View of Evangelical Christians As a Politically Right-Wing Monolith

book reviews 175 Wes Markofski New Monasticism and the Transformation of American Evangelicalism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015), x + 364 pp., $35.00, isbn 9780190258016. Wes Markofski disputes the “common-sense” view of evangelical Christians as a politically right-wing monolith. He does this in a theory-driven study of American evangelicalism by analyzing evangelical neo-monasticism as a specific case of how dynamic social processes generate new religious and political standpoints among evangelicals. The result is a sociological analysis of the mechanisms through which American evangelicalism is reproduced and transformed. Markofski examines evangelical neo-monasticism in relation to traditional evangelicalism. His approach takes the meaning-content of religious culture seriously to give us a better understanding of how external social forces influence evangelical position-takings in their relation to one another. He also takes seriously the influence that the social history of American evangelicalism has had on current diverse evangelical standpoints. To accomplish his task, Markofski shows that he is adept at sociological analysis, and possesses a robust knowledge of historical and contemporary Amer- ican evangelicalism (bred, as he was, in evangelicalism himself). Additionally, he immersed himself in the neo-monastic culture for five years. To give par- ticularity to his study, he focuses on one community—the Urban Monastery, located in a major u.s. city. Using what he calls a “practical social hermeneutic,” Markofski concludes that Urban Monastery participants have developed “holistic communitarian- ism” as their distinctive cultural (or theological) meaning system. It challenges dominant expressions of American evangelicalism, while simultaneously adhering to core elements of evangelical doxa (fundamental beliefs). This is in opposition to the cultural meaning system of theological individualism—the cognitive schema shared by those in traditional evangelicalism. Such meaning systems give rise to religious and political standpoints and action strategies. Symbols—such as the Trinity, the gospel, social justice, and evangelism— are the building blocks of these meaning systems. Since they are polysemous (capable of multiple meanings), their re-interpretation and their prioritized relationships have much to do with the way they are transformed by a social group like the neo-monastics. Markofski uses Bourdieusian field theory to juxtapose five “position-takings” within the “field” of American evangelicalism. The dominant ones are Conser- vative Evangelicalism (Christian Right) and Megachurch Evangelicalism. The dominated ones—those which correlate oppositionally to the dominant— © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2017 | doi: 10.1163/15697312-01101019 176 book reviews which are the Evangelical Left, the Emerging Church; and Neo-monasticism, which incorporates the oppositional features of the dominated. How- ever, all exist within the doxic commitments, boundaries, and structure of the evangelical field. The doxa includes biblical authority, Christ’s atoning work, and the importance of evangelism. This explains the diversity and even contra- dictions within American evangelicalism over issues such as the preservation of “Christian America,” “traditional” family values, economic justice, militarism, race and gender equality, and environmentalism. Changed intensity, interpretation, or relational priority of symbolic elements that construct the theological meaning system generate the radically different religious and political standpoint and strategies of action characteristic of neo-monastic evangelicals. What this looks like in practice for the Urban Monastery is what Markofski calls “celebratory asceticism” and “holistic mission.” Also, determining these position-takings are external forces and cultural resources, such as postmodern philosophy and literary theory, historical mod- els of religious community, or American business practices. These must be viewed in relation to positions, oppositions, and relationships within the field and fit recognizably into the confines of evangelical doxa. This contextualiza- tion or filtering is for Markofski a corrective to more simplistic explanations of what accounts for the different position-takings. Markofski believes that field theory needs to be supplemented by other approaches, such as religious consistency theory and moral cosmology theory. But these have limited value. The latter, for instance, would deduce that traditional evangelicals would be left-liberal (theological, social, and political communitarians) in their economic views, yet their theological individualism is an exception to this theoretical deduction. He attributes such an exception to the heritage of the fundamentalist-modernist struggle and historic reaction to the social gospel. Markofski’s use of Bourdieusian field analysis as his primary theoretical framework is very illuminating. It helps us to understand how social and historical forces influence evangelical position-takings and helps to elucidate neo- monasticism’s relationship to the other relevant movements within American evangelicalism. But those not familiar with this theory need to have it explained well before its description in chapter three. The same could be said for other sociological theories that are mentioned in his analyses. Also, the book’s sub- theme seems to be an apologetic for the field-theoretic approach. The book has the tone of a doctoral dissertation, and as such it suffers much redundancy that could use some editing as a trade book. That said, the book is extremely well researched and does an exceedingly good job of providing an illuminating map of the shifting American evangelical terrain. It is filled with Journal of Reformed Theology 11 (2017) 141–179.

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