These Aren’t the Religions You’re Looking For: Jedi Church, Postmodern Spirituality and the Christian Response

The UK census recently made a splash in the international media, but it was largely sensationalistic, focusing on the identification of many with the religion of Jedi Knight. In a guest post at Timothy Dairymple's blog at the Evangelical Channel of Patheos, I argue that Evangelicals should put this phenomenon in its broader cultural and religious context, and then offer several points for consideration.
An excerpt from the essay:

According to the Office for National Statistics in the UK, 59 percent of the population in England and Wales identified themselves as Christian, 25 percent as “No religion,’ followed by very small percentages representing Islam, Hinduism, Sikhism, Judaism, and Buddhism. Those identified as “Jedi Knight” ranked fifth on the survey, and Spiritualist, Pagan, Atheist, and various Pagan spiritualities are represented as well. Significant shifts are present in this data, with Christianity dropping from 71 percent of the population in 2001 to 59 percent in 2011. In addition, there has been a rise in those reporting no religious affiliation, moving from almost 15 percent to 25 percent. The number of Muslims also saw an increase, as did the number of those identifying as Pagans.

Given this data, it is curious as to why the media chose to focus on those identifying with Jediism, particularly since this self-identification has decreased, and there are critical questions about whether this represents a spiritual self-identification for many, or an attempt at toying with the census results.  The emphasis on the exotic spirituality of Jediism to the neglect of other elements of the survey and its broader context obscures the significance of the changing religious landscape, not only in the UK, but in the West as well.

Traveling to Trinity International University Conference

Tomorrow morning I leave for Deerfield, Illinois and the international conference on new religions and post-Christendom spiritualities at Trinity International University. I will be out of town through Sunday and as a result will not be blogging. The plenary sessions for this conference will be made available over the Internet via live webcast. Click here for the details.

Look here next week for posts related to conference reflections.

Gordon Lynch on the New Progressive Spirituality of the Religious Left

Gordon Lynch has quickly become one of my favorite authors. Lynch is Professor of Sociology of Religion at Birkbeck University of London, and in my estimation, he is one of the more perspective and balanced scholars writing on religion and Wesern culture. Previously I had enjoyed reading his book After Religion: 'Generation X' and the search for meaning (Darton, Longman & Todd, 2002) which discusses not only cultural and spiritual considerations related to Gen X, but which also includes discussion of Lynch's own spiritual journey as he migrated out of evangelical faith in the U.K. (see my previous interview with Lynch on this book's thesis here.) I have also enjoyed his contributions to the study of religion and popular culture, including Understanding Theology and Popular Culture (Blackwell Publishing, 2005), and his most recent work in this area as editor of Between Sacred and Profane: Researching Religion and Popular Culture (I.B. Tauris, 2007). Last night I finished one of his contributions to religious and cultural studies in the form of The New Spirituality: An Introduction to Progressive Belief in the Twenty-first Century (I.B. Tauris, 2007). As the back cover of this book describes, The New Spirituality addresses the "opposite" of the "Religious Right" in the form of "the emergence of a new generation of progressive religious thinkers and organisations on the 'religious left'. The New Spirituality is one of the first books to give a comprehensive and authoritative analysis of this burgeoning progressive religious movement."

Lynch identifies four key concerns identified with the New Spirituality that include: 1) "the desire for an approach to religion and spirituality that is appropriate for modern, liberal societies," 2) "the rejection of patriarchal forms of religion and the search for religious forms that are authentic and liberating for women," 3) "the move to re-sacralize science (particularly quantum physics, and contemporary theories of cosmology)," and 4) "the search for a nature-based spirituality that will motivate us to try to avert the impending ecological catastrophe."

The author discusses the New Spirituality over the course of six chapters. The first looks at the roots of progressive spirituality which have connections to a long and rich tradition within the West, but which have also "been particularly shaped, though, by a range of cultural and intellectual movements that have become increasingly influential on western religion since the 1960s." The second chapter looks at the ideology of progressive spirituality that emphasizes "a lived ideology" where action is emphasized as much as thought. This ideology involves three aspects, including a notion of the divine as ineffable, immanent, pantheistic/panentheistic; and strong senses of nature and the self that are sacralized. Chapter 4 addresses how religion has changed in western societies with the rise of modernization. This chapter is extremely helpful as it summarizes the overlapping but different understandings of various scholars from differing disciplines as to their interpretations of this social, cultural, and religious phenomenon. Chapter 5 looks at the debate as to perceptions of demoralization in the West and how progressive spirituality is to be understood within the context of this debate. Chapter 6 concludes the volume with Lynch's discussion of what the future might hold for progressive spirituality.

This volume is significant for Christians in that not only does it discuss a popular, influential, and increasingly well organized and intellectual alternative to the Religious Right, but it also describes a spirituality that in some ways has developed in reaction to perceptions of the shortcomings if not outright failures of conservative expressions of Christianity. As Lynch describes this:

"The form of religion that is most commonly rejected by progressive spirituality is, as we have already noted, hierarchical religion grounded in a belief in a personal God who is removed from the cosmos. William Bloom refers to such forms of religion as being based on the idea of God as 'General in Command' or 'Chief Executive Officer'. Such religion, it is argued, is authoritarian - dictating what kinds of beliefs and lifestyles its adherents should follow. It is patriarchal - using its power structures to reinforce certain assumptions about who should hold power and what kinds of gender and ethnic identities, or sexual orientation, are more inherently valuable than others. It is rigid and inflexible - asserting timeless doctrines and moral codes without asking whether these are meaningful or constructive in a modern context. It inserts the need for religious authorities and institutions for mediating the divine rather than allowing people to pursue their spiritual search on their own terms. It devalues embodied experience and makes us suspicious and guilty about sexuality. It removes the sacred from the cosmos, and in doing so leaves a desacralized world ripe for capitalist, industrialist exploitation. It places salvation in a life and context above and beyond this one, rather than seeing the cosmos as the only real context in which issues of life and death, salvation and grace are worked out. Because of this, it is argued, traditional hierarchical religion has little to offer by way of a framework for an authentic spiritual search or to inspire constructive responses to contemporary problems." [emphasis mine]

In light of these concerns among advocates of progressive spirituality as well as increasing numbers of people in the West who would not directly identify with the progressive spiritual milieu, I believe this book should be considered esential reading for those attempting to understand a significant aspect of Western spirituality, particularly Christians interested in living and articulating a form of spirituality that avoids or at least appropriately accounts for negative perceptions of prevalent expressions of Christianty in the western world.

The Death or the Reappropriation of the Mythic God? - Revised and updated

Last week I was reviewing various magazines and books at my local Barnes and Noble, and an article listed on the cover of the October-December 2007 issue of What is Enlightenment? magazine caught my eye. The article is titled "The Death of the Mythic God" by Carter Phipps, which involves an interview with Jim Marion, a former Catholic monk and author of The Death of the Mythic God: The Rise of Evolutionary Spirituality (Hampton Roads Publishing, 2004). The article begins with a summary of modernity's impact on Western civilization in the general decline of Christianity with the perceived sense of its waning credibility, accompanied by the increase in interest what were once "fringe" or "non-traditional" spiritualities such as new religious movements, "New Age" or New Spiritualities, and various Eastern philosophies and religions.

The interview begins with this foundation having been laid, and in Marion's view this signals not only a credibility gap in Christianity and certain conceptions of God and religious pathways, but also a shift in human evolution to a new form of spiritual consciousness. As Marion describes it:

"Over the last fifty years -- probably longer, but especially in the last fifty years -- modern psychology has shown that people progress in consciousness from one level to another to another, and every time you go up a level in consciousness, your worldview changes. That includes your idea of who or what God is. So a person who operates, for example, at a rational level of consciousness has a very different idea of God than a person who operates at a mythological level of consciousness. The average person in the West, and probably in the East, too, has basically conceived of God in mythological terms for most of the last three thousand years."

For the purposes of clarification Marion goes on to define a mythological concept of deity as "a conception of God as a ruler, a punisher, a patriarch -- all of the traditional male symbols of God. This God actually intervenes at times in human affairs, and, if we pray, creates miracles."

I find this interview of great interest for a number of reasons.

First, the article correctly notes the cultural, social, and religious state of affairs in the Western world wherein Christendom culture has collapsed and various forms of once alternative spiritualities have now moved toward the center, at least in terms of influence and credibility for spiritual exploration for increasing numbers of people. Those Christian workers ministering within this environment still seem not to have taken notice of the import of this new context for ministry, including those in the emerging church movement. New contextualized expressions of Christian community will have to adequately wrestle with all the facets of late modernity/postmodernity, and not only the epistemological ones. For whatever reasons, several important facets of Western cultural change still don't show up on Christian radar.

Second, Marion's metaphorical description of the death of the "mythic God" is interesting in that while traditional expressions of Christianity are indeed struggling in the West as noted above, the conceptions of God in these forms of Christianity do not equate in general to the stereotypes that Marion puts forward. Surely some people at various times in history, both in the past as well as in the present, may have conceived of the Christian God in such terms, but not as a general concept. I hope that Marion's book is more thorough than the magazine interview in interacting with historical sources and good academic materials on Christianity in the West in order to support his views. Beyond this, it would be one thing for him to argue in this fashion in relation to Christianity, or even the broader Abrahamic monotheistic religions in general, but in the interview Marion expands this claim to encompass not only the "Western myth of what God is," but also also "the Eastern cultures, they also have a lot of mythological miracles." Marion's negative assessment of religious beliefs with the death of the mythic God and the dawning of a new religious consciousness seems to impugn not only Western Christendom, but also a great many cultures and their conceptions of the divine in the East as well. I understand that Christians are many times perceived as arrogant with their exclusive claims to religious truth, but Marion seems to provide a similar example of arrogance from the perspective of the New Spirituality. We have only now, with the rise of Western spiritual thinkers modifying Eastern philosphy and spirituality, been able to evolve to a place of accurate and adequate views of God and spirituality?

Third, and this is where I'd like to focus my post, I think Marion has got it all wrong in terms of the death of the mythic God and his hopes for a new evolutionary consciousness. Perhaps we could hold onto our shovels for just a little while longer to see if the mythic God can rise to the tune of the funeral dirge so many are playing for the divine. I think this is certainly possible, but only with a return to and embrace of the concept of the mythic God, not in Marion's stereotypical conceptions, but rather, a God of mythos properly construed for our times in the West.

In my thinking one of the mistakes of Western Christendom was an uncritical embrace of modernity. With this came a desire for scientific credibility in an age that esteemed the rational. Thus, the theological agenda of the church focused on issues of biblical inerrancy and the Bible's creation story. While these debates were important and understandable in light of the cultural and social circumstances in which they arose, nevertheless, in a desire for intellectual credibility in the marketplace of modernity's ideas something of the mystery, wonder, magic, and even the mythic was lost in Christianity and its conception of God, nature, and Christian spirituality.

I recently greatly enjoyed my reading of Craig Detweiler and Barry Taylor's A Matrix of Meanings: Finding God in Popular Culture (Baker Academic, 2003) and found much that I resonated with, and much that supports my thinking in this post. The authors quote sociologist Zygmun Bauman and note that he called modernity "a war against mystery and magic." They also note the church's need to recover "big mythological truths," and state that the church can "obsess over the lost truths of traditional dogma or embrace the much, much larger picture." In their view this would include recapturing a re-enchanted sense of Scripture and the Christian story after years of demythologizing in response to modernity, and they conclude by saying "[a]t the end of all the demythologizing arises a profound commitment to remythologizing our culture and our faith."

In our age where people hunger for powerful stories and narratives to live by, and where fantasy, science fiction, and yes, even horror are increasingly popular, often functioning as mythic stories that facilitate a spiritual quest, it seems to me that what Western Christianity desperately needs is not a retreat from the mythic God, but a resurrection of a mythic God for late modernity. Perhaps it is time to turn to our artists and other mythmakers to help us rediscover this conception of God in our experience and the pages of our Scripture so that the Spirit of myth which entered history in Jesus of Nazareth may be communicated in fresh ways in our time.

Interview with Gordon Lynch: "After Religion: 'Generation X' and the search for meaning"

Gordon Lynch is Professor of Sociology of Religion at Birkbeck College, University of London, and the author of four books addressing different aspects of religion, spirituality and contemporary culture. He has previously trained as a counsellor and taught counselling studies for four years, before moving on to lecture in practical theology at Birmingham University. He has a range of interests in contemporary culture, and also has a Masters’ degree in Art and Design History. He was the co-founder of the UK Research Network for Theology, Religion and Popular Culture and is co-chair of the Religion, Media and Culture group within the American Academy of Religion. His most recent book (just out in June) is The New Spirituality: An Introduction to Progressive Belief in the Twenty-First Century (IB Tauris, 2007).

Morehead's Musings: Gordon, thank you for agreeing to answer some questions for this interview. I was intrigued by your book After Religion: 'Generation X' and the search for meaning (Darton, Longman & Todd, 2002). You begin this book somewhat autobiographically as you share your own story of growing up Evangelical in the U.K. only to lose your faith. Can you summarize some of your personal story?

Gordon Lynch: It’s hard to summarise this briefly, but essentially like many other people, I found that the Evangelical culture that I lived in didn’t grow as my experience of myself and the world did. In my case, I became much more conscious of issues of suffering and how it was hard to reconcile what I heard and sang about God in the Church with the realities of many people’s lives. I totally accept that for some people these tensions can be resolved within the Evangelical tradition, or Christian faith more generally, but for me, once I’d started to question things I found that this eventually left me outside the mainstream of the Christian tradition. This was a slow process, taking several years to work through. In terms of where I am now, broadly speaking, the ideas that I’ve been writing about in The New Spirituality represent the religious milieu that I’m more comfortable with.

MM: Can you also tell us something about your academic background, where you received your training and what academic posts you have held and currently hold?

Gordon Lynch: Like many people interested in religion and contemporary culture, I’ve had quite an eclectic background with degrees in theology, counselling psychology and art/design history, from universities in Durham and Birmingham in the UK. I think that getting a handle on contemporary religion and culture demands an inter-disciplinary approach, and that sharp social analysis requires us to engage with theories and methods that we wouldn’t necessarily get simply on traditional theology degrees.

MM: In the book you set the social and cultural stage for the first chapter titled "After Religion?." Can you describe the differing attitudes to traditional religion and Christianity in the U.K. and the United States? And do you see any general trends towards the types of spirituality that people seem to be moving toward and experimenting with that might be at odds with traditional church experiences?

Gordon Lynch: This is a really big question. To put this briefly, in the USA there is much more residual connection to institutional religion in the UK. In the UK, only around 6% of the population attend church on a regular basis and this will probably fall a bit more for demographic reasons in the next couple of decades. People are also more likely to say that they are not religious (or spiritual) in the UK than they are in the USA. However, under the surface there may be more similarities. Two recent studies of youth attitudes to religion and spirituality – one in the USA, Soul Searching by Christian Smith and Melissa Denton, and one in the UK, Making Sense of Generation Y by Sara Savage et al – actually came up with very similar findings. These were that young people, regardless of what their formal connection to religion was, actually placed little emphasis on religion in their lives. In Smith and Denton’s terms, where young people did think about God, God featured as a divine therapist only to be sought out in times of trouble, and as someone who rewarded good people with heaven when they died. God or religion played little active role in these young people’s sense of meaning and identity – their sense of meaning and value seems to come from elsewhere.

In terms of spirituality beyond institutional religion, I’ve actually become much more sceptical about how widespread this is. The numbers of practising Wiccans and Pagans in the UK and USA are tiny, for example – probably just over 1% in the USA at most. Similarly when Heelas and Woodhead measured the number of people actively involved in alternative spiritualities in the town of Kendal in the UK (which has a relatively thriving alternative spirituality scene), they found that only 1.6% of the population were involved. I suspect that the reason why Mind-Body-Spirit sections of bookstores have grown is that people who buy books in that genre tend to buy lots of books of that kind. Similarly, surveys of bookstore genres suggest that there are roughly similar numbers of specialist alternative spirituality bookstores to specialist comic bookstores. In terms of the wider population, these are pretty minor scenes. I suspect that in the UK, the default position is for people not to be interested in spirituality at all, and in the USA where people are interested in spirituality they’re most likely to combine with this some form of Christianity (albeit it mixed in with some elements from other traditions).

MM: You point out in your book that "Generation X" is often defined by a certain age range through date of birth. But you take exception to this. Can you briefly describe the influences on your thinking here and touch on your suggestion that Gen X might more helpfully be thought of as a mindset? And can you summarize the various qualities that you see exemplifying Gen X?

Gordon Lynch: I’m personally not sure how useful the term Generation X is now, because it’s too in-grained in people’s minds as a description of a particular generational cohort (i.e. ‘baby-busters’ born between the early 1960’s and late 1970’s). My scepticism about this was fuelled when I read an interview with Douglas Coupland (the author of the novel Generation X in which he lamented the way in which a certain ironic, detached yet longing approach to life that he portrayed came to be depicted as the attitude of a whole generational group. I wrote After Religion at quite an early stage of my thinking about these issues, and I wouldn’t even talk in terms of a "Generation X" set of attitudes now. People are more complex than this, and its probably more of a priority for missiologists to think about the very different ways in which people find meaning, value and purpose in life – and the spiritual horizons they construct for themselves – rather than trying to construct generalized patterns of ideas and values. Having said that, Ronald Inglehart’s work on post-materialist values is worth thinking about as a reflection of a contemporary shift in values, as in Paul Heelas and Linda Woodhead’s work on the turn to the self in their book, The Spiritual Revolution.

MM: In one section of the book you talk about the post-evangelicals and the emergents within evangelicalism. Why do you see this as an important facet of late modernity and the Gen X mindset?

Gordon Lynch: In After Religion, I was trying to describe an approach to faith which was critical, sceptical of pre-packaged ideas, yet also wanting to find forms of meaning that connected with contemporary cultural life. These emphases definitely underpin the currents that led to Dave Tomlinson publishing his very influential book The Post-Evangelical in the mid-1990’s in the UK, and we’ve also seen these concerns coming more to prominence in the USA in the emerging church movement of recent years. I think it’s not surprising that if people engage with advanced educational resources and a media critical of received truths, then these emphases will be brought into the life of faith communities. This has got to be a good thing. One of the underlying points in my book Losing My Religion? is that churches can sometimes not be good environments for adult learners, in which they are able to connect their changing experiences with their religious context. If churches want people to think exactly the same thing in ten years time as they think now, then they close down people’s capacity for ongoing reflection and development, and this is intellectually and emotionally stifling.

MM: In the past I read Tom Beaudoin's book Virtual Faith: The Irreverent Spiritual Quest of Generation X (Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1998). You interact with Beaudoin as you discuss the relationship between Gen X and popular culture, but you disagree with his thesis that popular culture serves as a "Scriptural text". Can you describe your view in contrast with Beaudoin's, and how might we properly recognize the significance of popular culture and the role it plays in the social and spiritual expressions of Gen X?

Gordon Lynch: My criticism of Virtual Faith there was that Tom had moved too quickly from his own interpretations of popular culture to assuming that this was how other people would interpret popular culture as well. There are problems with this, though. For example, I used to set a classroom assignment in which students would watch the video of REM’s "Losing My Religion" and then read Tom’s interpretation of it. Hardly any of them interpreted it in the same way that Tom did. This shows that, as scholars, we need to be careful that what seems to us to be obvious readings of popular culture may not be obvious to other people. In academic terms this has led to growing interest in the "turn to the audience"; actually going out and studying what sense and uses people make of popular culture, and not assuming for instance that just because there are religious symbols in The Matrix trilogy that people who watch those films actually see any religious significance in them. This can be a big shift for people trained theologically who are used to interpreting texts, rather than studying what audiences actually do with those texts, but it’s a really important area to develop. Incidentally, I know Tom well and it’s worth saying that he wrote Virtual Faith when he was doing his MA, which was an amazing achievement. Tom agrees with that criticism about the lack of attention to audiences in Virtual Faith. I think he’s also one of the most innovative and interesting young theologians working in the USA today.

MM: In the final chapter you discuss the place of God and traditional religion such as Christianity in relation to Gen X. You mention how many have moved beyond a consumerist approach to spirituality and now seek "to live with a sense of meaning, value and mystery." Can you describe the alternative approach to thinking about God that you discuss in this chapter and how this differs from a traditional Christian conception and an atheistic view as polar opposites?

Gordon Lynch: I think what I was suggesting there was that some people are drawn to a mystical faith, grounded in their experience of nature and the body, rather than to atheism or more orthodox, doctrinal religion. It’s an idea that’s developed much more fully in David Tacey’s book, The Spirituality Revolution. I have to say, now, that I think that’s slightly wishful thinking on my part. When I subsequently developed more research on the mainstream club scene, I found very little evidence of this mystical spirituality, and more evidence of a general concern with personal development and well-being, and the quality of friendships and intimate relations. As I’ve suggested earlier, interest in spirituality beyond institutional religion is a relatively small cultural scene. I might be sympathetic to it, but numerically it’s not huge.

MM: How has your thinking developed since the book After Religion was written?

Gordon Lynch: I think some of the previous answers will touch on this. One thing is that I’ve developed a much greater regard for paying attention to the fruits of empirical research. Theologians and missiologists are too often guilty of making broad claims about cultural changes and patterns without looking to see whether empirical data actually supports these claims or not. This is a shame, as it means that some theological truisms (e.g., about post-modern culture) fail to do justice to the complex ways in which different people live their lives today, and fail to account for how different social variable and structures shape the horizons within which people live their lives. In a similar vein, I hope I’ve learned to separate out what I wish was happening in the contemporary religious landscape from what is actually happening. I think I’ve also become more cautious about how easy communication is between religious and secular views, and in my next bit of work I want to try to encourage some more constructive dialogue there than is currently taking place, courtesy of Richard Dawkins, etc.

MM: Gordon, again, thank you for taking the time for this interview. You have given readers a lot to think about as they attempt to live out a spiritually meaningful life in the late modern West, and there is much here for evangelical reflection as well.

Gordon: Thanks John, pleasure to take time for this.

Searching for Utopia

Last week I spent some time in the local Barnes & Noble bookstore and as I perused the titles of various magazines the cover of What is Enlightenment? magazine caught my eye with its cover theme of "Searching for Utopia: Exploring humanity's timeless quest for heaven on earth." This topic is of great interest as it surfaced as a consideration during my Burning Man research and thesis. As I commented in the third chapter of my thesis where application for the festival is made to Christianity in the West, the desire for a utopian community has been a facet of human experience for quite some time, and we see it expressed in a variety of ways, whether through Burning Man and its temporary community or a plethora of other forms.

What is Enlightenment? (WIE) summarizes their special feature on utopias in this way:

"From the idyllic Garden of Eden to Teilhard de Chardin's enlightened noosphere, our conceptions of utopia have changed dramatically over time. WIE takes a closer look at the evolutionary significance of humankind's enduring impulse to make heaven into a place on earth."

WIE includes a number of features in its exploration of utopias, and the first is a dialogue between two New Spirituality leaders, Andrew Cohen and Ken Wilber, who discuss "Community and the Utopian Impulse in a Post-Postmodern World" in an article titled "Creative Friction." While their entire discussion is of interest, the following excerpt on individualism and community in postmodernity seemed especially significant:

COHEN: And a big part of the postmodern predicament for so many people, is that we find ourselves very sophisticated, very evolved and developed, but very much alone and experiencing a deep emotional, psychological, and spiritual sense of alienation. We all long for deeper connections, but we are unwilling to give up our attachment to our self-importance in order to be able to experience that connection. One extreme example of this is in Holland, where they have the most liberal society in the entire world. It's fairly common and socially accepted for couples to have this funny thing called an 'alone-together relationship,' which means, 'We're in a relationship, but we live separately so we can each have our own space.' The idea is to hold on, at all costs, to one's own space, personal freedom, and autonomy. I've spent a lot of time in that crazy country and most people are really unhappy.

WILBER: So I've heard.

COHEN: It seems that we've evolved and developed, this truly miraculous capacity for individuation has really put us in a very difficult predicament. And so a big part of the evolutionary impulse right now is calling us, compelling us to find a new way to connect, not only with our own deepest sense of self but also with other people at a deeper level. I think it's very difficult to even think about spiritual development today without speaking about how it relates to this desperate urge to connect with others.

WILBER: Right. Relationship seems to be more important than ever and yet more elusive than ever. That's the real irony of the postmodern situation, that the thing that is probably valued most highly, which is relatedness - everything is contextual, everything is relational - is the thing that people have the least of in any authentic sort of way.

Another facet of WIE's exploration of utopia in this issue is an interview with historian Fritzie P. Manuel in an article titled "The Utopian Propensity." Manuel worked with her late husband Frank to research utopias and together they co-authored Utopian Thought in the Western World, 3rd ed. (Bellknap Press, 1982). As this interview unfolds the discussion turns to a comparison of nineteenth-century intentional communities with those that arose with the 1960s counterculture in America. The contrasts are interesting:

WIE: We think of the "radical sixties" as a time of cultural upheaval and change, with many younger people pursuing alternative lifestyles. However, you point out in your book that these countercultures experiments were often not as novel or "utopian" as the communities that emerged over a century earlier.

MANUEL: Yes, I think that's true. There were many groups that got together in the sixties, but I didn't think of them as utopian....In one respect, these groups were similar to the communities of the mid-nineteenth century - they tried to live lives that were very different from the society around them. But I think the nineteenth-century communities had different ideals. They wanted freedom, but not drug-induced freedom or freedom derived from being irresponsible. And they didn't place themselves in direct opposition to society at large. They was isolation and separation, but not attack, as there was in the 1960s. The nineteenth-century groups were trying to reform society, not reject it. That's a generalization, but I think there's some validity to it. I don't remember any reforming zeal in the 1960s. They were thumbing their noses at society at the same time that they were using the luxuries of the world they were criticizing. That doesn't go for everyone, but it goes for many. The flower kids were also organizing communities on the West Coast, and they obviously wanted individual freedoms that my generation didn't have. I suspect they were thinking about society as a whole, but I was curious to know if these groups were merely seeking refuge from a society that seemed cold and headed in the wrong direction or if they really wanted to change this world.

Further on in this issue is a feature titled "Prototyping the Future: Four radical communities dream of a better world," which profiles differing contemporary intentional communities as those embodying a utopian vision. The groups profiled include The Vistar Foundation in Stamford, Connecticut which began in 1994, Or Haganuz ("Hidden Light") in Merom Hagalil, Galilee, Israel which began in 1989, Sekem ("Vitality") in Belbeis, Egypt which began in 1977, and surprisingly (given that WIE is a magazine with a New Spirituality orientation) Mars Hill Church is also featured, located in Seattle, Washington, which began in 1996.

One of the last features of the magazine that touches on the theme of utopias is an article titled "Dreams of a Digital Utopia." This article looks at how the Internet and technology have impacted the utopian dream. One section of this article references Fred Turner, author of From Countercultures to Cyberculture: Stewart Brand, the Whole Earth Network, and the Rise of Digital Utopianism (University of Chicago Press, 2006). Turner is quoted in this section:

"[Turner] suggests that for the last several decades there has been a 'countercultural dream of empowered individualism, collaborative community, and spiritual communion' that hovers around the idea of the internet and computing like a mythological halo. It is, Turner explains, the 'image of an ideal society,' a utopian ideal, this once digital and networked, which has become part and parcel of the conversation around the explosion of ubiquitous global computing and the tremendous social upheaval and transformation it is causing worldwide. In the same way that Eastern philosophy, LSD, and countercultural ideas once provided the means of radically reframing the context of individuals' lives in the 1960s, Turner's book chronicles the development of the idea that the microchip and the adoption of increasingly sophisticated computer technology are having a similar effect today - reframing the context of life in our global society by destroying rigid hierarchies and bureaucracies the world over; transforming the slow and inhuman institutions of government and business; rendering dictatorship politically unfeasible; making business uber-responsive, efficient, and consumer driven; and remaking loose social networks into newly empowered collaborative virtual communities."

There is quite a lot that his worth considering in this issue of WIE for those interested utopian studies, new religions, and the New Spirituality. I was especially struck by something Fritzie Manuel said in her interview:

"The utopian propensity is a universal impulse. It's just like thinking or breathing. If we lost our minds and totally stopped thinking, then we could stop dreaming....Sometimes we go through periods of discouragement where we don't see the possibility of evolving to a better society. But those are very black moods, and they are not sustained for long. Inevitably, we dream again."

Sometimes I wonder whether evangelical Christianity has stopped dreaming the utopian dream. I don't refer to a desire for escapism into a realm beyond this one that Christians frequently talk about with the notion of heaven. I mean the realization of the restoration of the totality of God's creation in the here and now, and a taste of fully realized individuals fit for real relationships and community between themselves, creation, and the Spirit. Maybe Christians haven't stopped dreaming so much as we're dreaming the wrong dreams, and we're sadly content with attempts at the realization of utopia through the political process, or being content with the fulfillment of the utopian vision after death. For many people this is not enough. It is time to dream again.

Interview with Danish Scholar Ole Skjerbaek Madsen

Ole Skjerbaek Madsen is a Luthern pastor and scholar serving in Denmark. He is the author of a chapter titled "Theology in Dialogue with New Age or the Neospiritual Milieu," in Theology and the Religions: A Dialogue, edited by Viggo Mortensen (Grand Rapids/Cambridge: William B. Eerdmans, 2003). Since the late 1980s he has developed a booth ministry with New Spirituality seekers, and he is a facilitator for the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization's issue group on Religious and Non-Religious Spirituality in the Western world.

Morehead's Musings: Ole, thank you for your part in this inteview. I am pleased to share your international experience and perspective with my readers. Can you share some of your background, training, and denominational perspective that has shaped your views and responses on missions, new religions, and new spiritualities?

Ole Skjerbaek Madsen: I was born I Copenhagen, Denmark in 1947 and have grown up in a Christian home. My father was an organist and music director in a Lutheran state church congregation in Copenhagen. I sucked in the Lutheran worship from my childhood. Yet it was only at high school I consciously committed my self and decided to study theology. I have my theological degree from the University of Copenhagen. As a theological student I got the chance of studying Coptic language, and my thesis was on the Coptic Eucharistic prayers. I was deeply influenced by the spiritual life of the Coptic Christians with their rich liturgy and yet many charismatic dimensions in the life of the Church. This created in me a longing for the renewal of the Danish Lutheran Church, and this longing was met as I engaged in the Charismatic Renewal.

The openness to the Spirit made me sensible to other spiritual realities, and people experimenting with different occult practices contacted me as they were overwhelmed by demons or psychological disturbances. This coloured my understanding of new religions and new spiritualities. I was in the media considered one of few exorcists in the Lutheran Church – even though I have never seen this as my specific charisma; I was just driven by necessity in the care afflicted persons.

My attitude towards the adherents of new religions and spiritualities has however changed during the years. In the mid-1990s I had a spiritual crisis because of my failure in soul care or pastoral counselling towards new agers to help them into a true relationship with Jesus due to my own dogmatic prejudices and their misunderstanding of central Christian doctrines as presented by me or other clergy. As I asked Jesus for help, he opened a new ministry to me by the name “In the Master’s Light” (IML) – building bridges of friendship and understanding and trying to build disciple fellowships in the neo-spiritual milieus. After 24 years as parish pastor, I since January 2000 am a mission pastor in the organisation Areopagos.

MM: Tell us about the types of new religions and alternative spiritualities that are present in your country.

Ole Madsen: In the 1970s and 1980s the scene was dominated by New Religious Movements such as Transcendental Meditation, Hare Krishna, Tibetan Buddhism, Neo Theosophical groups, Scientology, Unification Church, Children of God and the like. In 1984 New Age had its breakthrough as movement with the first Body Mind Spirit fair. With New Age came many different kinds of alternative medicine, healing, and spiritual practices. Also nature related groups, shamans, neo pagans/Asatru has grown. Self-realisation and methods of spiritual growth and transformation is in the forefront. Astrology, palmistry and tarot readings are part of this. Channelling, and not the least clairvoyance broadly understood is wide spread. Tantra is quite attractive to many people. Shamanism is the most popular trend at fairs and festivals this year. The fairs and festivals are the main expressions and means of spreading the new spiritualities and holistic practices. Today the search for well being is an important trend with soft spiritual overtones; new spiritualities will probably recruits practitioners from the well-being culture.

MM: The situation in your country in terms of a Christian response to the New Spirituality is different than that of the United States. In the U.S. an apologetic aproach that tends to contrast and refute the doctrine of new religions as compared to Christianity is popular. What is the situation like in Denmark?

Ole Madsen: We still have churches and organisations that have an apologetic and heresy hunting attitude towards new religions and new spiritualities. Yet IML and other organisations/groups have engaged in dialogue with New Age, the holistic movement or the new spiritualities (what ever name you prefer) and have created an atmosphere of understanding and even friendship between leading figures of the neo-spiritual milieu and church leaders. The presence of IML at fairs and festivals has broken down barriers.

MM: Tell us a little about your scholarly work in theology as it has engaged the "New Age" or the Neospiritual Milieu.

Ole Madsen: All through my contact with new religions and new spiritualities – even in the more confronting period – has provoked me to think of how to respond positively to their concerns and how to make Christian spiritual practices open to the needs of seekers as well as seeing the new spiritualities as mirrors of the Church showing us our short comings and reminding us of lost insights and treasures. This has lead me to the church fathers and the early Church. First of all I have tried to describe a Church which is both charismatic and sacramental as an answer to the questions raised. I have tried to define areas of concern for a Christian doctrine which will address the questions of those parts of the new spiritualities which are rooted in Western esotericism, and I have tried to ask if we might Christianize the energetic worldview of alternative healing practices in a way similar to St. John’s turning the Greek philosophical understanding of the universal logos into personal understanding of God who in God’s Son reveals God self in the process of creation and salvation. My thought have been published in papers and articles – alas mostly in Danish.

MM: You have also been involved in some interesting engagement at New Spiritual festivals in Denmark. Can you tell us something about this?

Ole Madsen: Christian presence in the neo-spiritual milieus is essential to the inculturation of the fellowship of Jesus’ disciples in the same. Therefore it is a main activity of IML to participate in fairs and festivals. We are part of 4-6 fairs every year. We invite the guests and co-exhibitioners to receive a blessing, a prayer of healing of the heart or intercession for whatever is their concern. Last year we prayed with about 1.500 persons. Many persons have through prayer received a personal understanding of God seeing God with the face of Jesus, in stead of an impersonal energetic concept of God. Thus prayer is an experiential way of explaining who God is and who the human person is without entering into a polemic discourse. IML is accepted as a part of the milieu at these fairs, but our specific Christian character is recognized. We follow the same co-exhibitioners from fair to fair and are able to offer a true soul care. We conduct workshops and Christian worship gatherings thus inviting the individual seeker to be a party of the body of Christ through the Christian presence in the milieu. We have successfully guided meditation and taught biblical truths by means of the symbols of the Tarot Deck and the Cabbalistic Tree of Life.

MM: What types of things can the church learn in terms of theology and praxis from dialogue with the New Spirituality?

Ole Madsen: We are challenged to rediscover and sometimes reinvent our Christian spiritual past. Channelling, healing and meditation are essential parts of the spirituality in these milieus; they have their counterpart in revelatory charismas and healing gifts which give the same sense of wonder to the seekers as well as an ongoing experience of the presence of God. Meditation has a long history in the life of the Church, but most people think of it as something Eastern. The great variety of meditation practices will meet almost every kind of spiritual temperament among seekers. I have found guided meditations on the life of Jesus as good ways of communicating the gospel in a experiential way which does not taste of dogmatism even if sound doctrine is presented this way (e.g., meditation on the healing of the lame man in Capernaum has lead participant to conviction of sin and their need of forgiveness and spiritual transformation).

MM: You have been involved as one of the facilitators for the Lausanne issue group on postmodern and alternative spiritualities. What has your experience been like with this group as it met in Thailand in 2004 and Hong Kong in 2006?

Ole Madsen: The most important thing has been to meet other scholars and practitioners working with the same issues. It has been good to develop a new paradigm for the Christian encounter with new religions and spiritualities. And I hope that this will develop into a strong network. The evangelical para-church movements are fore the time being opening themselves to the same new paradigm of contextual and dialogical mission.

MM: You have written a few papers for the issue group that touch on liturgy and sacramental theology as it relates to engagement with esotericism. Can you summarize some of this for us?

Ole Madsen: I have hinted at some of the issues earlier. One of my main concerns is that a sacramental theology and practice will be the best starting point for building up a Christian nature related spirituality and world view. Through “sacramental eyes” we see the imprint of the Logos of God in the created order (logos) of nature; we also recognize what sin has done to creation, nature, and humankind, and we see how the Logos incarnate restores creation and reinstalls humans in their proper ministry in the world. Sacrament sanctifies the element of nature that creation is freed to proclaim the glory or presence of God; sacraments, especially the Eucharist celebrates creation through the saving work of Jesus Christ as a revelation of the kingdom and presence of God.

MM: What types of things would you like the average layperson to learn in American churches from engagement with the New Spirituality?

Ole Madsen: To witness in an experiential way about their relationship to God and about the saving work of Jesus and to open themselves to the leading of the Holy Spirit, finding points of contact and common concern with spiritual seekers and naming the often hidden longing of their quest.

MM: What would you say to American academic theologians and missiologists as informed by your studies and experience?

Ole Madsen: Theology will only be fruitful in mission and pastoral care/soul care and in the transformation of society and environment, if it is theology in its proper meaning – experiential knowing God. Theology is a fruit of prayer and silence with God and is foremost expressed in worship. Theology will never be authentic to people without this dimension of believing.

MM: What words of wisdom and counsel would you have for Americans involved in counter-cult types of approaches?

Ole Madsen: I only helped a few persons to a new life in Jesus Christ as long as I was engaged in proving the falsity of New Age, but as Jesus showed me his concern for these spiritual seekers and his acknowledgement of the sincerity and dedication of their quest and I started meeting the practitioners and seekers in the neo-spiritual milieus as potential disciples of Jesus and as friends, I now enjoy the fellowship of many new disciples – both among those who commit themselves to a life in the Church and those who are still disciples following their personal and often private way with Jesus.

MM: Ole, thank you for your leadership in the Lausanne issue group, and for what you have shared with us here.