November, 2000 (Vol. 16, No. 1)

Conservative churches and renewal associations in mainline bodies, particularly Anglicanism, are increasingly pressing not just for evangelical doctrine, but also the right to plant their own congregations unfettered by denominational control.

This trend can be seen in The First Promise movement, where evangelical activists seek alternative means of leadership from that of their liberal bishops as well as the freedom to plant conservative churches in liberal dioceses. The Sidney Morning Herald (Oct. 16) reports that a “quiet revolution” of evangelical Anglican churches being established by ministers outside the normal diocese and parish system is taking root in Australia.

The churches, now being established mainly on Australia’s central Coast as well as in such cities as Brisbane and Canberra, have their origins in the evangelical Sydney Diocese. These new parishes are usually fast growing as they adopt a “form of worship that strips away the liturgical trappings of middle and high church Anglicanism and [focuses] attention on the biblical text,” writes Malcolm Brown.

The dioceses in which such churches have been planted are “not favorably disposed toward them, but they cannot eject them and at best they try to coexist.” The fear is that these new churches as well as other conservatives in the Diocese of Sydney are destroying the unity of the Anglican Church in Australia, leading to a schism within the church.

The faith movement, known for promoting prosperity teachings, is growing rapidly around the world, and although the movement may have started in the U.S., it is finding its own expressions, particularly in the Third World.

In the Journal of Contemporary Religion (October) Stephen Hunt writes that while the faith movement was once a strand of the Pentecostal movement, today the movement has become a global carrier of Pentecostalism itself, as it promises material and health benefits to participants. Hunt finds the Faith movement growing in places from Sweden to Seoul, Korea, although there are differences in style and types of  followers they attract. In Europe, for instance, the faith movement attracts the lower classes rather than the middle class as it does in the U.S.

The movement is stronger in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, “where the symbols of the worldly prosperity of the Faith ministries, the promise of physical healing, together with the food parcels which are freely distributed, have won many over to the Christian evangelical cause.” In the Pacific Rim and in other parts of the Third World, Faith teachings take on a greater diversity.

In Korea, health and wealth teachings blend in with the shamanism of the culture, while in Africa, the Faith message is revolutionary, acting as a “form of motivation for rising out of the dire conditions experienced by some of the poorest people on earth.” The often individualistic Faith teachings found in the U.S. take a more communal approach in Africa, where prosperity is sought for one’s community and congregation.

Hunt argues that it is misleading to view the spread of the Faith movement around the world as an example of U.S. religious imperialism; these teachings are adapted by indigenous churches to meet local needs.

(Journal of Contemporary Religion, Centre for New Religions, Kings College, University of London, Strand, London WC2R 2LS, UK)

Religion and how it is applied to social problems is attracting widespread attention as well as foundation funds.

As reported in the Los Angeles Times (Oct. 8), applied religion is “a hot field of inquiry,” though it was considered dying if not dead by academic specialists until recently. The interest is found in three general areas. Major foundations such as Ford, Pew and Lilly are sharply increasing their funding for studies of how religion is affecting poverty, literacy, cultural assimilation and family life.

Study centers at such schools as the University of Southern California, University of Pennsylvania and the Manhattan Institute are drawing from the foundations and other sources to start extensive research programs. The interest in ‘faith-based’ social activism and its relation to public social service agencies continues to grow. Too new an area for conclusive evaluations, its work with local and state agencies has become a national priority for candidates for public office including Al Gore and George W. Bush.

— By RW contributing editor Erling Jorstad

The portrayal of witchcraft and magic in the popular media is more realistic today, and suggests a greater acceptance of these alternative religions.

That is the main conclusion of the fall issue of PanGaia, a Neopagan magazine.  From the best-selling Harry Potter books to popular TV shows such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Charmed, Xena, and Sabrina the Teenage Witch, there has been a growing use of witchcraft, or wiccan themes in the arts and entertainment media.  While Sabrina is more in the mold of the 1960s sitcom Bewitched, displaying little knowledge of actual wiccan practice and teachings, that is not the case with most of the other shows, writes Jennifer Ricard.

Charmed is the first TV show “dedicated to the concept of the `Good Witch,” as it empathetically portrays the struggles and secrecy of Wiccans, even while not getting their teachings right. Unlike the others, Buffy the Vampire Slayer“treats Wicca as a religion rather than a supernatural talent . . . presenting an image of the witch that is, for the most part, positive and beneficial to the Pagan community.”

Ricard expects the trend of positive portrayal of Wicca on television to increase as the pagan lifestyle gains acceptance. In the same issue of the magazine, it is noted that no similar trend is evident in films, which still use witches as a scare technique. And how do Wiccans view the Harry Potter phenomenon? While the magic is not very realistic, the books are praised for making “the Craft nonthreatening to boys.”

(PanGaia, P.O. Box 641, Point Arena, CA 95468-0641, www.pangaia.com)

The homeschooling movement is experiencing sharp divisions over the influence of conservative Christians in its ranks.

While homeschooling is growing among believers and non-believers as well as gaining academic credibility, a battle is being fought over the role of the Christian rightist Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) in the loosely-based movement, according to the Charisma News Service (Oct. 2). The HSLDA, which most recently gained headlines for founding Patrick Henry College, the first college designed for homeschooled students, has been a pioneer of homeschooling, growing to 70,000 member families since it started in 1983.

The news service cites an article from the online magazine Salon which reports that both Christian and other homeschoolers are protesting that the HSLDA requires local homeschooling support group members to sign doctrinal statements and exclude those who are not conservative Christians. The social and political outspokenness of the HSLDA, including its views supporting corporal punishment and gun ownership and condemning the United Nations and gay rights, has also come under fire by those pressing for “inclusive” homeschooling.

The National Home Education Network was recently started to address homeschooling topics without a religious bias. Christians disgruntled with the HSLDA have also founded inclusive support groups and a new Christian homeschooling magazine called Gentle Spirit.

An influx of immigration to rural and small-town America is finding congregations ill-prepared to minister to such newcomers, according to the current issue of  Visions, a newsletter on religion and demography.

The Census 2000 released in late August found that counties with rapidly growing Spanish-speaking populations were primarily in rural, small-town and outer suburban regions. Most of these newcomers, largely Mexican, are employed in t he food processing industries in agricultural areas. Hispanics in small-town and rural regions encounter churches that are few and small in membership.

Because these immigrants are sometimes transient, they are not “well accommodated by existing churches…which at best look to the new residents either to assimilate them into their English-speaking churches, or to fit them within their self-drawn plans for an ethnic ministry,” writes Anthony E. Healy. Hard-pressed Catholic parishes may fail to offer Spanish masses or accept ethnic religious customs, while rural Protestant churches have many elderly members without the resources or inclination to deal with these newcomers.

This has led some Hispanics to defect to newly established Pentecostal and evangelical congregations. The situation is compounded by many denominations and their judicatories that have become increasingly focused on ethnic ministry to the larger concentrations of people in cities while overlooking the smaller, dispersed populations in rural, small-town and suburban areas.

(Visions, P.O. Box 94144, Atlanta, GA 30377)

The growing body of scientific work that demonstrates the benefits of religious belief and behavior to adult health and well-being is now being channeled into practical programs that can be applied to congregational life.

Past research has shown that prayer, close social ties, altruistic behavior, and a sense of purpose are among the religious factors that have been associated with specific, measurable health improvements for religious practitioners. Melanie and Joe Adair, adjunct professors at the University of Tennessee, are attempting to create programs that will help adults improve their health by capitalizing on this research. In a presentation at the annual meeting of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion held in Houston in October, the Adairs surveyed the field of studies which give evidence to the religion/health connection.

They emphasized the recent research into a “neuropeptide delivery” phenomenon which provides a concrete neurochemical link between thoughts and physiological effects on the body. Then they outlined the design of an adult religious educational program designed to take advantage of this mind/body connection to link spiritual growth to health improvement Using their backgrounds in health education and instructional design, the Adairs have developed a program focusing on an optimum strategy to achieve improved health through spiritual growth.

By educating  participants on what the Adairs call the “Be”-attitudes — forgiveness, thankfulness, creativity, altruism, and hopefulness among others — and guiding them in applying them to everyday life, they hope to provide adults with an integrated approach to physical as well as spiritual well-being.

The Adairs and their colleagues piloted such an educational program to forty-five adults over a period of several months. Participants were surveyed and interviewed before and after the program to detect changes in attitudes and perceived well-being. Seventy-six percent of the participants after the program expressed a feeling that they were in good health, which was a nine percent increase over the number indicating good health upon starting the program. (For reference, there was a four percent drop in perceived health for a control group over the same period.)

The percentage of participants indicating ailments and health impediments decreased by 12 percent (as opposed to an increase of 12 percent for the control group.)  The Adairs find their pilot results encouraging enough to warrant more extensive research into the educational application of mind/body research. With the trends toward the aging of the American population, an increased interest in spirituality and  alternative health practices, research into the effectiveness of this type of program bears watching. Designed specifically to be used in churches, a program like this may prove to be a popular ministry resource, especially for senior citizens.

— By Cody Clark, a Houston-based writer who runs a web site on religious futures called Signs & Wonders at www.wnrf.org/news 

The long time conflict between liberals and conservatives in mainline denominations seems to be entering a more political phase judging by a recent New York conference RW attended.

The late October meeting was organized by Union Theological Seminary and the Institute of Democratic Studies (IDS) to counter the recent victories of conservatives in such mainline bodies as the United Methodist Church and the Presbyterian Church (U.S.)  The new evangelical influence in the United Methodist Church was strongly in evidence at the denomination’s General Conference last spring, where liberal measures supporting same sex unions were turned back while greater conservative representation among delegates was set in place [see September RW for more on the United Methodist meeting].

At the New York conference there were reports of pressure to conform to conservative demands, jobs threatened, reputations smeared, and even “religious cleansing” as a “constellation of forces” is coming together to reconfigure mainline churches. The various evangelical renewal groups, such as the Confessing Movement in the United Methodist Church, were targeted for threatening “progressive Christianity.” The main point made by all the speakers was that the thirst for “power and control” is driving the conservative resurgence rather than theology or even the controversial issue of same-sex unions.

The conservative developments mainline was compared to the conservative takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention. Rev.Welton Gaddy, head of the the liberal Interfaith Alliance, called on mainline congregations to organize in order to prevent a similar right-wing victory. Dr. Robert Bohl, former moderator of the Presbyterian Church. said that the time for establishing “common ground” and discussions between liberals and conservatives is past.

He is helping to organize a caucus for Presbyterian leaders to battle conservative renewal groups. The Covenant Network of Presbyterians, a liberal group, is distributing literature from the Institute for Democracy Studies to all Presbyterian churches, seeking to uncover the link between the renewal groups and the religious right. That some mainline liberal leaders are joining forces with the IDS, a secular liberal think tank and watchdog of the political right, suggests that the left feels overpowered by the conservative challenge — a point that the speakers did not deny.

Diane Knippers, head of the neoconservative Institute for Religion and Democracy in Washington, D.C., says that the religious left is correct in fearing that their “enormous power” in mainline institutions is being “slowed and halted.” Knippers told RW in an interview that the renewal groups are not borrowing techniques from the religious right so much as mirroring the tactics their church opponents used during the 1970s and 80s. Conservatives and moderates are becoming more effective at challenging the left, showing up at conventions to make their voices heard.

Knipers says it’s “ridiculous” to charge that “power and control” rather than doctrine is behind the new conservative groundswell. “These renewal groups focus a lot on theology. This can be seen at the [recent United Methodist] General Conference where the left won on most of the social issues.”