Recently, Freeman Dyson distinguished belief from belief in belief in a review of a book by Daniel Dennett His distinction illuminates how our current religious ferment differs from earlier ones. Unlike previous awakenings, contemporary revivals have no spokesman, no Luther or Calvin or Knox, no Arminius or Wesley. Instead, they seem to be a movement in search of a theology.
People were shocked by change and rebellion in the 1960s when there was a war no one wanted, when civil rights leaders made clear charity was not enough, when children complained they had been raised with ideals that didn’t match reality.
People were shaken, and they responded by asserting the crisis arose from a situation, and thus did not imply they could not have values that endured. Hucksters rushed in with programs, and many chose the one most familiar, the one that abided from their childhoods.
People found a label, said at least I’m still a Christian. Only that was meaningless. It paralleled what happens when someone decides they’re an Indian or a Ukranian, after being assimilated for years. The label is sociologically valid, but it carries no validation, no prescription for action.
Ethnic converts consider learning the language, but that’s usually difficult for adults. Religious students have always learned Aramaic and Greek, and amateur scholars at least know the problems that arise from translation. Others turn to Hebrew; but few still bother with Latin.
Some try food, but discover they like Americanized versions. For an Italian, it’s one thing to experiment with more kinds of pasta, but quite another to open a cookbook and discover recipes for squid and octopus. Methodists advertise seders at Easter.
Then, ethnic seekers dabble with dance and music. Today, worldly theater suppliers offer costumes for liturgical dance derived from Martha Graham.
There’s less interest in reviving the lyre than in adapting modern music, by writing lyrics that make it compatible with a Christian life. Distinctive music no longer matters, since we can’t revive the historic. Southern gospel music that dramatized individual salvation within Protestantism, with four equally strong vocal parts, is disappearing as younger performers seek symbiosis between their religious cohort and their social one.
I remember hearing a young member of a gospel group say, "since I’m a Christian," then I should be doing x. I don’t remember the rest, only that he knew what he was, knew his family tradition, but did not know how to represent it. He was especially open to outside influences because the one thing he was was a performer who needed an audience, and his audience was born again.
At the same time people like the young gospel singer were looking for guidance, others were organizing political groups looking for people to mobilize. A convergence of interests developed when men told new converts, if they were Christians, they should support specific political interests. Instead of theology, they were given a culture war; instead of reformation, a crusade.
Some remembered politics was not part of their traditional Protestant upbringing, with its emphasis on the separation of church and state. But, when they revisited those churches, they didn’t find much assurance, and so they were ready to listen to an alternative.
Others heeded calls to reject religious social action, which often appeared to be political. Dispensationalism argued the social gospel was heresy that distracted individuals from preparing themselves. It then suggested the best protection was a return to the life of early believers in ancient Israel before the time of Christ.
Instead of individuals immersing themselves in the Bible, as earlier Protestants had done, some accepted interpretations from evangelists and turned to history. By coincidence, translations and commentaries on the Dead Sea Scrolls suggested there was much they hadn’t learned, while archeological digs in Israel provided more evidence of the historic life of Jesus.
Ancient Christian religious life was more exciting than anything offered by contemporary churches. And so, these new converts adopted Jewish traditions: not those of the rebbe, but the same kinds of external symbols the new Ukrainian or new Indian finds. The natural tendency to explore language, food and music became ways to return to the primitive church.
As Dyson suggested, people want to believe, and hold to that desire as self-defining. The reasons they don’t take the second step, and actually study the Bible is they’re not sure how to proceed. They’re reviving a tradition they’ve lost, and retain only the most general idea what that tradition meant.
Dispensationalism was introduced into this country between 1862 and 1876 by John Nelson Darby, an Anglican who joined the Plymouth Brethren, a British group with roots in the 1300s and the Brethren of the Common Life in what became the Netherlands. Thomas à Kempis distilled their beliefs in The Imitation of Christ which focused on the life of prayer and humble devotion.
Churches failed their responsibility to train their congregants and clergy in the ways of faith, and abandoned their ties with their founding theologians who could have suggested ways to respond. Spokesmen who exploit the impotence of established churches betray the rededicated by discouraging independent thinking that leads to faith.
The conflict between the will to believe and the vacuousness of proffered theology does not shake the belief in belief. It only makes converts restless consumers who move from one church to another, from one evangelist to another, continually hoping to find something that dignifies their hopes. If a belief is held long enough, becomes central enough to an individuals self-definition, then it can become a true religion, not just its doppelgänger.
Sources:
Freeman Dyson, "Religion from the Outside," The New York Review of Books, 22 June 2006, review of Daniel C. Dennett, Breaking the Spell.
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