Christian Ethics Today A Journal of Christian Ethics Volume 22, Number 2 Aggregate Issue 93 Spring 2014 “The voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord’” Isaiah 40:3; John 1:23 ARTICLES Sociological Sources of Agnosticism Tony Campolo ........................................... 2 Jimmy Carter and the Demise of Progressive Evangelicalism Randall Balmer ..... 4 The Birth of the Baptist (Anti) Environmentalism Aaron Weaver ............. 6 Developing a Moral Vision for Climate Change Ingrid Lilly ........................11 The Real Origins of the Religious Right Randall Balmer .................................13 A Short History of Christian Matchmaking Paul Putz .....................................16 ESSAYS FROM EXPERIENCE A Different Kind of Saint Walter B. Shurden ................................................................ 19 Bill Hull’s Twenty Questions Walter B. Shurden .........................................................22 Wisdom from J.M. Dawson James Dunn ......................................................................26 VERSE They Did Not Know James R. Wade ......................................................................................27 Wondering How Jesus Felt Richard D. Kahoe ................................................................27 BOOK REVIEW Sessions with Revelation by David Sapp Reviewed by Bo Prosser .................28 Generous Justice by Timothy Keller Reviewed by Darold Morgan .................28 If I Had Lunch with C.S. Lewis by Alister McGrath Reviewed by Darold Morgan .....29 Editor’S Column Remember Those Who Are In Prison Patrick Anderson, editor ......................30 KudZu by Doug Marlette structure of the dominant secular, and Foundation studies which reported need of you” (1 Corinthians 12:14- often sophisticated associations, that that Millennials3 are spiritual, but not 23). Sociological Sources of Agnosticism nurtured for them a kind of agnosti- religious. They seem willing to accept Any reader of Emile Durkheim’s By Tony Campolo, PhD eastern University cism or atheism. George Santayana, the postmodern tendency to believe sociological classic, The Elementary one-time professor of philosophy at that there are truths and realities that Forms of the Religious Life, knows Harvard University, once said, “They transcend the categories of logical how important liturgy is. Durkheim here is a field of study within the zealous believers take literally what constructed reality,” and they dis- do not really reject God. They simply empiricism. Some even may acknowl- makes the point that collective rituals Tdiscipline of sociology that fails is recorded in Mark 16:17-18, where count it as lacking validity. What they bid Him a fond farewell.” edge that there are spiritual forces at build into the participants a strong to get the attention that it deserves. It Jesus told His disciples that signs of fail to acknowledge, however, is that I had watched the young woman work in the universe that could be sense of solidarity and regenerate their is called the sociology of knowledge. their faith would be that they would their own lack of belief is also socially to whom I referred at an earlier time called God. Those Millennials with commitments to what they believe. Its students examine the reasons why be able to “cast out demons” and constructed and could likewise be dis- in her life when she was part of an whom I have had the most frequent Collective rituals, says Durkheim, people believe or disbelieve what “speak in new tongues.” Of special counted. intensive church youth group when encounters may even call themselves keep alive for religious people that they do. Those who are versed in importance for them was that Jesus Let me tell you about a young she was a “true believer,” drift away Christians, and affirm that Jesus is which must never be forgotten. the literature of this specialty often went on to say, “They will pick up graduate student who was once a “true from her church. As she discon- a living reality in the world today. Centuries before Durkheim wrote refer to a book by Peter Berger and snakes in their hands, and if they Christian believer,” but who, over a nected from regular involvement with Some call themselves part of the Red his classic work, Jesus instituted a Thomas Luckmann, entitled The drink any deadly thing, it will not period of several months, separated Christians who shared her beliefs, I Letter Christians movement4, and ritual when He gathered together with Social Construction of Reality.1 Because hurt them.” Thus, among these herself from the community of fellow watched her faith erode. She said that affirm the words of Jesus, highlighted His disciples in what is referred to by these two writers explain, in very lucid unusual believers was a pervasive believers that maintained the plausi- church didn’t do anything for her. in red letters in many Bibles. But Christians as an “upper room.” He fashion, how social environments pro- belief that snake handling was a way bility structure that had once made She explained that as she listened to then, many of these same Millennials broke bread with them and offered vide us with our perspectives of the of validating their faith. believing in God a viable reality. The sermons, it was “déjà vu,” that she castigate the Church for not living them wine. He told His disciples that world, they make the case that what This reporter, in order to have social consciousness of this one-time had heard it all before. When asked up to Christ’s teachings. They drop regularly they should get together we believe about what is real and what authenticity in what he wrote, chose committed Christian gradually erod- about church, she let it be known out of church, saying, “Jesus is great, to eat the bread that represented is not real in terms of our religious to live among these snake handlers ed. It wasn’t long before she took on that, when it came to church, she but the Church sucks.” These young His body, and drink the wine that beliefs are convictions that have been the consciousness of the secularized had “been there and done that.” This people fail to realize that faith in Jesus represented His blood, in order to established sociologically. None of us society in which she had chosen to do graduate student failed to see that is a communal thing. Their attitude remember Him. Paul reminded the possesses the kind of objectivity that her thinking. Soon she was convinced being removed from the plausibility makes me unbearably sad, because I Corinthian church that, as often as we would like to think we do, and as The more intimate the that God was irrelevant to her every- structure wherein her faith might have know that without the revitalization they came together and ate the bread our cross-cultural understanding of group, and the more day life, and then into believing that been regularly reinforced, reaffirmed, of faith commitments that comes and drank the wine in this manner, the world expands, we likely realize God did not exist. In this case, it was and revitalized made it almost inevi- from what the Greek New Testament they would remember Christ’s death that had we been born at a different intensely its shared crucial that the other members of her table that secular sociological forces called koinonia,5 these disengaged until He returned (1 Corinthians time and in a different place, what we beliefs are held, the family join her in her skepticism and would make her, eventually, into an young people will soon be answering 11:26). By implication, I am pro- believe to be true or not true, especial- be for her a plausibility structure that unbeliever. She could not understand that question about religious affilia- posing that when persons stop ly about God, would be different. more those beliefs supported her unbelief. that, within this new state of social tion asked in another Pew Foundation regularly coming together for Holy Many sociologists argue that faith become unquestioned by It is so easy for intelligent, well- consciousness, she would have a hard study with the word, “None.” Communion, they eventually will stop is a communal product. It is created members of the group. read people, such as this young time thinking that she ever did believe Jesus certainly had His own believing what is core to Christian and maintained in the context of a woman, to believe that they have “that religious stuff” in the first place. problems with organized religion. faith, namely, the sacrificial death of community of fellow believers, which become what Karl Mannheim, one Again, let me say that being a Nevertheless, He was a faithful Christ on the cross for our salvation. sociologists like Berger and Luckmann of the leaders in the field of the believer is highly contingent upon attendee of services at the synagogue In conclusion, what I have been refer to as a “plausibility structure.” and become a participatory observer Sociology of Knowledge, would have being part of a subculture that in whatever town He happened to trying to say is that only those who What outsiders might view as unrea- in their worship services. The faith of called “the detached intelligentsia”2 upholds belief in God and enables be on the Sabbath (Mark 4:14-16). ignore the insights from the Sociology sonable becomes readily plausible, these snake handling Christians was In other words, that such unbelievers the individual to stand against the Certainly the writer of the book of of Knowledge fail to see that belief as given the ongoing and