Perilous Times and the Great Falling Away
The Emerging Church:The Perils of The 'Wannabe Cool' Christianity
By BRETT MCCRACKEN
'How can we stop the oil gusher?" may have been the question of the
summer for most Americans. Yet for many evangelical pastors and
leaders, the leaking well is nothing compared to the threat posed by an
ongoing gusher of a different sort: Young people pouring out of their
churches, never to return.
As a 27-year-old evangelical myself, I understand the concern. My
peers, many of whom grew up in the church, are losing interest in the
Christian establishment.
Recent statistics have shown an increasing exodus of young people from
churches, especially after they leave home and live on their own. In a
2007 study, Lifeway Research determined that 70% of young Protestant
adults between 18-22 stop attending church regularly.
Statistics like these have created something of a mania in recent
years, as baby-boomer evangelical leaders frantically assess what they
have done wrong (why didn't megachurches work to attract youth in the
long term?) and scramble to figure out a plan to keep young members
engaged in the life of the church.
Increasingly, the "plan" has taken the form of a total image overhaul,
where efforts are made to rebrand Christianity as hip, countercultural,
relevant. As a result, in the early 2000s, we got something called "the
emerging church"—a sort of postmodern stab at an evangelical reform
movement. Perhaps because it was too "let's rethink everything"
radical, it fizzled quickly. But the impulse behind it—to rehabilitate
Christianity's image and make it "cool"—remains.
There are various ways that churches attempt to be cool. For some, it
means trying to seem more culturally savvy. The pastor quotes Stephen
Colbert or references Lady Gaga during his sermon, or a church sponsors
a screening of the R-rated "No Country For Old Men." For others, the
emphasis is on looking cool, perhaps by giving the pastor a metrosexual
makeover, with skinny jeans and an $80 haircut, or by insisting on
trendy eco-friendly paper and helvetica-only fonts on all printed
materials. Then there is the option of holding a worship service in a
bar or nightclub (as is the case for L.A.'s Mosaic church, whose
downtown location meets at a nightspot called Club Mayan).
"Wannabe cool" Christianity also manifests itself as an obsession with
being on the technological cutting edge. Churches like Central
Christian in Las Vegas and Liquid Church in New Brunswick, N.J., for
example, have online church services where people can have a worship
experience at an "iCampus." Many other churches now encourage texting,
Twitter and iPhone interaction with the pastor during their services.
But one of the most popular—and arguably most unseemly—methods of
making Christianity hip is to make it shocking. What better way to
appeal to younger generations than to push the envelope and go where no
fundamentalist has gone before?
Sex is a popular shock tactic. Evangelical-authored books like "Sex
God" (by Rob Bell) and "Real Sex" (by Lauren Winner) are par for the
course these days. At the same time, many churches are finding creative
ways to use sex-themed marketing gimmicks to lure people into church.
Oak Leaf Church in Cartersville, Georgia, created a website called
yourgreatsexlife.com to pique the interest of young seekers. Flamingo
Road Church in Florida created an online, anonymous confessional
(IveScrewedUp.com), and had a web series called MyNakedPastor.com,
which featured a 24/7 webcam showing five weeks in the life of the
pastor, Troy Gramling. Then there is Mark Driscoll at Seattle's Mars
Hill Church—who posts Q&A videos online, from services where he
answers questions from people in church, on topics such as "Biblical
Oral Sex" and "Pleasuring Your Spouse."
But are these gimmicks really going to bring young people back to
church? Is this what people really come to church for? Maybe sex
sermons and indie- rock worship music do help in getting people in the
door, and maybe even in winning new converts. But what sort of
Christianity are they being converted to?
In his book, "The Courage to Be Protestant," David Wells writes:"The
born-again, marketing church has calculated that unless it makes deep,
serious cultural adaptations, it will go out of business, especially
with the younger generations. What it has not considered carefully
enough is that it may well be putting itself out of business with God.
"And the further irony," he adds, "is that the younger generations who
are less impressed by whiz-bang technology, who often see through what
is slick and glitzy, and who have been on the receiving end of enough
marketing to nauseate them, are as likely to walk away from these
oh-so-relevant churches as to walk into them."
If the evangelical Christian leadership thinks that "cool Christianity"
is a sustainable path forward, they are severely mistaken. As a
twentysomething, I can say with confidence that when it comes to
church, we don't want cool as much as we want real.
If we are interested in Christianity in any sort of serious way, it is
not because it's easy or trendy or popular. It's because Jesus himself
is appealing, and what he says rings true. It's because the world we
inhabit is utterly phony, ephemeral, narcissistic, image-obsessed and
sex-drenched—and we want an alternative. It's not because we want more
of the same.
Mr. McCracken's book, "Hipster Christianity: Where Church and Cool
Collide" (Baker Books) was published this month.