Posted by Helen on: 05.04.2008 /
An interview with Christine Wicker
Christine Wicker’s provocative new book, The Fall of the Evangelical Nation: The Surprising Crisis Inside the Church, was released last week.
I asked Christine a few questions about her book and her own beliefs.
I’ve posted a sampling of the statistics from the first part of my book on my website. More come in every day and I’m adding them to my site as I hear about them.
In the second part of the book I look at attitudes and behavior and why it’s all happening.
That part of the book is not getting much attention from critics, but evangelicals who really care about the faith, and not merely the institution and their image of power, are reading those pages more closely than the first part of the book. They already know the faith is in trouble.
Mainstream evangelicals are so busy attacking me for even suggesting that they aren’t the robust winners they think themselves to be that they’re ignoring all the reasons the country is rebuffing them.
No. I intended to write a story about how great megachurches were. They are great. They’re astonishing.
I was happily lauding that type of faith for what it gives believers. I’d finished two or three grueling re-writes and sent the final book to my publisher, when I realized I’d written the wrong book.
I should have known that years ago. Sources kept telling me that the evangelical movement was in trouble. But evangelicals have always cried wolf, and I didn’t believe them.
Then the results of the Southern Baptist Million Baptism Campaign came in. The Baptists spent more than a million dollars, did a big national road trip and walked neighborhoods all over the country. But they baptized fewer people than the year before.
That forced me to re-consider something else I’d learned but left out of my book. A megachurch consultant had given me pretty good proof that megachurches are facing big trouble.
I put the million baptism failure and the megachurch troubles together and started digging.
It was all there. Most of it gathered by evangelical churches themselves. Just waiting for someone to look for it.
I was saved at nine, but I would have said no until a few weeks ago.
Then Christianity Today educated me about the good standing of nominal evangelicals, and I realized that I’d been too fastidious. So now I’d say yes, why not? With this new book, it will be to my advantage to be an evangelical.
Here’s the kind of evangelical I am:
But it shouldn’t. Because they won’t. As a former Catholic priest who teaches at Marquette University puts it, women have kept humanity going all this time. We can trust them to decide when a child ought to be brought into this world and when it should not.
And I sure am happy to be back in the fold.
Christianity Today was pretty snarky about it. But Jim Henderson, Marcus Borg, Brian McLaren, Spencer Burke, Todd Hunter, Diana Butler Bass, Diane Winston at USC, James Dunn, who is a legend among traditional Baptists, and others endorsed it.
So it must have something in it worth looking at.
I hope it will set free and embolden the majority of American Christians who’ve been silenced and ignored since the religious right’s ascendancy.
I hope it will cause reporters to be more bold about challenging the religious right. My greatest wish for my own profession is that it would help journalists re-fashion how they do news.
I hope it will allow people who are developing their own spiritually without any sponsorship — because people are doing that everywhere — to speak up and enter the national conversation.
I hope those evangelicals and other Christians who know in their gut that something like this is happening will be encouraged to admit that what they call Bible-based is merely their interpretations of Scripture. Then they could re-think those interpretations and perhaps be a more potent force for good.
I hope to kill the idea that so-called Bible-based approaches are the only ones that work. That approach locks most Americans out of Christianity and every day they are more locked out because the world is moving further from the honor-based, tribal society that such Bible-based approaches favor. The last parts of the book deal with why so many of us can’t “get saved” in the old fashioned way.
At the same time, there are stories of wonderful faith in the book, I hope those stories will help outsiders understand that the most conservative brands of evangelical faith attract smart, sensitive people of sound mind and good hearts. This type of faith can help people live good, secure, happy lives.
Writing this book was a miserable experience. I had to face a lot of anger and fear in myself and in my former evangelical friends. But it’s helped me. I no longer have those flash points of anger and despair that evangelicals used to inspire in me. It’s good to be rid of them.
Jim Henderson gets most of the credit for that. When I started this book I was still scoffing at his approach. I didn’t think it could work. I still thought he was employing some evangelical trick, a crafty new way to collect scalps.
But his honesty and openness worked some kind of magic. It changed how I think about myself and the value of Christianity.
Our conversations have given my passion for Jesus’ teachings, which I hardly recognized myself, an outlet and a voice. He allowed me to see that I could be a good, thoughtful, honest, caring person of conscience who didn’t set myself apart from others as “the saved one” and still have community with people who follow Jesus.
When he first told me this, I couldn’t even contemplate such a thing. I found it alarming, slightly distasteful, and at the same time, appealing. I wanted to stop my ears or at least be strapped to the mast so I couldn’t be overwhelmed and crash on the rocks.
But the idea is growing on me.
It galls me to admit how right he turned out to be. I’m frightened by it. But I comfort myself by imagining that he would say, “That’s all right. You’re wise not to get too close. You might get burned again. It’s okay to set limits. It’s okay to be yourself.” Those ideas are radical to me, but I like them.
Comment by: Andrea Useem
1 05/4/08 6:25 PM | Comment Link |I love her words about the miserable part of writing the book. Fascinating stuff, i’m going back to click on the Christianity Today link. thanks for the Q+A.
Comment by: Christine
2 05/4/08 8:58 PM | Comment Link |Hi Andrea,
I’m curious. Did you like the part about the miserable experiences because you identified with them or because it surprised you? Or something else?
Comment by: Jim Henderson
3 05/4/08 10:20 PM | Comment Link |Christine, What a privilege to have your voice being clearly heard in OTM Land. I wondered if this would ever happen and it has.
And BTW I do still mean these words. :-)
Comment by: Amanda Reeves
4 05/4/08 10:20 PM | Comment Link |First reading her beliefs was interesting and difficult for me. Challenging, though. I liked the Q&A as it provoked thoughts outside of my comfort zone. I forget sometimes that thought-provoking ideas can be ones I don’t like right off the bat. :) I look forward to reading her thoughts in the book.
Comment by: benjamin ady
5 05/5/08 12:00 AM | Comment Link |I think that is very brave of you. I would be … really afraid of calling myself an evangelical. Way to go–you’re bringing people together. That rocks. You rock. I find myself wanting to be like you =).
Comment by: Bruce Logue
6 05/5/08 6:55 AM | Comment Link |Christine, your interview is so interesting. I’ve had 2 conversations with 20-somethings lately, both of whom told me they had left their parents’ boomer churches because they didn’t like the “production” values. I also believe there is a sea of people out there who would never be drawn to the hoopla of typical evangelicalism, but who would really like to get to know Jesus’ unique approach to life. I can’t wait to get your book.
Comment by: karen
7 05/5/08 9:42 AM | Comment Link |Rotfl!! That cracked me up, Christine.
Thanks for your unique perspective. I look forward to your book.
Comment by: Christine
8 05/5/08 9:51 AM | Comment Link |Amanda,
I have learned the very same lesson. Even as a reporter, if someone would say something and I immediately thought, “That’s hooey,” it would almost always turn out to be something important to me personally.
That’s been a valuable lesson for me and it sounds as if it is for you too. It’s still hard though. For me anyway. I still have that knee-jerk reaction.
Jim, you really did let me back in — into a place I was positive I didn’t want to go.
No that’s not right. You helped me envision a place I might want to go. It took years.
But you saw my anger, I think, and knew the pain and yearning behind it. Or maybe that’s making you sound too manipulative. Perhaps you were merely my friend. But I haven’t had an evangelical friend without an agenda in so long that I still can’t believe it.
I will never forget when you said to me, “If you have no interest in Jesus, why do you keep bringing him up?”
Benjamin, me too. I thought it would be dishonest somehow. And I’m still not sure that I want to be among that group. But my heritage is such that it’s impossible to be truly unengaged with evangelicals. It sounds as if, like me, you are struggling to find an honest piece of ground to stand on.
Bruce, I think you put it well. “Jesus’ unique approach to life.” In a nutshell that is the answer to a question I think Christians need to be thinking about. “What does Christianity have to offer if it gives up its fear-base and its exclusivity.”
For a long time, I would have said, “Nothing.” But I’m becoming more hopeful as I get a better handle on what my own motivations actually are.
What do you think?
Thank you all. As Jim would say, “I’m honored that you would interact with me.”
Comment by: Helen
9 05/5/08 10:24 AM | Comment Link |Christine thank you so much for doing this interview.
Your answer to “Are you an evangelical?” surprised me and made me smile. So Christianity Today annoyed you into becoming an evangelical…and there I was thinking annoying people never produces converts. I guess I was wrong!
Comment by: pamhogeweide
10 05/5/08 1:33 PM | Comment Link |This made me laugh. In a good way.
I’ve started your book, three chapters deep already. Wow. Your research is painstaking and meticulous. Grueling rewrites…I believe it. What a maze of statistics and polls and surveys you sloshed through to get as true a picture as you could of the condition of American evangelicalism. Your hard work is paying off. A lot of thought leaders in America’s Christendom are paying attention to the spin machine you have uncovered in one of the nation’s most important arena’s of power: Evangelicalism.
No wonder some are decrying your analysis. It doesn’t feel good to be told that the family business isn’t doing as well as it used to. But somebody had to say it. And, well, God gave you the job.
Thanks for doing it so well. You deliver the bad news with respect and honor. That must be because there is still a Baptist girl underneath your skin. (and everybody knows that the baptists are terribly loyal and nostalgic!)
Comment by: Christine
11 05/6/08 10:26 AM | Comment Link |Helen, Your comment made me laugh. It was so well put that I had to repeat it to my husband.
Pam, That’s the nicest thing I’ve heard said about Baptists in long time. Thanks for your support.
Comment by: pamhogeweide
12 05/6/08 2:12 PM | Comment Link |Now that I’m halfway through your book I need to adjust this comment to say, the image of power rather than arena!!!
Oh, Baptists aren’t so bad. Great potlucks and vacation bible school in the summer. When we were kids in Louisiana the VBS bus would pick us up from our front door, even though my family did not attend their church. I don’t remember getting saved that week, but I did enjoy a great Baptist style bbq and potluck with about 400 other kids. And I got a free 8×10 group picture to commemorate the experience.
And a free bible.
Comment by: Elaine
13 05/7/08 5:27 AM | Comment Link |Christine,
I guess the cat is out of the bag with your reporting the numbers. :)
It is interesting to me how shocked people were to discover the “numbers” were inflated - a lot.
I call this “pastor’s math”. When I was on staff at a mega church - I occassionally would help count attendance. If we counted 4,346 - the pastor would say we had 5,000 in attendance. :)
It didn’t seem to matter what the gathering was - every number was rounded up (337 = 400)
Thanks for letting the cat out. She was tired of the bag.
Comment by: Jason Horton
14 05/7/08 9:58 AM | Comment Link |I think we should have more evangelicals like Christine. I don’t detect a shred of pretence, just honest conversation and concern.
I have so many books to read already though. :despairs:
Oh well. :lol:
Comment by: cipher
15 05/10/08 2:00 PM | Comment Link |Christine,
I can certainly understand giving up the fear-base and exclusivity, but, given your itemized list above - no church, no Bible, beliefs aren’t important to God, etc. - I don’t understand how you can consider yourself to be an evangelical. I would see those as core requirements.
(I’m not coming from a Christian perspective - Jewish atheist here.)
Comment by: Helen
16 05/10/08 3:13 PM | Comment Link |cipher, I might be wrong, but I think Christine was being tongue-in-cheek.
Comment by: cipher
17 05/10/08 3:19 PM | Comment Link |Oh!
Comment by: Friendly Atheist » 2008 » June » 04
18 06/4/08 6:08 AM | Comment Link |[...] You can read another interview with the author at Conversation at the Edge. [...]