Light Brings Salt
Volume 3, Issue 34
Iron Range Bible
Church
Dedicated to the Systematic Exposition of the Word of God
Newsweek's
Search for Spirituality
Dr. Albert Mohler
[The thrust of this article is really
A recent issue of Newsweek magazine
features an extensive series of reports on American spirituality. Taken
together, these articles demonstrate something of the eclecticism,
superficiality, and diversity of the American spiritual scene. For evangelical
Christians, the article should serve an important purpose by helping us to
understand the current contours of our mission field right at home.
Newsweek sets its cover
story in contrast to a now famous
Newsweek understands
that the times have changed. "Nobody would write such an article now, in
an era of round-the-clock televangelism and official presidential displays of
Christian piety." But Newsweek sees something else behind TIME's article. The 1966 TIME cover story didn't even
consider what was going on beyond the liberal Protestant denominations. Henry
Luce's TIME was, in Newsweek's analysis, obsessed "with the experience of
a handful of the most prestigious Protestant denominations." Accordingly,
"no one looked for God in the Pentecostal churches of
Newsweek now documents
the fact that the "angst-ridden intellectuals in TIME, struggling to
imagine God as a cloud of gas in the far reaches of the galaxy, never did sweep
the nation." Instead, the years after 1966 saw the nation involved in
various waves of religious and spiritual fervor. This era saw the rise to
prominence of groups such as Pentecostals and the development of a vast
evangelical network of schools, churches, and ministries. The Southern Baptist
Convention grew dramatically in terms of both numbers and influence. All this
after TIME's intellectuals declared that God was
slipping from the scene.
Nevertheless, Newsweek
documents the fact that the religiosity and search for spirituality that
currently marks American culture does not represent a return to orthodox forms
of Christian belief. "Whatever is going on here, it's not an explosion of
people going to church," Newsweek reports. Even as megachurches
gather thousands to their services, attendance reports submitted by churches
reflect the same basic percentage of Americans attending services from 1966 to
the present. A falloff in attendance has actually been noted among
African-American churches, "for whom the church
is no longer the only respectable avenue of social advancement."
Instead of a return to
orthodox patterns of belief and discipleship, Americans have found their way
into a playground of various "spiritualities." Newsweek's cover
story, "In Search of the Spiritual," documents the fluid and eclectic
nature of the current quest for spirituality. Increasing numbers of Americans
are turning to forms of Buddhism, Paganism, eco-religion, and Jewish mysticism.
The magazine reports that the Web site Beliefnet
sends more than eight million daily e-mails, each containing a spiritual
message, to more than five million subscribers. These five million subscribers
include 460,000 who receive a Buddhist message, 313,000 who prefer the Torah,
268,000 subscribers to "Daily Muslim Wisdom," and 236,000 who receive
a "Spiritual Weight Loss" message.
The diversity of
American spirituality does not stop there, of course. The current interest in
Paganism reflects an entire spectrum of various beliefs and practices.
"Even nature-worshipping Pagans are divided into a mind-boggling panoply
of sects," the magazine reports, "including Wicca, Druidism,
Pantheism, Animism, Teutonic Paganism, the God of Spirituality Folk and, in
case you haven't found one to suit you on that list, Eclectic Paganism."
Significantly, Newsweek
links the current rage for eclecticism with "a degree of inclusiveness
that would have scandalized an earlier generation." Indeed, the magazine
commissioned a poll that indicates a vast embrace of inclusivism, with eight in
ten Americans--including 68 percent of those identified as
evangelicals--indicating the belief that more than one faith can lead to
salvation. Newsweek notes that this "is most likely not what they were
taught in Sunday school."
Sociologist Alan Wolfe
of
By nature, Americans
are a "can do" people, and Americans "like the idea of taking
responsibility for their own souls," Newsweek explains. Thus, even when
Americans embrace a path like Buddhism, they tend to do so in their own
American way. As the magazine explains, "In most Buddhist countries, and
among the immigrants in
Newsweek's report
introduces readers to individuals like Bridgette O'Brien, a graduate student in
the
The awkwardness evident
when Americans clumsily take up the practices of others is graphically--and
humorously--depicted by Madonna's recent embrace of Kabbalism,
a Jewish method of devotion that focuses on esoteric wisdom drawn from early
Jewish texts. David Blumenthal of
The impression left by
the total package is of a nation that increasingly embraces soft and
self-centered forms of spirituality even as it rejects more demanding forms of
belief. Contemporary Americans are rejecting hard-core secularism, but most are
not embracing orthodox Christianity. To the contrary, they see spirituality as
a means of self-development and as an avenue for expanding the consciousness.
They want to get in touch with the universe and with their inner selves, but
are not particularly concerned to know what the Creator would demand of them.
The forms of
spirituality that form Newsweek's focus are often packaged like consumer
products, complete with seminars, conferences, books, and just-add-water forms
of religious experience. The ideological secularism of the elites may not be
shared by grassroots Americans, but increasing numbers of our neighbors are
dabbling in the occult, leaning into mysticism, and inventing their own forms
of spirituality.
All this serves to
remind evangelicals that our missiological task is
more complex than ever before. Our commission remains the same--to bear witness
to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. In order to do that faithfully, we have to run
against the grain of the contemporary bent toward "spirituality."
After all, Jesus did not set His Gospel alongside other truth claims as one spirituality among others. Instead, he described
Himself as the way, the truth, and the life, and insisted that no man comes to
the Father, "except by Me." [John 14:6]
For Christians,
Newsweek's cover story should motivate us to greater faithfulness in Gospel
witness--knowing that most of the people we will meet consider themselves
"spiritual." Spiritual,
but lost.