group but don’t see a link. Please sign me up!
Thank you!!
If you are a paid subscriber, you are signed up. This is a paid subscriber summer learning special.
Love your smarts! And your teaming with that lucille clifton poem. Thank you! For this and for all your ongoing work on the page.
This is a hopeful way to think of the great number of us who find little reason or time to engage in anything to do with traditional church.
I just subscribed to reread and follow your updated thoughts on Christianity After Religion. I got to page 82 and laughed out loud regarding how much has changed post COVID. You wrote 10 years ago that General Social Survey data indicated public trust in religion trailed trust in the scientific community, medicine, US Supreme Court, and education. I feel like it’s been a post COVID race to lower public confidence for all of these institutions.
David Whitenack
Thanks for a trip through some of my memories of the Sonoran Desert. (I lived in Mesa for seven summers in the 1990s.) As I looked around the desert environment, I often found myself scoffing at the coastal types (and mid-westerners, like much of my extended family) who would regard the landscape as godforsaken. No, I wanted to tell them, this place is not godforsaken; if is God-blessed. For is God were not in this place, there would be no life. That there is life is proof of God's presence.
I identify as a Catholic, however, I found my personal God in Alcoholic Anonymous. Now, at 80, I practice meditation and many Buddhist practices to further develop HOW to get there. The Church is great at telling us we should act ethically with humanity and compassion for all, but the Buddhists teach you how. I stay connected to the Catholic Church because of their commitment and teachings on Social Justice.
should act ethically and politically,
Sign me up for the reading group!
I just became a subscribed member. How do I sign up for your upcoming July book update program? I'm a big fan.
Your group sounds like just what we need- it's almost like going back to the beginning- house churches--gatherings of friends and families in intimate settings. Thank you-for your comment- and for offering a group that sounds as though it is deeply nourishing!
Off on a tirade about the evils of humanism in the public schools. I was mortified and began asking to myself that I would stop going to this church as soon as I left home.