Category: Evangelicalism

Is Warren Cole Smith an Evangelical?

Published on by D. G. Hart28 Comments

On the one hand, the associate publisher of World Magazine warns about people who call themselves evangelical but aren’t:

3. Not everyone who calls himself an evangelical is an evangelical.

We have an old saying in my part of the South: “Just because my dog sleeps in the garage, that doesn’t make him a pick-up truck.” Just because a blogger calls himself (or herself) an evangelical doesn’t make it so. You don’t have to vote Republican or go to a particular church, but you gotta believe in that stuff in #1 above, or you’re something else. Beware of “progressive evangelicals” who claim to speak for evangelicals but who, upon examination, reject core doctrines that evangelicals find essential.

On the other hand, Mr. Smith looks like a fairly progressive evangelical himself:

2. Jerry Falwell wasn’t the first evangelical.

In fact, when Jerry Falwell started out, he wasn’t an evangelical, but self-consciously fundamentalist — and there was (and is) a difference. Church historian Phil Johnson credits William Tyndale with first using the word “evangelical” in 1531, when Tyndale wrote this: “He exhorteth them to proceed constantly in the evangelical truth.” The great Catholic martyr Sir Thomas More used the phrase a year later to describe Tyndale and other Protestant Reformers. The great missionary movements of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were evangelical in character — think of the great evangelical statesman William Wilburforce, who fought against the slave trade in Great Britain.

In short, evangelicalism has a long history and is not a recent suburban American phenomenon.

5. Evangelicals are generous.

Virtually every reputable study, from Arthur Brooks’ book Who Really Cares? to the annual Empty Tombs, Inc. survey on church giving to the work of sociologist Bradley Wright, comes to the same conclusion: theologically conservative evangelical Christians give more money to charity than do theologically liberal Christians and non-Christians. And they don’t just give to evangelical Christian organizations. Liberals and non-Christians talk a good game when it comes to income equality or “social justice,” but evangelicals, not Episcopalians, are keeping the food banks of America alive.

6. Evangelicals love LGBTQIA people.

We are not homophobes. We are homophiles. Our churches welcome LGBTQIA people with the same message we present to all others: “Come as you are . . . but leave transformed.”

7. Evangelicals love the arts.

Ok, it’s true: our music mostly sucks. And so do our movies. At least, the music and movies we’ve made for the past 30 or 40 years. But not all of it, and it hasn’t always been so. I’m astonished and inspired when I see Kent Twitchell’s massive murals of Jesus on the public spaces in Los Angeles. Or Makoto Fujimura’s remarkable abstract expressionist paintings in chic Chelsea art galleries. Or hear anything by Bach.

Sure, contemporary evangelical writers, musicians, and artists are producing a lot of kitsch, but so are non-Christians. (You can’t blame the Kardashians and Honey-Boo-Boo on evangelicals.) And I predict that 100 years from now, if the Lord tarries, Christians will be singing Keith Getty’s and Stuart Townend’s “In Christ Alone” in the same churches that continue to sing Martin Luther’s “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God” and perform Handel’s “Messiah” at Christmastime.

8. Evangelicals are pro-science.

I support this assertion by noting that the rise of the scientific method and some of the great technological advancements of Europe correspond with the rise of evangelicalism in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries. In our own day, Frances Collins (who leads the National Institutes of Health and led the Human Genome Project) is open about his Christian faith.

Evangelicals have endured the slanderous label of “anti-science” in recent years because of our skepticism about politically correct theories regarding the origins of man and climate change. In these arenas and many more, evangelicals joyfully go where the science takes us. But when ideology hijacks science — that is, when the pursuit of a point of view outruns logic, history, data, and reason — we rightfully object, and so should all who love pure science.

9. Evangelicals value quality education for all.

Because evangelicals operate most of the private schools in the country, and because most of the nation’s two million homeschoolers are evangelical Christians, we are often accused of being anti-public education and of having abandoned the public schools. That is simply not true.

For one thing, I state the obvious: evangelicals whose children do not attend the schools still support them with our tax dollars even though 100 percent of those dollars go to other people’s children. Secondly, most Christian schools I know about are generous with scholarships for those who would not otherwise be able to afford the school.

But the key point is that evangelical commitment to quality education for all means we do not support the government having a monopoly on education. The real threat to quality education for all is the near monopoly of the government-run education system, not the small-but-vibrant private Christian and homeschool sector. Private Christian education and homeschooling are the way up, not the way down.

10. Evangelicals are diverse and tolerant.

Evangelicals have never been, and are certainly not now, old white Americans. By some estimates, China has 30 million evangelical Christians. Some countries in Africa and South America have evangelical majorities. Here in the U.S. you can find millions of Hispanic evangelicals. That diversity is the result of — and has led more deeply into — a culture of tolerance evangelicals don’t get credit for.

No one values the free and honest exchange of ideas more than evangelical Christians. The Bible teaches evangelicals: “Come, let us reason together” (Isaiah 1:18). We take that idea seriously. However, evangelicals believe mere tolerance is a low standard for those called to the much higher standard of love. Tolerance says, “Put up with those different from you.” Love says, “Help them achieve God’s highest and best.” (See #6 above.) Further, evangelicals see nothing tolerant in an ideology that brands any and all dissenting ideas as “hate speech.” Neither do we believe that tolerance demands us to view all ideas, beliefs, or behaviors as equally true and valid. Evangelicals believe some ideas are good and true and some are bad or false. Saying so does not make one a bigot.

So hipster evangelicals are not progressive evangelicals. As if I needed additional reasons for not reading World. Journalism is not cheer leading or re-branding.

Piece o' Cake?

Published on by D. G. Hart79 Comments

Not only can Christians put sin to death, they can also take charge of email (and more and more and more). Tim Challies explains how.

Here’s point 7 out of 9 on the sin front:

#7. BATTLE
Battle hard against the first awakenings of that sin. Never, ever allow yourself to play with sin. Never think you will sin this far, but no farther. Do not toy with sin. Do not think you can control your sin and allow only so much of it. If you do that, sin will win every time. The very second you feel that sin awakening within you, slam it down with all your force and all your strength. Cry out to God in that very moment. Call for help from other Christians in that very moment. Sin is like water held back by a dam; the moment there is even a small crack in that dam, the weight of the water pushing against it will blow a hole right through it, and the entire structure will collapse.

Email may not be as significant as sin but it prevents us from glorifying God (which is a form of sin, right?) and requires a similar set of instructions:

I have said that productivity is effectively stewarding your gifts, talents, time, energy, and enthusiasm for the good of others and the glory of God, and to this point I have suggested many different ways of doing that (You can see a series round-up at the bottom of this article). Our topic for this article is taming the email beast.

I think we all have a love-hate relationship with email. On the one hand email brings many good things—it delivers exciting news, encouragement from friends, and fun little notes from family members. It also has immense practical value—it delivers confirmation that the ticket order went through, or that the book we want is on sale. But, of course, there is a dark side as well—the endless spam, the email discussions that go on for far too long, the newsletters we didn’t sign up for, the chain letters promising bad luck if we don’t forward it to twenty more people. Email has become a mess of function and dysfunction. We need it, and yet we hate it.

Is this what Christian counseling sounds like?

Tim Challies’ advice may be helpful on fronts both trivial and sublime (though I usually expect more from Canadians). But I find it troubling to see a mechanical approach to both the gadgets of this earthly existence and mysterious depths of the sin-plagued soul. For the sake of New Calvinism and in the interest of taking such an expression of Calvinism seriously, I suggest that Challies try to sound less like Martha Stewart and more like Paul (“oh, wretched man that I am”).

Is This What A McDonald's "Chef" Says To Himself?

Published on by D. G. Hart48 Comments

That’s the analogy that Kevin DeYoung and Ryan Kelly’s brief for the Gospel Coalition brought to mind. They begin by asking:

Should Christians who share many of the most important theological commitments partner across denominational lines for mutual support and collaborative ministry? Are there historical precedents for the kind of gospel networks we see flourishing in evangelicalism today? How do popular extra-ecclesial gospel partnerships work (or not work) in the current U.S. church scene?

They answer (oh the suspense), yes, and more helpings from the Gospel Coalition, please:

We have no desire to spend our days as apologists for man-made ministry acronyms. If every organization in this article disappeared tomorrow, the gospel would keep going out and Christ would keep building his church. The question is not whether any of these partnerships are essential. The question, at least for us, is whether they help to support what is essential. Do they serve the local church? Do they help pastors? Do they defend the truth? Do they preach the gospel? Do they get people into their Bibles? Do they provoke people to pursue holiness? Will someone who gets deeply involved with the conferences, the resources, the websites, the documents, and the teaching of these networks end up more committed to the church, more engaged with Scripture, more sure of what they believe, more precise with doctrine, more equipped for reaching the lost, more passionate about the nations, and more delighted with the glory of God in the face of Christ? If the answer is a yes—or even a qualified yes—then for our part we are eager to see these movements flourish and eager to partner with those similarly concerned for and similarly committed to the same gospel.

The problem here is whether “ministry” can really happen outside the church or the context of a worshiping community that has clear lines of responsibility among members and their officers. In other words, is it not possible for Kelly and DeYoung to see that an outfit like the Gospel Coalition provides a meal — it is real food, yes — but a fast-food version of it. People who eat at McDonald’s are not going to be healthy if that is all they eat. People who only eat at McDonald’s have only a commercial relationship — the sales staff at McDonald’s doesn’t know my name and pays me no visit to find out if I’m eating regularly at home. I could also easily take my fast-food eating elsewhere — say to Burger King (Together for the Gospel) or Wendy’s (Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals) or In-and-Out-Burger (White Horse Media). But if I dine elsewhere, what does it cost me or McDonald’s except for some kind of numerical or accounting? Plus, does the staff at McDonald’s ever teach me how to cook, what to look for in the food I buy, the value of exercise, or how to set up a kitchen?

No.

But who does? Well, my mother did, which may be why we call the church our mother. Pastors regularly provide a sumptuous feast every Lord’s Day and then come along side to see if I am eating at home. They also provide instruction on how to read the Bible (cook for myself). And best of all, pastors and I have a relationship cemented by vows. Those ties are not always pleasant, sometimes boring, and maybe not thrilling in the Passion Conference sense (which since we are in the ballpark of analogies must be similar to the thrills of X Men though I wouldn’t know never having submitted to the gimmicks of its special effects). But those relationships are substantial and sustaining.

What is troubling then about the folks who cook up gatherings like the Gospel Coalition is that they don’t seem to understand the difference between spiritual fast food and ministerial slow food. And they don’t even seem to sense that the conveniences of fast food may not be healthy for those eaters who already have the rich fare of a local and disciplined congregation. I mean, if Gospel Coalition was providing spiritual fast food for a nation of starved eaters, then maybe their menu is the best they can do. But that isn’t the case. In fact, as Kelly and DeYoung admit, the designers of TGC are already pastors in congregations and denominations where real ministry already happens, where Christians are truly fed and instructed. So why would they purposefully offer an inferior product? Or could it be that they believe their product is superior?

If so, I’d like to know when Tim Keller takes Kathy out for their anniversary if they go to Jack in the Box.

Does My Local Church Have the Authority to Contradict George Whitefield?

Published on by D. G. Hart12 Comments

A recent survey indicated that 90 percent of evangelicals think the local church has no authority to declare whether a person is a believer. The responses from evangelical leaders indicated that upwards of 90 percent of those with authority in the church think the church has authority. Go figure. Here are a few of the responses (and notice the failure to invoke the “keys of the kingdom”):

Jesus charged the church with responsibility for its members. Those who are not behaving as Christians are to be held accountable, and the ultimate form of accountability is church discipline where someone who refuses to repent of known sin is removed as a member. J. Carl Laney, Bible professor, Western Seminary

Of course the local church has this authority. This is actually its responsibility, and it is exercised by every congregation that requires a credible profession of faith for membership—though the church cannot declare this with eternal certainty. R. Albert Mohler Jr., president, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

Many U.S. evangelicals think not. But historically, the church clearly has the right to say someone is not living in harmony with the gospel and to separate from them. And if being a Christian includes membership in the community of faith, then this does call their salvation into question. Brad Harper, Bible and theology chair, Multnomah University

As glad as I was to see these responses even if no one appealed to the keys — Protestants wonder how Peter could have monopolized them when he had so little to write for holy writ — I had to wonder how these evangelical leaders would have responded to George Whitefield’s sermon “The Kingdom of God” where he asserted:

The kingdom of God, or true and undefiled religion, does not consist in being of this or that particular sect or communion. . . . Again, as the kingdom of God does not consist in being in this or that sect, so neither does it consist in being baptized when you were young. . . . take care that you do not make a Christ of your baptism . . . . [N]either does [the kingdom] consist in being orthodox in our notions, or being able to talk fluently of the doctrines of the Gospel.

Say what you will about Whitefield and the qualifications he tried to make, his understanding of the new birth pulled the plug on the work of the institutional church — church membership, sacraments, and catechesis, for starters. So when will evangelical leaders understand that in backing the new birth outlook of a Whitefield or a Billy Graham, where church membership, doctrine, ceremonies are merely external matters that don’t fathom the import and depth of internal realities, they have sown the seeds of the laity’s disregard of church leaders?

Reformation Day Sobriety Test

Published on by D. G. Hart12 Comments

Travels and responsibilities from a former life have taken me to Wheaton College this weekend for the closing public events of the Institute for the Study of American Evangelicals. I directed the place from 1989 to 1993 and learned much from the Institute’s senior directors and many programs. In reflecting on my time at the Institute the past few weeks, I recognized that much of the literature on evangelicalism has accentuated the positive, from the upbeat corralling a disparate group of Protestants under the seemingly tidy umbrella of evangelical to telling stories of evangelical figures or institutions that have been filled at times more with wonder than woe. This positive disposition certainly goes with evangelicalism more than with Calvinism. Having Jesus in your heart is a different mindset from remembering your sinfulness and the need for a savior. But this sunny side of evangelical history may also explain the need I felt to hit back with Deconstructing Evangelicalism.

Enough about me.

During my perusal of Wheaton’s campus I came across a display by the French department on — of all things — the Reformation, Reformation Day and all that. Among the factoids on the brochure that audience members of the booth could take away was this one about Protestantism in France (would we call it “evangelical”?):

Today, the nation of France practices religious tolerance. However, the majority of French citizens consider religion to be a private affair. In spite of this, the number of Protestant churches in France has been rapidly growing since the 1800s; there are approximately 600,000 practicing Protestants in France today.

To evangelicals used to reading of up to 35 percent of Americans identifying as evangelical (roughly 120 million), that seems like a paltry figure. From the perspective of the little old OPC which continues to hover around 30,000 members, the France figures seem like a hades of a lot. But to keep it all in perspective, the figures from sixteenth-century France may be the most relevant. Considering that Reformed Protestants had captured 10 percent of the kingdom’s population, which numbered roughly 15 million Huguenots, 600k looks pretty feeble.

So to all those celebrating the Reformation today, drink to console your sorrows.

Can We Reach Them (and Can We Afford To)?

Published on by D. G. Hart33 Comments

Are sounds of doubt and uncertainty beginning to echo out of the Big Apple?

First, Tim Keller writes a book notice on Matthew Bowman’s The Urban Pulpit: New York City and the Fate of Liberal Evangelicalism. Although he sounds confident that New York City now has churches who teach “historic orthodox doctrine” and are “also intellectually robust and socially engaged,” he also seems worried.

There are at least 100 churches that we can discern that have been begun over the last 20 years in center city New York (and some older churches renewed) that are closer to the older kind of Christianity that used to flourish here. However, we too face the issue of a culture that is not interested in what we have to say. How do we reach them?

Add to that the recent reflections of an Englishman, Andrew Wilson, about Christianity and the churches in New York and you begin to wonder if all the money spent on Redeemer PCA is going to amount to much (aside from pastoral celebrity):

One of the pastors at Redeemer Presbyterian Church was interviewed on his/their ways of doing youth ministry. His first comment was that, because it is hard to believe in New York City – only around 3% of Manhattan is made up of evangelical Christians, although it is closer to 8-9% in the other boroughs – they affirm doubt. They acknowledge the force of objections to Christianity, and encourage people simply for being in the city and remaining Christian, because they recognise how hard it is. . . .

although the Christian world has mostly heard of Tim Keller and Redeemer, they are tiny in the city. (One of their assistant pastors said that Dimas Salaberrios, an Ethiopian pastor from the Bronx who spoke at the conference, is more well known in the city itself than Keller, even though most Christians outside the city have never heard of him.) A church of six thousand in eight million is a drop in the ocean. But another pastor mentioned the disproportionate influence they have had, simply by demystifying and detoxifying the city for evangelicals. “If they weren’t there, we could never do what we’re doing,” he said. . . .

New York seems both incredibly exciting and incredibly difficult as a place to live, and to plant and lead churches. The energy, creativity and diversity of the city are unparalleled, but the city is less Christian than the rest of the nation (in contrast to London, which is more Christian than the rest of the UK), and the pressures on price and space are even more intense in Manhattan than they are in other global cities. The fact that Manhattan is a separate island makes a big difference here: in London, you can lead a church in the West End, live in Brixton and have your offices in Fulham – and some previous contributors to this blog do – but in New York the equivalent is virtually impossible, because it would mean living, working and leading on three different islands. I’ve just mentioned the six-person family in a two-bedroom flat, and church premises are just as extortionate: many churches share their buildings with (at least) one other congregation, and the one recent building purchase I heard about cost $50 million. (By way of comparison, Kings Church London just opened their newly refurbished building in Lee, which used to be a school, and it cost them around £6 million.) All of which makes church planting here spiritually demanding, financially challenging and emotionally draining, but also exhilarating and rewarding.

If these comments reflect a trend, then they may signal that if you can affirm doubts about Christianity to show you are not a Stepford Christian, you are also allowed to have second thoughts about TKNY and Redeemer PCA.

Mark Driscoll is to Ray Rice . . .

Published on by D. G. Hart38 Comments

what Tim Keller is to Roger Goodell.

At least that’s how TKNY’s quotation in the New York Times story about Driscoll occurred to me:

A front-page story in The New York Times on August 23 had suggested that Driscoll’s empire was “imploding.”

“He was really important—in the Internet age, Mark Driscoll definitely built up the evangelical movement enormously,” Timothy Keller, the senior pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York, told the Times. “But the brashness and the arrogance and the rudeness in personal relationships—which he himself has confessed repeatedly—was obvious to many from the earliest days, and he has definitely now disillusioned quite a lot of people.”

So like the NFL with Ray Rice, the gospel allies knew about Driscoll’s antics well before his pseudonymous comments went public. I know I have blogged about this before, but where was Kathy Keller with her b-s detector on this one? Why didn’t the most gospelly guys in the room warn the rest of the Christian world about Driscoll’s problems?

Maybe they need to take a page out of their savior’s playbook and call people (especially religious leaders) “fool” or “hypocrite” once in a while. If they want to start with me, their move.

What Must I Do to be Left Behind from Evangelicalism?

Published on by D. G. Hart150 Comments

I have long complained that evangelicalism is one of those associations from which it is impossible to extricate yourself. Ron Wells, one of the editors of The Reformed Journal, used to joke that he would be glad to return his evangelical membership card but didn’t know where to send it. The bigger joke may have been the idea that evangelicals actually issued membership cards. It’s one thing to be on a mailing list. It’s another to belong to a duly constituted body.

John Fea proposes thirteen questions for determining whether you are an evangelical. I paste them below and offer my own answers:

1. Do you attend a church of over 2000 people? I suppose this refers to a congregation, in which case I say no. But I do go to a church — the OPC — that is small but not that small. The lesson may be that evangelicalism has a bias against connectionalism (read presbyterian polity).

2. Have you studied at, or do you work at, a college that identified itself as a “Christian college?” Yes, but only for a year. What happens if I transferred to a secular university? Does evangelicalism still claim me?

3. Have you seen the rapture movie A Thief in the Night? (I could have probably asked if they read the Left Behind series of novels by Jerry Jenkins and Tim LaHaye). I have seen the movie. It was part of the cinematic fare of my home congregation’s youth group. But what if I now vote strongly against any proposal before session that calls for our OPC congregation to show the movie?

4. Have you been to any of the following Christian Bible conferences: Word of Life, Camp of the Woods, Harvey Cedars, America’s Keswick, Sandy Cove, or Rumney Bible Conference? (Remember, this is an east coast group) Not only have I been there, but for two summers I worked in the kitchen at Sandy Cove and sang tenor (one summer) and bass (another) with the Sandy Cove Choralaires (we even performed the Ralph Carmichael Christian teen folk musical, “Tell it Like it Is” at the affiliated youth camp, Hilltop Ranch. (I’m still in recovery.)

5. Did you vote for George Bush in 2000 or 2004? Yes, but I still don’t sense corporate guilt.

6. Have you been on a short-term mission trip? Does doing something Christian outside the United States count? How about teaching at a seminary in Brazil?

7. Have you attended a Billy Graham or other evangelistic crusade? Yes and yes. I am pretty sure my parents took me to the 1962 Philadelphia Crusade. And in 2002 we went to the San Diego Crusade under the false pretense that this would be the evangelist’s last. I still worry that I am on some terrorist organization’s list for having attended a Crusade (and for having rooted for the Wheaton College Crusaders before they became the Wheaton College Thunder.)

8. Have you read Josh McDowell’s Evidence That Demands a Verdict? Hallelujah! No.

9. Have you read something by C.S. Lewis? Darn! Yes.

10. Do you listen to Christian radio? Yes. But let me explain. I generally have on the radio as background noise. For most of the week it is Sports Talk Radio (from Philadelphia). This drives the missus batty and keeps me near the dog house. In the car I listen to NPR. On Sundays I stream Family Radio in the background. It is all about nostalgia. My parents had on Family Radio during the whole week. It is one way I remember my parents and treat the Lord’s Day as a day set apart. You get occasionally a good hymn.

11. Do you have a Thomas Kinkade painting in your house? Hades, no.

12. Have you read Rick Warren’s The Purpose Driven Life? Yes, but it was for a review in Modern Reformation (when it had an edge).

13. Do you read or subscribe to Christianity Today? Yes, but not for edification and I place my hands over my eyes.

Fea speculates:

I then told them that if they answered yes to more than half of these questions there is a good chance that they might be an evangelical.

It looks to me like I have at least 8 yes answers. That makes me an evangelical. It also tightens my jaws.

I wonder if John should change his questions to something like, “do you still do or recommend X, Y, or Z”? I wonder too if I’ll ever be delivered from being an evangelical? You write three books critical of born-again Protestantism and you find you’re still part of the tribe. Is this how Garry Wills feels about Roman Catholicism?

Calvinism without Charisma

Published on by D. G. Hart38 Comments

Donald McLeod makes astute observations about the real danger of the so-called New Calvinism: it is clueless about worship. McLeod writes (thanks to our southern correspondent):

. . . just as the grey squirrel threatens our native reds with extinction, so this brash New Calvinism threatens our historic Scottish Calvinism. It will eat us up, just as American signal-crayfish eat up our native species.

The biggest threat is to our native from of worship, the key-note of which has been a sense of awe in the presence of the infinite and the holy; and linked to this, in turn, an insistence on order. This was something that the Reformers inherited from the early church fathers and from the mediaeval Catholic Church and, Reformation or no Reformation, they refused to let it go. This is why many of us today would feel far more at home in a High Church service than in a modern Evangelical one; and this is why every Reformed church, including the Church of Scotland, had its Book of Common Order, reflecting the conviction that public worship was far too important to be left to the whim of the individual minister. They could preach and pray as the Spirit moved them, but they would have to sing from an authorised psalm-book, follow a common order for Baptism and Communion, and incorporate the Lord’s Prayer and the Apostles’ Creed into their weekly services.

Beside this lay another fundamental principle: it was God’s prerogative to tell us how he wished to be worshipped. Hence the much-derided ‘simplicity’ of Calvinist worship: no vestments, no incense, no altar, no images of the saints, no pictures of the Virgin, no kneeling at Communion, all excluded because we had no reason to believe that God ‘enjoyed’ them. That was the only relevant consideration.

With the New Calvinism, the dynamics change and Calvin becomes but a dim shadow. Instead, there is a curious mixture of the Five Points, 16th century Anabaptism, 18th century revivalism, 20th century Pentecostalism, sophisticated marketing, the latest technology, and high-decibel music.

McLeod is right. The test for Calvinism is worship.

Creatures of Habit

Published on by D. G. Hart13 Comments

Just watch students over the course of a semester. They have free wills to choose whichever seat they want. After the first week of classes, they have found the seat from which they will not depart for the rest of the semester. It is “his” seat. We have no need for assigned seating. We create our own assignments.

The same applies to worship. Liturgy repeats itself even in the most anti-liturgical of sectors of Christendom. Just ask Randall Balmer:

The biggest change in evangelicalism is its worship, which has become almost formulaic. Virtually every evangelical gathering these days opens with “praise music,” which generally consists of simple lyrics and a lilting, undemanding melody — all led by a “praise band” or “worship team” consisting of guitarists, a keyboardist, a drummer and several vocalists clutching microphones. The music is hypnotic. Members of the congregation raise their hands in the air, and the singing seems to last forever. As my friend Tony Campolo says, five notes, three words, two hours.

The second part of evangelical worship is the sermon or, as evangelicals prefer, the “message.” Whereas the preachers in my youth wore suits and neckties, the standard these days is jeans and T-shirts, and probably a nest of tattoos. If the first part of the service is “feel good,” the second part is “be good.” Again, it’s formulaic. Sometimes it’s a political sermon disguised as theology, but more often the preacher enjoins the congregation to behave, to adhere to evangelical standards of morality, which are usually expressed in negative terms, with a heightened emphasis on sexual behavior. And then, with a prayer and maybe another song, it’s over.

What’s missing here? When I attend evangelical gatherings these days, I generally leave asking myself, What was “church” about that? I sang a few songs and listened to a sermon, but where was Jesus? Yes, the preacher may have invoked his name a couple of times, but in the absence of the Eucharist or Holy Communion, evangelical worship these days strikes me as barren.

Whereas Episcopalians or Roman Catholics believe in the “real presence” of Christ, that they encounter Jesus himself in the bread and wine of Holy Communion, most evangelicals take a dim, even dismissive, view of the sacraments. At most, they offer communion once a month or even once a quarter, and the bread and wine (actually, grape juice, a hangover from the temperance movement) merely remind us of Jesus.

So are the habits good or bad?