September 30, 2021
"In 1972.... the St. Louis Globe-Democrat reported that parents in his town were worried: high school kids in Webster Groves were spending too much time at church."
"The reason was Fellowship, a rapidly growing Christian youth group, and its edgy leader, Bob Mutton—a youth pastor with a 'tormented Jesus' look about him. Emulating his style, his followers grew their hair long, dressed in their most worn-out clothes, smoked cigarettes, and played guitar. They flocked to Sunday evening meetings, where they blindfolded one another and performed trust exercises, palpated one another’s faces with their fingers, and practiced radical honesty in drawn-out sessions of uncomfortable truth telling.
A member for six years, [Jonathan] Franzen spent his adolescence immersed in the group. Though Fellowship was affiliated with the First Congregational Church, its members rarely prayed or consulted the Bible. They expressed their spirituality through their actions by cultivating 'authentic relationships' with one another and working with the poor.... He attended mainly for the social scene. And, anyway, he suspected that kids were faking openness through rote gestures and that they used demonstrations of honesty to impress one another and gain popularity."
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I grew up Congregationalist and this was some of my background, though not to that intensity. It was about the poor, and being cool, and "communication." I preached the youth sermon in 1971 from Edward Albee's "Zoo Story." I don't think I mentioned Jesus, nor did anyone else all that much.
...Crossroads is an experiment in sincerity
I suspect that he is faking sincerity through rote gestures and that he uses demonstrations of honesty to impress others and gain popularity
I recall the IVCF, Intervarsity Christian Fellowship, at my undergrad college. Young men went to meetings, to act Christian in order to get young women also acting Christian into bed. The degree of "acting Christian" was the only differentiator among all participants. Finding someone for a quick lay or a marriage partner was equally possible among all the students participating. And other than many young men being disappointed at "striking out" at their game, and many young women learning that words without "a ring on the finger" are just words, the IVCF worked quite well at getting young men and women together for Christian fellowship.
Of course, as a Catholic I abjured such heretical groups, and remained cloistered among the few One True Faith followers on campus, who also practiced sex illicitly.
Behold, I make all things Cool.
People of my vintage might remember the TV show "Lucas Tanner" about a teacher at Webster Groves HS (played by David Hartman, who later went on to host "Good Morning America"). A college roommate who was from Webster Groves said that the natives hated the show, and just wanted to keep people from moving to Webster Groves...
I didn't join a church until I was in my 30s and chose a Lutheran church. Sometimes someone will wave their arms while singing a hymn. Its quite the scandal.
"Of course, as a Catholic I abjured such heretical groups, and remained cloistered among the few One True Faith followers on campus..."
One True Faith. There seems to be an abundance of these, though having checked Overstock.com I haven't found any bargains in that department, which runs counter to my grasp of basic economics. Some are pretty cheap to buy, one only wants me to utter some gibberish in front of witnesses who may not be entirely disinterested. There are others that demand ten percent of my worldly chattels (is that before or after taxes?) but makes no guarantees about by compensatory income growth, and still other that aren't satisfied with anything less than everything I own or might ever call mine. No sale, man. I'm not greedy because I resent greed, consequently I find these pay up or be damned religions quite unpleasant, much like being shoved through the eye of a needle.
Besides the unpleasantries of buying into a One True Faith, I've discovered most are difficult to return or exchange, one might say it's literally hell to get a refund from Pope Francis. And if you want to exchange Islam for something less strenuous -- Buddhism, for example -- then you'd be well advised to buy an AR-15 and some Class-IV body armor.
Shopping for a One True Faith has convinced me that I'm just not in that market. What I'm looking for is something along the lines of Bob's Pretty Good Religion, something with less strident answers, something with a more loquacious lord and saviour than Allah, a all-powerful being apparently unable to recover from a fourteen-hundred year case of laryngitis, who might be expected to explain some of the more esoteric aspects of His Creation, the wave-particle duality, for instance. I'd even accept Bob's Pretty Good Diety, a god who'd admit to some uncertainty. Imagine Moses on Mt. Sinai meeting a Jehova who answered some questions with a shrug.
The Congregational Church breed the Unitarians and since the early 19th Century has always been one of the more liberal/Left churches in the USA. That they'd have "youth groups" that were big on "youth" and light on Chrisitanity doesn't surprise me. BTW, I started to reading "Corrections" by Franzen ( or rather listening to it) a year ago, but got distracted and went on to "Red Harvest" by Hammett.
Maybe, I'll restart it sometime. Its was sorta funny, but it didn't grab me like some books.
My wife and I met each other in the college ministry of a local church where we attended a large state university in Texas. We just celebrated our 35th anniversary. The activities, fellowship, Bible studies, worship, and retreats in the college ministry were spiritually formative for us. Plus it gave us a group of Christian friends and support in the midst of 40,000+ students. We made lifelong friends there, many of whom also met their spouses through that ministry.
Please know that (contra Franzen and the New York Review of Books and the St. Louis newspapers) many young people have found direction, spiritual purpose, and happy relationships through Christian youth and college ministries.
Lets see, which problem is greater?
too much church,
or
too much drug use?
Keep in mind, that was in 1972, near the height of the Sixties; the hippie and anti-Vietnam war movements were still going strong.
As for The Corrections, all I remember is that it was a very good novel which I enjoyed reading very much. One of the best in recent years.
A description of cult behavior, that’s what I see in this post.
Blogger rcocean said...
The Congregational Church breed the Unitarians and since the early 19th Century has always been one of the more liberal/Left churches in the USA.
I’ve seen Unitarian “churches” around but never been in one. My readings of them don’t leave a positive impression. In fact the one thing I remember is many years ago a friend saying “I went to a Unitarian service one day under the mistaken impression it was a church.”
As for Roman Catholicism being the one true Church, the different Orthodox Churches each with their own Pope and existence as long as the Roman Church would disagree. But I would argue that any Christian Church in the USA that can’t trace an unbroken line of clergy back to the Mother Church is Christian in name only. I’ve had discussions with members of some of these independent Bible churches that insist they’re not Protestant, they’re Christian. If their preacher was ordained by any denomination- they’re Protestant. If not- they’re a cult.
Unlike many other countries, the USA doesn’t have a government ministry or agency to determine if a religion is actually a religion. Like, for example, Scientology. In some countries they are correctly recognized as not a religion. But freedom of religion is so ingrained into American culture and law that Pastafarianism is awarded religious status…
"Unitarians" = "people who don't believe in the Trinity."
"Universalists" = "people who believe all are saved."
"Unitarian-Universalists" = "people who believe both these things."
I don't see much reason to pay attention to these people, unless and until they are prepared to defend those two propositions. Which btw can be defended; I've just never encountered any self-described U-U who would so much as try.
There were a lot of Jesus Freaks in the late sixties and early seventies in my little West TN hometown and all across the U.S., I suspect. LSD experiences had a lot to do with it as did breaking up with the first real girlfriend or boyfriend or other traumas. Plus, there were lots of idealistic young youth pastors coming in and out of the local churches. Sincere people, for the most part.
I was so out of the loop in high school I didn't know girls went anywhere looking for sex, much less to church or church-approved activities. I quit all that, soon after getting confirmed (as the term was used in the newly United Methodists).
My wife was raised and schooled as a Catholic, but formed no more attachment to them than I did to the Wesleyans. Probably less, since I actually remember a lot of stuff that she says the priests and nuns never mentioned.
FWIW her high school program was much more rigorous than mine at public, and she was ranked considerably higher in her class than I was in mine. But I always say that's because she tried, which is almost the same as cheating.
I think Prof has put a lid on it, so good night y'all.
if you are reading this and were a parent with a high school kid in 1972, you are now either very very old, or very very very very old, and if YOU ARE READING THIS I WANT YOU TO KNOW, you are as special to GOD as anyone else who has ever lived. Seriously.
don't be angry, don't think you ought to mock me for telling people what GOD THINKS.
we are all humans, created in the image of GOD, and TRUST ME, I am not the ONLY ONE WHO KNOWS HOW MUCH GOD LOVES EVERY SINGLE PERSON WHO, IN 1972, WAS "A PARENT WITH A CHILD IN HIGH SCHOOL",
This world, my friends, ONLY MAKES SENSE WHEN YOU REMEMBER THAT FIRST TIME YOU UNDERSTOOD GOD LOVED YOU, AND YOU UNDERSTOOD THAT IF GOD LOVES YOU, GOD LOVES US ALL.
So follow the commandments, which are GOD's message to us about how to be kind to each other.
TO be fair, if you disregard the commandments,and selfishly overdose on Fentanyl or something like that, there will almost certainly be people nearby who try to save your life.
You can go from temptation to temptation, from one selfish action to another, BUT GOD WILL ALWAYS BE TELLING YOU THAT YOU ARE BETTER THAN THAT. That is how God rolls.
"The fighting young priest who can talk to the young."
The Congregational “Churches”, among others, have a lot to answer for.
The woo-woo U-U's don't get no respect. Some commenters sound like Garrison Keillor on the subject! He took a lot of swipes at them, and atheists, before he was canned.
It's interesting that over my few years here many have self-identified as one thing or another, but not U-U that I have noticed.
My own experience with the breed is mixed. Growing up in the 60s in East Memphis, the neighborhood had mostly Methodists, Baptists, some Catholics, some Evangelicals and a few Jews--not that that mattered much day to day.
My best friend's family were U-U. They had Southern roots and parentage but had grown up in SoCal and when they moved here in the early 50s for work I guess they found the Congregationalists welcoming. I really don't know. Nobody else in the 'hood thought highly of U-U's if they thought about them at all.
Anyway, they built a wonderful campus and sanctuary on the Mississippi bluffs, and I've attended a few funerals, memorials, and like events there over the years. Sometime in the mid-70s my friend's mother, who was the volunteer church secretary, unlocked the door one afternoon to see what someone wanted and was violently assaulted and gang-raped for her troubles. She was lucky she lived.
I can't visit the place without that knowledge; it is an odd sensation, to know something as an outsider that only the very oldest members would know now. The whole family gradually moved back west and my friend died in January.
As for the present membership and what they get up to . . . let's just say if I wanted to spend Sundays also among the college and university faculties, that's where I'd go.
I looked up Franzen's essay that starts ...
My despair about the American novel began in the winter of 1991, when I fled to Yaddo, the artists colony in upstate New York, to write the last two chapters of my second book.
If I read that 50 years ago, I might have taken that seriously. I might have felt that way when it was published 25 years ago, I might have still have taken it seriously. Today, it just sounds fake and pretentious and ridiculous.
But then almost everything today strikes me as fake and pretentious and ridiculous.
I guess it's possible to admire Franzen for still trying to write novels about how ordinary (white, upper middle class) Americans live today, but it seems like John Updike did that to death, and setting a novel back in the Updike era may not be a recipe for success. Who can say, though? He may turn out to be a classic. Stranger things have happened.
The story reminds me of Hillary Clinton's young years getting inspired by a "cool," young, socially engaged (Methodist) preacher.
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