I have not been following the story, but Matt Pitt, a youth pastor in Alabama, who started a church called Basement, is in jail for resisting arrest (and before that, impersonating a police officer — anyone willing to jail him for impersonating a minister?) and he has generated a large following from Alabama’s young faithful. You can read about this here.
But what I found striking was this commentary:
When Willow Creek introduced the seeker-sensitive model in the 1970s, the Basement could not have been what it had in mind. The Basement is the ultimate example of seeker-driven services targeted at a very particular audience with an emphasis on the commercialization and commodification of religious practices. As a youth ministry run by a younger preacher, the Basement may signal the next step in the megachurch, seeker-sensitive movement. Combined with new reality TV programs and internet ministries . . ., popular religion is adopting more secular tools to reach larger audiences—and it’s working. Perhaps a better signifier would be plastic religion (rather than seeker-sensitive) for what’s going on at the Basement. In Chidester’s Authentic Fakes, he describes plastic religion as a commodified and flexible, a way to think about popular culture that is “biodegradable” and “shape shifting.” The Basement is unabashedly plastic while also claiming authenticity, which is a cunning way to reconcile the conflict inherent in its MTV/tent revival meetings. Drawing on the televangelist trends described by Bowler in Blessed, with emotional pleas that “ebb and flow” throughout the meeting, Pitt’s ministry takes the appeal one step further and amps up the revival atmosphere with smoke, lights, loud music, hip videos, and a liturgical call and answer that sounds more like a club chant.
If Bill Hybels, who started out as a youth pastor himself and forged a megachurch that would cater to those youth once they became suburbanites, could not have envisioned the Basement, it was only because he was limited to the programming of the three networks and various UHF channels available to U.S. television viewers in the 1960s. But youth culture has always forged a separate religious Christian identity, going all the way back to Jonathan Edwards and Gilbert Tennent, whose revivals drew followers precisely from the adolescent demographic. Sunday School was just another endeavor that isolated a group of Christians (or not) defined by age and tried to cultivate a Christian identity distinct from existing congregations and communions.
This is one case where I am no splitter. Lumping Tennent, Sunday school, Bill Hybels, and Matt Pitt makes perfect sense.
Old Life 
Here’s a clip of this guy preaching. It sounds like any Pentecostal youth group, with a bigger budget:
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Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison—“The Christian must therefore really live in the godless world, without attempting to gloss over or explain its ungodliness in some religious way or other. He must live a ‘secular’ life, and thereby share in God’s sufferings. He may live a ‘secular’ life (as one who has been freed from false religious obligations and inhibitions). To be a Christian does not mean to be religious in a particular way, to make something of oneself (a sinner, a penitent, or a saint) on the basis of some method or other, but to be a man – not a type of man, but the man that Christ creates in us. It is not the religious act that makes the Christian, but participation in the sufferings of God in the secular life.”
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To be a Christian does not mean to be religious in a particular way, to make something of oneself (a sinner, a penitent, or a saint) on the basis of some method or other, but to be a man
Don’t know what to make of this considering my wife is a Christian.
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Just when I couldn’t get any prouder, my 19-year-old married daughter goes and gets a seasonal, weekend gig playing a zombie (a.k.a. the undead) at the local Haunted Forest. And get this, the pay is $5 per hour. The only way It could be any better is if her and her husband hit the road with the carnival.
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My nephew came in a few minutes ago and asked if I had any Sydney Pollack directed movies. He has to watch one for 2nd year junior college English. I gave him” They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?”. Now that’s an interesting assignment.
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Erik, re: zombie daughter — the Vision Forum called…your subscription/membership has been terminated with extreme prejudice.
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But wait…will the she-zombie be wearing a skirt of modest length?
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Erik,
Could be the start of something great! Today, local Haunted Forest. Tomorrow, a regular on The Walking Dead.
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“Erik, re: zombie daughter — the Vision Forum called…your subscription/membership has been terminated with extreme prejudice.”
I thought zombie daughters were right up their alley
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It will be interesting to see where her & her husband end up. He seems to have a different job/ academic interest each week, but he’s always working hard at something. She is studying to be a grade school teacher, which she’ll be great at. When you marry young you’re still growing up, just doing it together.
Not sure what kind of retirement plan they have for people who are already dead. Probably no worse than what they offer to the living these days.
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All the enthusiasm for Zombies these days. Maybe only surpassed by enthusiasm for vampires. Michael Jackson was 30 years ahead of his time.
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The Neocals will surely tell us her zombie-like state is on account of her public school education.
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Mark,
On a semi-related note, I’m curious if Metaxas included that quote in his book on Bonhoeffer…
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“Pitt’s ministry takes the appeal one step further and amps up the revival atmosphere with smoke, lights, loud music, hip videos, and a liturgical call and answer that sounds more like a club chant. ”
If it’s tobacco smoke I’m down with that.
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