INDIVIDUALISM AND THE AMERICAN CHURCH . . .
How American Culture Distorts our Perception of the Church—Part I
by
Pastor Douglas R. Shearer
Written in 1993
Introduction by Doug Krieger
“This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud . . . having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof” (II Tim. 3:1, 5).
The prophetic description given by the Apostle Paul of a Last Day’s culture—imploded, alienated, narcissistic, greedy, violent and, in sum, utterly abandoned to self—appears above and beyond any generation self-consumed upon the globe. An extremity has been reached—hearkening back to a pre-Noahic earth wherein “the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Gen. 6:5).
America, in particular, of all the West—while leading the entire earth into this cultural abyss—has little awareness from whence these apocalyptic contagions spring. Doug Shearer connects the dots—from Luther to Madison Avenue. Shearer’s synthesis is compelling. The disintegration of the American family finds its origins from the dark side of Luther’s Reformation which, on the one hand, liberated the individual from the excessive traditions of a staid Roman Catholicism by introducing personal salvation, but, on the other hand, released the ultimate curses of secularism and cultural alienation. Moreover, the Church’s role was diminished. That initial diminishing released the seeds of ecclesial occlusion wherein the supremacy of the individual trumps the nobler expressions of spiritual authority.
“Evangelicals believe that sanctification is largely a solitary quest for personal holiness. And the church merely helps out along the way. It facilitates. It’s a convenience. It’s an expedient. That’s all. Nothing more. It’s not an important end-in-itself.
“The church is nothing more than simply the sum of its parts. Evangelicals attend a church; they don’t belong to a church. How different is Roman Catholicism - drawing upon its medieval heritage; but how seldom Evangelicals take note of that difference.”
The Tribulation Network commends this seasoned, two-part series to heighten your awareness to “corporate aspects” of the vibrant Testimony the Lord is calling forth in these Last Days. Indeed, apostasy is sweeping through the Laodicean Church—yet He knocks to come within for intimate fellowship with that very Church!
And now . . .
THE CHURCH AND CULTURE
“Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God” (1 Corinthians 6:9-11).
“And such were some of you...” A sobering reminder of our past - of what God has delivered us from! It’s not possible for any of us, touched by the grace of God, to ignore the bondages which once entangled us; but the chains have been broken, the prison doors have been wrenched open, and
we’ve been set free. What joy! What thankfulness!
Still, what exactly have we been freed from? What’s the meaning of the phrase “but ye are washed-sanctified-justified”? At the very least, it means that we’ve been freed from the penalty of our sins. It means, furthermore, that our lives have been set apart unto God; that we’ve been marked out by His Spirit. And, finally, it means that we’ve been granted a new destiny.
But it certainly does not mean that we’ve been delivered fully from the power of sin – at least not in any experiential sense.1
We’re still subject to temptation; we still falter; and occasionally, if not frequently, we still sin. We still wrestle against many of the same fears and
anxieties that plagued us before we committed our lives to Christ.
No, the church is not filled with men and women who have attained a state of “sinless perfection.” Certainly, our lives have been infused with a new power - and we bask in the light of a new hope; but in many respects our
struggles are no different from the unsaved. And in this sense, the church reflects the culture which envelopes it. It is not, of course, a mirror image of that culture; but it is a genuine reflection nonetheless. It’s not rooted in that
culture. It doesn’t belong to that culture. And, of course, its future is far different. But it does display the broad outlines and many of the defining features of that culture.
Inevitably, then, the church is dramatically influenced, though hopefully not dominated, by the same historical forces which shape and form secular society. It’s composed of men and women who are the products of that society – and who still bear the marks of that society – some more than others.
THE DANGER OF A DEBASED CULTURE
It should not prove surprising, therefore, that an exceptionally debased culture poses a grave danger to the church - notwithstanding the spiritual maturity of its leaders. The debauchery which so characterizes that culture is bound to impinge upon the church. It’s all but inevitable. And though the leadership may struggle strenuously and courageously against its impact, it cannot be avoided altogether.
The Apostle Paul himself was acutely aware of the influence of culture upon the church. His epistles to the Corinthian church reflect that awareness. He censures the Corinthian believers for condoning many of the peculiarly corrupt vices of Corinthian society.
But it’s not only vices that Paul warns against. Vices are usually flagrant and obvious - and are ordinarily quite easily discerned. His epistle to the Galatian churches goes further: there he warns believers against adopting the
attitudes of the indigenous culture; and attitudes are far more subtle than vices. Attitudes lurk beneath the surface - and are not easily spotted; but they constitute the intellectual and emotional framework of our behavior. They are the hidden progenitors of our conduct. Paul knew that the prevailing Jewish mind-set was inimical to faith - at least the mind-set that pervaded the synagogues of the First Century.2 And it is that mind-set - and the specific attitudes which comprised it - that Paul excoriates in his epistle
to the Galatians; not conspicuous vices per se, but underlying attitudes.3
Paul’s most telling indictment against the often insidious influence of culture4 is found in his second epistle to Timothy. There he warns against the threat of an especially perverted culture - a culture which will cast its pall over the “Last Days.”
“This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, Traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away” (2 Timothy 3:1-5).
CULTURAL CHANGE AND THE AMERICAN EVANGELICAL CHURCH
What about the impact of culture upon the American church – most especially, the American evangelical church?
In point of fact, American Evangelicalism is undergoing profound changes - changes which are altering its fundamental nature. And, not surprisingly, each of those changes is rooted in a specific on-going transformation of American culture. Old, familiar terms are still used - “salvation,” “sanctification,” “worship,” “prayer,” “authority,” “the gospel;” but the meaning attached to each of those terms is not at all what an older generation would admit to.
It’s possible to boil all the changes down into
one succinct formula: salvation, in its broadest possible meaning, is no longer conceived as a holy and loving relationship with God and, correlatively, fellow believers; instead, it’s conceived as personal empowerment - leading to a state of self-sufficiency – the very antithesis of what the term “relationship” is meant to convey. A fundamental paradigm shift is occurring – and its implications for the church are staggering.
A NEW PERSONALITY TYPE
David Riesman’s seminal study, The Lonely Crowd,5 published in 1950, warned of a new “personality type” then emerging - a personality not driven by internalized convictions, but, instead, by whims - and the irresolute opinions of largely ephemeral peer groups. He coined a graphic term to depict it: “other directed.”
The “personality type” described by Riesman had been noticed by other scholars as well: Eric Fromm in his book Man for Himself; C. Wright Mills in his article “The Competitive Personality,” published in the Partisan Review in 1946; Arnold Green in a ground breaking essay he wrote for the American Sociological Review, also published in 1946. Moreover, each of them, like Riesman, had coined graphic terms to depict it:
Fromm - “the marketer;” Mills - “the fixer;” Green - “the middle class male child.”
Riesman was not inclined to engage in sensationalism; and he carefully noted that “other directed” personalities were not yet predominant in American culture; that they were largely restricted to the upper middle class - and then only within certain major metropolitan areas, most notably New York and Los Angeles.
DEEPER ROOTS
The profile which Riesman delineated actually predates even Fromm, Mills, and Green. It’s antecedents extend back still further – most particularly to Alexis DeToqueville in his epoch study, Democracy in America, first published in 1840. Tocqueville’s description of “the American personality” is startling6:
Americans are shallower, freer with their money, friendlier,
more uncertain of themselves and their values, and finally, more demanding of approval than most Europeans.
American culture, therefore, has apparently always nourished a personality structure somewhat vulnerable to insecurity and not given much to internalizing a well defined ethic; it’s highly susceptible to fads and craves the endorsement of others. And it’s a personality type which has always constituted the raw material of the American church - but far more now than before the Second World War –and infinitely more now than during the 19th Century.
ADDITIONAL CONFIRMATION
Forty three years have elapsed since The Lonely Crowd was first published; and the personality type Riesman sketched out has stood the test of time; it has not only endured, but has become much more sharply defined and ever
more pervasive - to the extent now that contemporary scholars trumpet its ascendancy.
Christopher Lasch, an eminent historian now on the faculty of the University of Rochester, was among the first to note its ascendancy – and he underscored it in 1979 with his compelling study, The Culture of Narcissism.7 Lasch confirmed Riesman’s findings, but added to them as well. He not only stressed the personality traits Riesman had noted, but, in addition, he went on to point out that Americans (1) loathe binding commitments, (2) fear dependency, and (3) often ascribe little significance to loyalty and gratitude.
Clearly, Lasch’s additional traits are not much more than extrapolations of the more basic traits Riesman had highlighted twenty nine years earlier - a point not lost on Lasch. Lasch concluded that the personality type Riesman had so ably portrayed back in 1950 was beginning to assume a pathological dimension; it was no longer benign and innocuous, but, instead, it was bordering on the neurotic.
Lasch’s study prompted a chorus of “amens” from the American psychiatric profession.8 And in 1988, James Masterson, an internationally renowned clinical psychiatrist, Director of the Masterson Institute, and adjunct professor at the Cornell University Medical Center, published his
confirmation: The Search for the Real Self: Unmasking the Personality Disorders of Our Age.
Masterson ratified Lasch’s insights - to wit, that more and more Americans (1) are suffering from an inability to form intimate relationships; (2) are fearful of losing control; and (3) beg the approval of others - often to the point of craving adulation.
Here we have the cultural dynamic underlying the paradigm shift in the evangelical mind-set: a narcissistic personality, not just unable to establish binding commitments, but actually fearful of them, and, moreover, frightened of any kind of dependency, is surely geared toward redefining salvation in terms of personal empowerment.
THE AMERICAN PERSONALITY STRUCTURE AND MASS CONSUMPTION
The “American personality structure” did not just drop out of the sky. It’s largely the result of a culture addicted to mass consumption – and most especially to the manipulative advertising techniques developed to keep consumption levels at a fever pitch. Those techniques feed upon a “personality” that can be manipulated – a personality into which artificially contrived anxieties can be injected - and then exploited to induce enhanced levels of consumption.
“Pimples are ugly - and keep you from being liked. Buy Clearasel. Clear up your complexion - and people will like you.”
“Bad breath is a turnoff; buy Scope and get close up.”
“Clothes make the man - and a suit from Brooks Brothers will go a long way toward assuring you success.”
“Everybody is buying a Ford Taurus; don’t be left out; come on down to Big Valley Ford right away and get with it.”
“Show off! Drive a Lexus. Let people know how good you are. Make them envy you.”
“Fat women are unattractive; but Jenny Craig will slim you down; come on into one of our service centers and lose all the weight you want. A slim woman gets her man.”
There it is. In each case, an anxiety is aroused and a more or less guaranteed solution is extolled. And the result is a purchase. Consumption is kept rolling along - and the economy moves ahead. Investment, which serves to enlarge an economy’s productive base, chases consumption. Consumption is the key - and the more the better.
THE SHIFT TO A CONSUMPTION BASED ECONOMY
Until shortly after the First World War, the American economy was largely investment driven. Consumption was geared to essential needs. And investment could be sustained by simply serving those minimum, essential needs. Investment was primary, and consumption was largely a secondary concern.
However, from about 1920 until the Second World War, the economy underwent a fundamental change. Investment, the key to economic expansion, could no longer be propelled forward by consumption levels linked only to essential needs. Consequently, the American economy began to shift from an investment driven base to a consumption driven base.
Consumption began fueling the engine of the American economy. The Great Depression served only to underscore the importance of the new consumption factor.
A nascent advertising industry developed between the two world wars to pump up consumption levels. But the new industry remained largely primitive and unsophisticated until after World War II. The Second World War, though, lifted the productive capacity of the American economy to unheard of levels; and the end of the war threatened major economic dislocations: peace time consumption levels were hopelessly “out of sync” with the new production levels. Now, more than ever, advertising was critical. Consumption had to be enormously expanded. The “action” shifted from Wall Street to Madison Avenue.
The advertising industry boomed - and its research arm began exploring new “Sell! Sell!” techniques; but always built around the principle of arousing anxiety based upon peer group opinion.
In a very real sense, the advertising industry began not only to probe the dark recesses of the American psyche for “anxiety triggers,” but to go further - to mold and shape an altogether new American personality9 - one even more susceptible to the manipulative techniques of mass advertising. Here we have David Riesman’s “other directed” personality type. Riesman was merely taking note in 1950 of what Madison Avenue’s “busy little beavers” had been fabricating since at least 1945; and it’s what the American evangelical church has been contending with for the past forty eight years - though much more so during the last fifteen to twenty years.
THE EVANGELICAL CHURCH AND THE NEW AMERICAN PERSONALITY
Empowerment. That’s the touted panacea of Madison Avenue. Induce anxiety; then promise empowerment. “Our product will empower you.” “Our service will empower you.” “Our seminar will empower you.” It’s everywhere.
On television; on billboards; in newspapers; in magazines. Everywhere. It’s become the American “zeitgeist.”10
And it’s not just empowerment per se; but self-empowerment. Madison Avenue advertising techniques always stress the “individual,” never the institutional framework which envelopes the individual. And why? Because anxiety is most effectively aroused within men and women who are alienated. Never promise to empower the family, the neighborhood, the club, the school, the town hall. Only the individual. Isolate him; alienate him; cut him off. Then arouse anxiety. And, finally, promise self-empowerment. And it works. That’s the whole point: it’s so marvelously effective.
And the evangelical church has fallen right into step. It’s not that pastors buy into the entire Madison Avenue formula. The best and most mature of them certainly spurn the temptation to actually induce anxiety;11 but self-empowerment techniques are more and more preached from the pulpit and taught in Bible studies - that’s incontrovertible. And perhaps that’s to be expected. After all, the bedrock foundation of American Evangelicalism is the Protestant Reformation. And it’s the Protestant Reformation that launched the intellectual revolution which ultimately produced Madison Avenue. Evangelicalism and Madison Avenue are “kissing cousins.”
What?
THE REFORMATION
Most evangelical Christians are not accustomed to thinking of the Reformation as an intellectual revolution; for them, it’s strictly a spiritual revolution. Luther, Calvin, Zwingli: these are the fathers of a heroic faith - our faith; and their efforts culminated in the rebirth of scriptural truth - so long buried under the weight of a stifling Roman Catholic tradition. It’s not easy for Evangelicals to catch sight of what else the Reformation actually ignited - that, in addition to “sola scriptura”12 and the new hermeneutic it entailed, what it basically led to was the birth of “individualism.”
“Sola scriptura” never extended much beyond the confines of the reformed churches; but “individualism” has crept into every crevice of Western culture - every nook and cranny. It’s everywhere. It’s the organizing principle of Western Civilization - and most especially American society.
Until the Reformation, the intellectual prisms of the West precluded any kind of meaningful focus upon the “individual.” Men and women were part of a larger social and cultural framework; and in a sense they were never really perceived apart from that framework. The “individual” did not stand out on his own, but only as part of a larger social order – a complex network of interlocking institutions – including family, class, guild, manorial estate, government, and, most importantly, church. It was that larger social order - and his place in it - that lent substance to his being.13
There were no inalienable rights that pertained to individuals. Whatever rights and prerogatives men and women possessed were derivatives of the social institutions to which they belonged.
It’s hard to grasp the medieval mind-set; to dust it off and actually put it on; to see through its intellectual and emotional prisms; to “feel” it. It’s so alien to our Twentieth Century temperament. For us, social institutions - church, class, school, business, government – all are artificially contrived. They’re not invested with a life of their own. They don’t breathe; they aren’t genuinely organic; they aren’t really alive.
We don’t think in terms of belonging to any social institution, of being owned by it - in the sense that we’re organically a part of it - much as
an arm or a leg is an organic part of the human body and is meaningful only in terms of the body. For us, it’s not the whole that’s imbued with meaning, it’s the discrete parts which comprise the whole. But for the men and women
of the 16th Century - at the tail end of the Medieval Era - it was the whole that was imbued with meaning, not the individual parts.14
Individualism, then, is less of an ideology than it is a mind-set. Which is primary? The whole or the parts? The intellectual elites of contemporary American culture respond emphatically: “The parts!” And then they focus
our gaze on the parts almost to the exclusion of the whole. It becomes more and more difficult to even catch sight of the whole anymore. It fades so much into the background that it becomes almost invisible.
The only remaining social institution that retains a bit of the old medieval “feeling” is the nuclear family. A family is seldom thought of as an “artificial entity” - put together by its constituent parts - and meaningful only in terms of its “constituent parts.” It’s a living organism; and its members aren’t attached to it, as a wristwatch is attached to an arm; but, instead,
“grow out” of it, much as an arm “grows out” of a body.
We don’t walk away from our families; we don’t bind ourselves together on a contractual basis: “If you do your part, then I’ll do my part. But if you don’t do your part, I’m under no obligation to do my part; and the contract is
dissolved; and our family relationships are terminated.” No, we’re stuck with one another - for better or for worse. Families are based upon a commitment that begins with birth – and doesn’t end until death. And it’s in that sense that they’re living and organic. Individual choice plays no part. It’s all a matter of birth - which, of course, lies beyond personal choice.
It’s hard for us to imagine that every social and cultural institution was at one time suffused with the same organic sense that today permeates only the “family.” It may be hard to imagine, but it’s true nonetheless - not just family, but class, guild, business, government, and, of course, the church. Men and women did not join institutions. That implies “personal choice.”
And choice was not the basis for belonging; only birth constituted a sufficient basis for belonging.
But in one fell swoop, Luther changed all that. What he did was very simple - and to us so obvious; but its implications were revolutionary in every sense of that hackneyed word. Luther insisted that salvation was the product of a
wholly personal transaction between God and individual men and women.
Imagine! Salvation not the product of birth - not guaranteed by the church. Imagine! It’s the product of individual choice - a conscious personal decision.
Here at last - the individual - out on his own - alone before God - with his very soul at stake. Church, class, guild, family - it all meant
nothing. No one could stand in for him; no one could assume the burden of his choice. The decision was his - in stark solitude.
And if personal choice underlay the most important transaction of life, salvation, who could deny that ultimately it underlay all other transactions as well - including class and profession - even the nature and organization of government15 - even the church16 itself?
LOSS OF THE SENSE OF THE SACRED
The medieval mind-set did not collapse overnight; but the process had begun – and Luther had provided the intellectual rationale justifying that process. The bonds of tradition began to weaken. The links of medieval society
began to snap.
The collapse was hurried along by another factor that historians largely overlooked – until Emile Durkheim, a brilliant French sociologist, brought it to light in 1912 with the publication of his masterful study, The Elementary Forms of Religious Life. The Reformation, he pointed out, kindled not only individualism, but, ironically, secularism as well. Martin Luther the father of modern secularism? It’s true. Again, the key here is personal choice - and the shift in focus it effects from the whole to the parts. It’s not the whole that’s impregnated with meaning; it’s the parts. The whole is artificially contrived. It didn’t put itself together; nor did the “hand of God” fashion it - and then drop it down from out of heaven; men fashioned it - here on earth – with little or no help from God.
Class structure, for example, is not God ordained; it’s man-made. And if men made it, it possesses only the sanction that men ascribe to it. There’s no divine sanction underlying it at all. It can be undone, discarded, or modified - with little or no worry about divine retribution. And the same holds true for guilds, government, the manorial estate, and even the church.
Individualism, then, stripped away the holy reverence that had always enveloped social institutions. There it is: secularism.
What a mind-wrencher. Secularism did not spring from the womb of Voltaire, Helvetius, Condorcet, Holbach, or any of the other French philosophes of the 18th Century Enlightenment. It lies much closer to home: Martin Luther gave birth to secularism. He never intended it. But it happened nonetheless. In a very real sense, Luther is to blame for the corrosive spirit that’s desecrated every social institution of the Twentieth Century - and is now eating away at the foundation of the nuclear family itself. Certainly, he would never have carried it to the extremes reflected in the Enlightenment. But, in any case, the Enlightenment is not the “bête noire” that evangelical Christians have made it out to be. It was merely the broom that swept away the debris left behind by Luther’s Reformation. It merely spun out, over two and a half centuries later, the corollaries implicit in Luther’s fundamental axiom: personal choice.
LUTHER’S TWO CHILDREN
Like Abraham, Luther fathered two children: his Isaac is “justification by faith” and the evangelicalism17 it led to almost four hundred years later; his Ishmael is the “profaning spirit of secularism.” And like Isaac and Ishmael, the two have never ceased to wage war against one another. Every evening, the major news networks broadcast the latest episode of the ongoing struggle - from Operation Rescue to school prayer to gay rights. Isaac pitted against Ishmael - both the product of individualism.
SECULARISM WITHIN EVANGELICALISM
But has secularism somehow worked itself into the body of Evangelicalism itself? Is it possible that Evangelicalism itself is infected? The answer is, “Yes.” But how? Where? The answer is so obvious that we’re forever missing it: It’s found in our perception of the church.
Evangelicals have never developed an overarching theology which provides for a biblically accurate ecclesiology. Our ecclesiology has always been deficient. Why? Because our Reformation perspective has so effectively locked our focus onto the parts rather than the whole.
The church is not believed to be truly essential. It possesses no life of its own. Evangelicals “church hop” incessantly. There’s little sense of family. Little sense of being bound organically to other believers; of being genuinely knit together with others to form a corporate whole. That’s an almost alien notion.
Evangelicals believe that sanctification is largely a solitary quest for personal holiness. And the church merely helps out along the way. It facilitates. It’s a convenience. It’s an expedient. That’s all. Nothing more. It’s not an important end-in-itself.
The church is nothing more than simply the sum of its parts. Evangelicals attend a church; they don’t belong to a church. How different is Roman Catholicism - drawing upon its medieval heritage; but how seldom Evangelicals take note of that difference.
But it doesn’t stop there. There’s no sense of the sacred either. And how can there be? If the church is merely an expedient, how can it be imbued with a sense of the sacred? There’s no wellspring of respect and reverence that church officers can draw upon. The church’s vaults are empty of that kind of almost mystical homage. The Reformers never made that kind of deposit - nor was it even possible to do so. And if they command any respect at all, it’s only the respect they can muster on the basis of their own personal charisma. It’s fertile ground for leadership based upon manipulation. Again, how different is Roman Catholicism – drawing upon its medieval heritage; and, again, how seldom Evangelicals take note of that difference.
Luther’s stress upon the individual is scripturally appropriate for conversion - for the deeply personal choice that leads to justification. But is it an appropriate paradigm for sanctification - for the continued walk of the believer following justification? Of course it isn’t. Paul’s description of the church is wholly organic.18 The church is far more than the sum of its parts. It’s far more than merely a useful expedient.
But Evangelicals can’t see it. It’s virtually invisible.19 Roman Catholicism is far closer to the truth.
THE EVANGELICAL CHURCH AND “OTHER DIRECTED” PERSONALITIES
The evangelical church, therefore, cannot very effectively minister to the alienation that afflicts “other directed” personalities. It furnishes no genuine counterweight. It’s easy – far too easy - for evangelical pastors to buy into self-empowerment techniques - gimmicks which promise a cure, but which almost invariably serve only to accentuate the underlying anxiety. Look closely at Evangelicalism - and, all too often, what you’ll catch sight of is Madison Avenue. “Elmer Gantry” is not that far off the mark. And neither is its more recent counterpart “Leap of Faith” starring Steve Martin. To be sure, both are caricatures; but there’s a whole lot
truth behind those caricatures.
THE FINAL ASSAULT OF ALIENATION
There’s more here, though, than just Madison Avenue techniques and Luther’s Reformation. There’s another dynamic at work as well. It’s a dynamic that touches men and women “up close” and in the “gut.” It’s the continuing disintegration of the family. And for the last thirty years or so it’s been at this level that alienation has been most forcefully injected into the American psyche.
Almost 80 years ago, Robert Frost intoned, “The family’s where you go when no one else wants you.” Family was a sanctuary; a haven; a refuge. All other social institutions were fast becoming impersonal bureaucracies staffed by experts - and pointed toward well defined, rationally calculated goals. Management technique was based upon “cost effectiveness.” Organizational linkages were intentionally stripped of affection and reduced instead to a mere “cash nexus.” Neither management nor labor stressed personal loyalty based upon a sense of mutual respect and organic attachment. The bottom line for both was the “almighty dollar.” Employees were mere ciphers, moveable parts, modular units - to be shifted around or discarded at will. There was no thought of a predefined organic wholeness.
MODULAR UNITS - A NEW WAY OF THINKING PRODUCES A NEW ART FORM
Modular units, moved about at will – perhaps the best single concrete reflection of alienation. It has been carried over onto every level of human consciousness - even onto the level of artistic consciousness. Picasso’s art reflects it. His human figures are composed of “modular units” moved about at random - not bound by any thought of the whole. A nose is haphazardly attached here, an ear there, etc. The parts are all present, but not fit together according to any holistic principle. The integrating significance of the whole has been intentionally discarded – leaving many of his paintings looking like shards of broken glass.
Picasso perfectly reflected the alienation that was tightening its grip on western culture at the beginning of the Twentieth Century. That was his genius. Picasso, though, never quite captured the horror of that alienation. That was left to Edward Munch. His painting “The Scream” sends shudders through the soul of every man, woman, and child born since 1900. Each of us resonates to the dread it portrays. And what it so dramatically portrays is the insanity that alienation leads to – the horrifying solipsism it produces. Likewise, the absurdity produced by alienation is the subject of the surrealists – who transformed even space and time into “modular units.” The whole flow of “modern” art is easily discerned when set against the backdrop of the individualism Luther unleashed.
1. Perhaps in some teleological sense, but surely not experientially.
2. I am not here suggesting that the message of the Old Testament is antithetical to faith - only that the rabbinical interpretation of the Old Testament message had become distorted. That’s incontrovertible. Nor am I suggesting that all Jews embraced the distortions taught by the rabbis.
3. There are many other examples that could be cited; but one other that leaps to mind is found in the first several chapters of the Book of Romans – and once again its focus is the First Century Jewish mind-set - and the hindrance it poses to faith.
4. Not all cultural attitudes are harmful and insidious; indeed, though some Christians may find it surprising, occasionally a specific cultural mindset
can actually facilitate the dissemination of scriptural truth. A classic example is the very effective role Greek philosophical categories played in combating many of the heresies which characterized the first several centuries of the church’s history. Greek philosophical categories were of inestimable value in elucidating the subtle but all important nuances of (1) the Trinity and (2) the two natures and one person of Christ.
5. Riesman, David The Lonely Crowd. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1963 (first published 1950)
6. Reisman’s summary description of DeToqueville’s study.
7. Lasch, Christopher The Culture of Narcissism.
New York and London: W. W. Norton and
Company, first published in 1979; but republished
in 1991 as a Norton paperback.
8. The “amens” were, however, somewhat belated. Initially, psychologists and psychiatrists tended to miss the point Lasch was trying to make. Consequently, his study was at first dismissed as merely a commentary on the “Me Generation” of the late 1970s and early to mid 1980s. It took several years before his study was taken seriously and his insights appreciated.
9. The task of fabricating a new American personality was perhaps not as difficult as might first be surmised. After all, Tocqueville had already taken note, a century earlier, of a personality structure not at all dissimilar to Riesman’s observations in 1950. It’s possible, therefore, that Madison Avenue was merely pressing to the fore what was already there.
10.A wonderful German word - so marvelously descriptive. It means “spirit of the age.” Jacob Burckhardt, a towering intellect of the 19th Century, borrowed the term from Hegel’s Lectures on the Philosophy of History - and, subsequently, transformed it into a mode of historical research. He used it as the basis for his monumental study, The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy.
11.Though, tragically, this isn’t always true - especially concerning “tithing.”
12. "Sola Scriptura" was the battle cry of the Protestant Reformation. It's a Latin phrase - and it means "The Scriptures Only." The Reformers refused to honor the pronouncements of the Pope - and balked at ascribing to Roman Catholic tradition the same level of sanctity it reserved for the Bible.
13.C.f., Max Weber’s The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. C.f., also Dilthey, Burckhardt, Troeltsch, and Cassirer – especially Cassirer’s The Individual and the Cosmos in Renaissance Philosophy. But perhaps the best study is J. Huizinga’s The Waning of the Middle Ages.
14.Burckhardt puts it well: “Man was conscious of himself only as a member of a race, people, party, family, or corporation - only through some general category.” (Italics mine.) Jacob Burckhardt, The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy, Penguin Classics, published by Penguin Books, 1990, p. 98.
15.It’s in this sense that the “Social Contract Theorists” must be read. Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, George Berkeley, David Hume, and, of course, that enigmatic and transitional figure, Jean-Jacque Rousseau - all draw upon the perspective first brought to light by Martin Luther. For the
first time in the history of mankind, a theory of government was being propounded which rested ultimately upon the primacy of the individual. And Luther’s finger prints were everywhere. Imagine! Government is based upon individual men and women consenting to a social contract. Unthought of! Unheard of!
16.All Protestant churches rest upon forms of government and organizational principles which presuppose the primacy of personal choice. Church government is wholly inorganic, not at all the organic forms of the Roman Catholic tradition.
17.Our Evangelicalism, i.e., the Evangelicalism that arose following the liberal realignment of the Presbyterian Church and the tragic collapse of Princeton Seminary. Princeton Seminary had been the fountainhead of conservative Protestant theology here in America during the 19th Century. Charles Hodge (1797-1878) and Benjamin Warfield (1851-1921) were its preeminent representatives. In 1921, Warfield died, and the mantle of leadership fell upon John Gresham Machen (1881-1937). But eight years later, in 1929, Machen resigned - because the seminary’s board of directors refused any longer to endorse the fundamental tenets of conservative theology. That same year, Machen helped to found Westminister Theological Seminary. Finally, in 1935, the rift was made irremediable: the Presbyterian Church USA found him guilty of insubordination and forbade him to engage in ministry.
Princeton had been the last remaining bastion of an older network of theological seminaries - including Yale, Harvard, etc. Its collapse marked the end of an era. A whole new network of seminaries arose to take its place - dedicated to continuing and reaffirming conservative Protestant theology - with one important difference: the new network was composed of scholars who, for the most part, were premillennialists - and, unlike scholars of the older network, believed that eschatology was a vital topic of study. C.f. David Rausch.
18.For example: For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ. For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit. For the body is not one member, but many. If the foot shall say, Because I am not the hand, I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the
body? And if the ear shall say, Because I am not the eye, I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the body? If the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where were the smelling? But now hath God set the members every one of them in the body, as it hath pleased him. And if they were all one member, where were the body? But now are they many members, yet but one body. (1 Corinthians 12:12-20)
19.I’m aware of only two Evangelicals who have managed to put together a somewhat adequate ecclesiology: Michael Griffiths and Watchman Nee. In the case of Michael Griffiths, his book, Cinderella with Amnesia, has aroused some interest, but has provoked almost no change at all - either here in America or in England. And in the case of Watchman Nee, his many books and tracts have all been tainted by their association with Witness Lee’s “Local Church Movement.”
Note:
This paper was presented by Pastor Doug Shearer of New Hope Christian Fellowship of Sacramento, California, to a leadership gathering at a meeting of the Conservative Baptist Convention held in Portland, Oregon June 29, 1993. The meeting was attended by Dr. Earl Radmacher, former President of Western Conservative Baptist Seminar; Dr. Gerry Breshears, President of the Evangelical Theological Society of America and Professor of Theology, Western Conservative Baptist Theological Seminary; Dr. James Sweeney, Provost, Western Conservative Baptist Seminary.
