Rude Awakenings: Thoughts on Religion in America
As a rule, Americans love awakenings, and Unificationists are no exception.
How often have I heard the prediction that a revival, a Pentecost, is on the
way-or should be. We are aware that the Awakenings boosted the democratic
spirit and substance of America, by empowering the "common people" to build
institutions on their own (beginning with their churches) based upon their
direct experience with the Lord . While being an offspring of this great
tradition, I'd like to temper our enthusiasm with a splash of cold history
concerning religious awakenings in America and the democratization that
accompanied it. First, a couple of points about the context in which
awakenings took place and the action steps that followed from them.
CONTEXT AND RESULTANT ACTION
Jeremiads: Awakenings are preceded by periods of "declension," when
everything seems to be growing worse and worse. Americans, at least until
this century, interpreted declension as a sign of God's displeasure with us,
or God's "controversy" with us. Christian leaders searched in prayer for
what they were doing to cause God's displeasure. This brings on the
preaching of "jeremiads," in which the pastor and people tear their clothes
in anguish and repentance for their sins which are bringing upon them the
declension and wrath of God. Jeremaids-the word comes from the name of the
prophet Jeremiah, who preached this type of sermon to the errant kings of
Israel-chastise the people and call them to turn from their evil ways to
prepare for the day of the Lord. And the people took these messages very
seriously.
Taking action: Awakenings are followed by a period of intensive social
action. The people who were awakened felt empowered. The people on the basis
of their repentance were moved to sense that God could work directly through
them. These awakened souls immediately took action. They evangelized. They
became fervent, uncontrollable witnessers. They defied the secular and
religious authorities of their day to break the boundaries of parish and tax
laws and preach their faith. They founded and grew churches-at great
sacrifice. They got results. They created revivals; they founded missionary
organizations and Bible societies; they generated social reform and, many
argue, built the American nation. Lay power is what lay power does.
TRADITIONAL CRITICISMS OF AWAKENINGS AND THE DEMOCRATIC SPIRIT
Divisions wrought by awakenings: Every awakening brought with it a division
between those who welcomed it as a work of God and those who decried it as a
work of the devil. This accounts for most of the divisions of denominations
in America. In many towns there is a First Presbyterian and Second
Presbyterian, or First Congregationalist and Second Congregationalist
church. These resulted from the awakened congregations (the "new school" or
"new lights") moving out (or being driven out) of the parent church, or from
the "old school" or "old light" members growing sick of the revivalist
intensity (they would say,) and moving out of the parent church.
Manufactured Faith: The most articulate opponents of the revivals were
Christians of deistic tendencies-liberal Congregationalists in the 1700s,
Unitarians and Universalists in the 1800s, together with church-centered
Christians from the Lutheran, Reformed and Catholic traditions. The liberals
had numerous criticisms, only two of which I will mention. One, they saw the
revivals as human artifice, religious experience manufactured by
professional crowd-pleasers. The revivals were deemed spiritual factories
that produced mindless believers who spouted the same rhetoric. For the
liberals, faith is a life-long organic process of growth, not a sudden
transformation. The second criticism deserves its own header.
Enthusiasm: The opponents of the awakenings labeled them "enthusiasms." By
that they meant that the religious experiences were not true but were the
result of overheated emotions and peer pressure. Jonathan Edwards, one of
the greatest American theologians, had his ministry forged in the fires of
the first awakening and he took this question very seriously. He could not
deny that the awakening was from God, and yet he could also not deny that
much of it was flawed with superficial emotionality and was just a false as
what the individuals supposedly were awakening from. He wrote treatises on
what he called the religious affections-the dynamics of personality that we
identify as "religious." He sought to identify true faith, to distinguish it
from false religion. Thus he attempted to defend the revivals as truly being
from God. In the end he criticized the revivals as much as he defended them.
He argued that many traits that we take to be signs of true faith, such as
fervor in prayer, generous tithing, steady attendance and extensive biblical
knowledge, are in fact not authentic signs. His conclusion was that it is
only the practice of true love that provides evidence of true religious
conversion.
Demagoguery: One unpleasant phenomenon that attaches to democratic society
is demagoguery. Since the awakenings were populist "democratic" events, they
were rich soil for demagogues. To back up a moment, I would mention that the
fear of demagoguery loomed large in the minds of the founding fathers. To
combat it they installed such institutions as the Senate and the appointment
of the higher judiciary by the President and for life, as opposed to by
popular vote. They did not trust that the "the people" always knew best; in
fact, they questioned whether any entity that can be called "the people"
even exists. (Cf. the communist appeal to the authority of "the people."
Note further the incredible authority of polls, representing supposedly the
will of "the people" in America.)
A demagogue is a person who manipulates the crowd, telling the people what
they want to hear for the sole purpose of gaining power over them and, in
the case of politicians, getting elected. A demagogue turns a civil society
into a mob ruled by their passions and appetites. He stimulates the passions
and appetites and promises to satisfy them. He will promise people anything,
anything, if they will support him. The founders feared that the appetites
of the common people were so base, so physical, that any man or party
promising "the people" an abundance of food, sleep and sex (to use the
familiar Unificationist triad of mind-body debilitations) would gain
political control. These founders were skeptical that "the people" could
rule themselves. Of course, this aspect of the democratic experiment,
probably its most important aspect, is still not decided. Bill Clinton, it
seems to me, is a demagogue.
What does this have to do with the awakenings? The awakenings were
democratizing movements. Democratic religion follows the principle that the
congregation picks its own pastor. In the hierarchical church, the Catholic
and Episcopalian for instance, the church authorities (the bishop) and his
advisors assign priests to congregations. In the democratic church, the
Baptist and Congregationalist, for instance, the congregation "calls" its
pastor, and has the right to dispose of him. This obviously leads to the
problem of the pastor catering to the appetites of the congregation in order
to gain and keep his job. It hampers the ability of the pastor to set a
standard by which the congregation is judged and called to repentance.
Edwards lost his position as pastor in Northampton, MA, when he judged his
congregants for allowing sexual promiscuity among the youth. (Of course
there are problems with the hierarchical system as well, revolving around
the lack of accountability of the pastor to the congregation.)
TRUE RELIGION
Returning to Edwards's analysis of true religion, we note his conclusion
that the trueness of religious life does not lie in its external form but in
its internal content. In fact, he noted 12 possible signs of true religion,
and concluded that only the twelfth is authentic. What is the twelfth? In
essence, living for the sake of others. The problem is not lack of knowledge
but lack of love; not lack of power but lack of ability to sacrifice. Where
true love abides, whether in Baptist or Catholic forms, the laity is found
fully participating in the life of the church and the pastor is found truly
ministering to the needs of the people.
All forms of religion have prospered in America. We have everything from the
hierarchical form of the Catholics (still boasting a membership greater than
all other churches combined) and the LDS, to the democratic form of the
Baptist and new paradigm churches (the Vineyard, Calvary and myriad
independent congregations). No matter what institutional form, sometimes the
institution hinders the work of the spirit. Sometimes it enhances or
facilitates the work of the spirit. So let us pray for God's spirit to move
among us and let the form follow the function.
by Dr. Tyler Hendricks
President Family Federation
Tuesday 27 July 1999
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