Soong-Chan Rah is a professor at North Park Seminary in Chicago. He's recently written a book called The Next Evangelicalism: Freeing the Church from Western Cultural Captivity. This video touches on the themes of his book, as he discusses American evangelicalism and the way it has become captive to the culture around it. There is lots of good stuff in here, and instead of trying to summarise it all, I'd encourage you to watch the video. If you've read Andy Crouch's excellent book, Culture Making, you'll hear some similar things from Rah. Likewise, if you've read Jamie Smith's also excellent book, Desiring the Kindgom, you'll appreciate a lot of what Rah has to say as well, particularly his reference to the mall as the centre of American religion. Additionally, Rah's emphasis on the need for the church to recognise the changing demographic's of America is important to understand.

(HT: Anthony Bradley)

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Foppe Ten Hoor was a Dutch immigrant to America, arriving in 1896 and within a few years assuming the role of professor of systematic theology at Calvin Theological Seminary in Grand Rapids, Michigan. There had been a large influx of Dutch immigrants to America between roughly 1850-1900 (successive waves of immigrants would arrive in the following decades as well), many of whom came out of Reformed churches in the Netherlands. New immigrants found establishing themselves in America to be a challenge—not only did many of the battles that divided the Reformed churches back in the motherland carry over to America, but the Dutch were forced to wage an entirely different (and formidable) battle against the encroaches of American culture into their churches and their lives.

James Bratt writes of this struggle in his excellent book, Dutch Calvinism in Modern America: A History of a Conservative Subculture, highlighting Ten Hoor's concerns in particular regarding the gradual Americanization of both the Dutch immigrants and the Reformed churches they established. It would have been difficult to anticipate the challenges they would face in the new world, and soon the Dutch found themselves in a situation which B.K. Kuiper, a contemporary of Ten Hoor, describes as follows:

The overwhelmingly great majority of our fellow-citizens are indifferent or in part even antagonistic to these principles [of the Reformed]. Almost all educational institutions from the highest to the lowest; almost the entire press, daily newspapers as well as periodicals, not only the secular but the religious as well; our courts, our legislatures, organized politics and social life, the pulpits themselves; and therefore almost all public opinion stands arrayed in battle-order against the small circle that yet holds too and nail to the Reformed world-and-life conception.

Like many immigrants in this period, the Dutch had looked to America as a sort of promised land and had been told that there they would find a genuinely Christian land, one that had been spared the athiestic and revolutionary turmoil that had shaped Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries. What they found upon arrival, however, was a Christianity that was shallow, individualistic, and concerned with consequence rather than principle.

Ten Hoor, with many other Reformed leaders, were not optimistic about the new context they found themselves in nor the influence this new culture would have on the Reformed churches. Ten Hoor noted the salient features of American Christianity:

doctrinal indifference, passion for 'programs,' impulsive innovation. Evangelicals replaced catechism with Sunday School, Bible study with prayer meetings, doctrinal sermons with topical discourses. Having sacrificed the intellectual in Christianity, they had to resort to the emotions of the ignorant—revivals—or to the tastes of the respectable—'sound organization' pleasing the businessman and 'social service' pleasing his wife. In each case they imitated 'the world,' whether or mass entertainment, of big business with its mergers and boards, or of charities with their assorted benevolences.

In his estimation, it all boiled down to subjectivity and "I-sovereignty." Americans had a remarkable disdain for authority, unless it was their own. For Ten Hoor it seemed that especially confessional authority, but even Scriptural authority, played a secondary role to the whims of the individual. The end goal in American Christianity was not God's glory, but human happiness, reflected in what Ten Hoor observed to be the basic question that animated the American spirit—"Does it pay?"

For Ten Hoor and the rest of the Dutch Reformed in America, then, the challenge was to resist the influence of American culture on Reformed spirituality and theology. How to resist that challenge, however, was a source of constant and heated debate.

This is interesting to me for two reasons. First, being the grandson of Dutch immigrants on both sides of my family, the story of the Dutch Reformed immigrants in North America is my own story. Second, having now spent several months studying the history of Christianity in America, I find Ten Hoor to be very perceptive in his assessment of American Christianity. Growing up, I often thought that the struggle of the Dutch to preserve a culture and tradition was borne out of nothing more than a lingering superiority complex (those of you who have had the misfortune of hearing a Dutchman proclaim, "If you ain't Dutch, you ain't much!" will undoubtedly feel the same).I have come to realize and appreciate, however, that this struggle goes far deeper than just culture and tradition.

In the end, this was the struggle to preserve a holistic worldview that confessed the lordship of Christ over all. Granted, no unified answer ever came from the Dutch on how to deal with the challenge of American Christianity—some content to withdraw into secluded enclaves that shut the world out entirely, some taking up in earnest the cause of Abraham Kuyper and the neocalvinists to transform culture, and many in between—but there was broad consensus on the problems and concerted efforts among the different parties to address them. Recognizing that to be a Christian meant not only living as a Christian, but also thinking as one, the Dutch were often known for their intellect and wisdom in cultivating both the mind and the heart (the Christian school movement is one such example of these efforts).

The Dutch were well aware that it was a great struggle to be a Christian in this new land. Because Ten Hoor's apt description of American Christianity remains largely true for today, there is much to glean from the insights of the Dutch and their collective struggle to live in a way that acknowledged the sovereignty of God over every part of life. Be sure to read Bratt's book for a much more detailed look at the Dutch experience in America.

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I wrote this review of Mark Noll's book, The Old Religion in the New World, back in January for the research study I'm doing on the history of Christianity in America. Don't feel any obligation to read it—in fact, not doing so will save you from using up ten minutes of your life unnecessarily. The only reason I'm posting it here is to test out how Posterous embeds PDF files. The book, however, unlike my review, comes highly recommended if you are looking for a good introduction to the factors that shaped American Christianity. Go and read the book.

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If you study the history of American Christianity, as I have been doing over the past couple of months, one of the themes that appears again and again is the emphasis on conversion. It is not an emphasis that has faded over time, either—even today many Christians continue to hold to the idea that one must have a definable moment of conversion followed by a decision on their part to follow Christ in order to legitimately be considered a Christian.

In the 18th and 19th century, during a period of revivalism, men like Charles Finney made this emphasis the cornerstone of their preaching. These preachers would constantly urge their listeners to make a decision to follow Christ in the hopes of seeing many conversions take place on the spot, much like the modern "altar call." Predictably, there was strong reaction against this from certain quarters. Back in 1902, for example, the Reformed Church in the United States had published an edition of the Heidelberg Catechism (rather unoriginally titled The Heidelberg Catechism of the Reformed Church in the United States, 20th Century Edition) in which it was made clear that while some people would legitimately be able to point to a time when they first believed, this was not something that every Christian had to articulate (contrary to the opinion of Finney, et. al.). Under the heading "On Confirmation, Catechism, and Conversion," was this:

What are the qualifications for full [communicant] membership?

Answer: an intelligent, cheerful, humble, sincere, earnest 'yes' to the three confirmation vows of repentance, faith, and obedience.

Need I tell you that this fitness is conversion? Some persons, not understanding our church life and customs, foolishly think that we confirm our young people no matter what their state of mind and heart is, and that we do not believe in conversion. This is a great mistake. We require a high degree of fitness for confirmation, namely, an intelligent, sincere, and unreserved taking of three most searching and far-reaching vows in the name of the holy Trinity.

Then, too, this fitness for confirmation may be called 'a change in heart,' though this is only another name for conversion. This change is not sudden, but runs through years. You have not had any wonderful religious experiences, such as you hear about in others; but the Holy Ghost has done much in you in a very quiet way.

Nor need you doubt your conversion, your change in heart, because you cannot tell the day when it took place, as many profess to do. It did not take place in a day, or you might tell it. It is the growth of years (Mark 4:26-28), and therefore all the more reliable. You cannot tell when you learned to walk, talk, think, and work. You do not know when you learned to love your earthly father, much less the heavenly.

This the Reformed doctrine of 'getting religion.' We get religion, not in bulk but little by little. Just as we get natural life and strength, so spiritual life and strength, day by day.

To this fitness, this preparation of heart and mind, you profess to have come. You are about to take your vows, turning your back to the Devil, the world, and the flesh, while you look heavenward. Fix your whole heart upon Christ. Consecrate yourself fully to his service, realizing that with body and soul, in life and in death, you are his.

I found this to be very interesting, not least for its emphasis on the idea that precisely because you cannot point to a specific time of conversion, you should consider it all the more reliable. One did not need a Damascus Road experience to be certain of their faith, for the work of God in the heart of the believer was a gradual, ongoing process. Religion does not come in bulk, it is here argued. What do you think?

*Thanks to my professor, John Muether, for sending this my way.

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The doctrine of sola Scriptura has long been contentious, for any number of reasons. In the early American period, with a Christianity greatly influenced by populism and democratic ideals, it served as a license for people to interpret the Bible free of any traditional authorities such as ordained clergy and confessional standards. To put it bluntly, it gave them a license to do whatever they wanted. Nathan O. Hatch, in The Democratization of American Christianity, observes this:

Any number of denominations, sects, movements, and individuals between 1780 and 1830 claimed to be restoring a pristine biblical Christianity free from all human devices. 'In religious faith we have but one Father and one Master,' noted the Universalist spokesman A. B. Grosh, 'and the Bible, the Bible, is our only acknowledged creed-book.' 'I have endeavored to read the scriptures as though no one had read them before me,' claimed Alexander Campbell, 'and I am as much on my guard against reading them to-day, through the medium of my own views yesterrday, or a week ago, as I am against being influenced by any foreign name, authority, or system whatever.'

Protestants from Luther to Wesley had been forced to define carefully what they meant by sola Scriptura. They found it an effective banner to unfurl when attacking Catholics but always a bit troublesome when common people began to take the teaching seriously. For the Reformers, popular translations of the Bible did not imply that people were to understand the Scriptures apart from ministerial guidance. Thus when dealing with a scholar such as Erasmus, Luther could champion boldly the perspicuity of Scripture, its clarity for all: 'Who will maintain that the public fountain does not stand in the light, because some people in a back alley cannot see it, when everybody in the market place can see it quite plainly?' Yet when confronted with headstrong sectarians, he withdrew such democratic interpretations and admitted the danger of proving anything by Scripture: 'Now I learn that it suffices to throw many passages together helterskelter whether they fit or not. If this is the way to do it, I certainly shall prove with Scripture that Rastrum beer is better than Malmsey wine' (179-180).

Abraham Kuyper once wrote, in his Encyclopedia of Sacred Theology, that it would be foolish for someone to attempt to hike through the mountains of Switzerland without the help of a guide or a map. That is analogous, of course, to saying neither is it wise for someone to take up the Bible and attempt to interpret it apart from the wisdom of the Church throughout the ages. "In its rich and many-sided life, extending across so many ages," Kuyper wrote,

the Church tells you at once what fallible interpretations you need no longer try, and what interpretation on the other hand offers you the best chances for success. On this ground the claim must be put, that the investigator of the Holy Scriptures shall take account of what history and the life of the Church teaches concerning the general points of view, from which to start his investigation, and which paths it is useless to further reconnoitre.

Kuyper's sentiments are entirely antithetical to most of American Christianity, both past and present. As much as democratic ideals have done good things for America as a political entity, insofar as people have allowed those ideals to shape the Church in America, they have done a great disservice. Like I said in my last post, God grants authority to the Church, not the individual. He gives Scripture to His covenant people that it may reveal their Lord and shape and govern their life according to His will. To be sure, the individual must appropriate Scripture for himself (Deut. 6:4-9; Psalm 119; 2 Tim. 3:16-17, etc.), but never in a vacuum.

Our identity as Christians is not primarily that we are individuals saved by Christ. This is true, but it is not primary. What is first is that God has called a people to Himself, has redeemed them and brought them into a covenant relationship with them. Individual believers consitute that people, but not atomistically; their corporate identity as the body of Christ is at the fore. It follows here, then, that our reading of Scripture is to be done in this covenant community and not apart from it. This is not to say individuals should not read their Bibles on their own, of course, but that when they do so they should read it through what Kuyper calls the "consciousness of the Church." The Bible is, after all, God's covenant document with the Church.

When I was in college, Albert Wolters once said something like, "Don't worry, you can't come up with any new heresies. They've all been tried already." I'm not sure if that was intended to comfort us, but the point was that if we set ourselves some theological boundaries and recognize that the Church throughout history has already tried a myriad of interpretations, approving some and disapproving others, we have ourselves a pretty reliable guide as we travel today.

History matters, tradition matters, and the Church matters. They are gifts. Lean on them.

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