I have a book blog, but most of the posts recently haven't been SP material. Here's one that might interest some of you, though:


A few posts back, I mentioned a book describing how protestant churches have turned themselves into businesses. The consequences are inevitable: congregations have begun to think of themselves as consumers. And, boy, are there some unhappy customers out there.

According to journalist Julia Duin, people aren’t leaving churches just because they’ve become “no religion” or “spiritual but not religious.” They’re leaving because they’re not satisfied with the product on offer.

Churches, says Duin, don’t speak to the way people actually live and work today. They never get to grips with the really difficult issues. They over-promise and under-deliver on community. While 81 percent of pastors think their own preaching excellent, only 44 percent of their congregations agree. And with so many people working and raising children at the same time, Sundays have become too valuable to spend in church — especially in a church that fails to nourish.

So what’s to be done? Duin sees a few isolated bright spots, but for the most part, she says, the churches ain’t gonna change.

BTW, comments on book covers are also welcome on my blog. How do you like the “new plain” look that’s appeared over the last few years?

Julia Duin. Quitting Church: Why the Faithful are Fleeing and What to Do about It. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Books, 2008. Paperback. 186 pages. ISBN 0801072271. $12.99.


More of what I've been reading recently at http://true-small-caps.blogspot.com

Thanks, Derek. And good to see what you look like.

Interesting book, and I noted one you reviewed called "Ugly as Sin." I know some of those modern (i.e., modernist) church architects referred to in the book.

(btw, I've been away on retreat for the past week or would have replied sooner.)

Welcome back from retreat!

Are those modernists friends of yours? Their work is disliked in many quarters, though perhaps they know that already.

Yes, they know their work is "different," but as you've noted, they feel their work is based on liturgical documents that stress emphasis on the gathered community, the altar, etc., with sacred art taking a background.

The USCCB website confirms what that book I was reading says. Environment and Art in Catholic Worship was never authorized:

quote:

Environment and Art in Catholic Worship is a 1978 statement of the Bishops' Committee on the Liturgy. The purpose of the document is to provide principles for those involved in preparing liturgical space. The committee statement received the approval of the Administrative Committee in keeping with Conference policy. Because the document was not proposed as a statement of the whole conference of Bishops, the full body of bishops was never asked to consider it.

Environment and Art in Catholic Worship does not have the force of law in and of itself. It is not particular law for the dioceses of the United States of America, but a commentary on that law by the Committee for the Liturgy. However, it does quote several documents of the Apostolic See and in that sense it has the force of the documents it quotes in the areas where those documents legislate.

The Bishops' Committee on the Liturgy has appointed a task group to revisit Environment and Art in Catholic Worship. The revised document, entitled Built on Living Stones, was approved by the full body of Bishops at the November 2000 meeting.

These "new" and approved rules dating from November 2000, Built on Living Stones, are also on the USCCB website. They reiterate what the book says -- that the real rules call for art and a sense of the sacred:

quote:

§ 29 Because the church is a house of prayer in which the Eucharist is celebrated and the Blessed Sacrament is reserved, a place where the faithful assemble, and a setting where Christ is worshiped, it should be worthy of prayer and sacred celebration, built in conformity with the laws of the Church, and dignified with noble beauty and intrinsically excellent art. The general plan of the building reflects the Church that Christ gathers there, is expressive of its prayer, fosters the members' participation in sacred realities, and supports the solemn character of the sacred liturgy.

Another blog entry that might interest those of you with experience of Charismatic groups:

Days of Fire and Glory: The Rise and Fall of a Charismatic Community.

I couldn’t put this book down! Once I’d started, I read all 300+ pages in less than twenty-four hours.

Graham Pulkingham was an Episcopal priest in Houston, overwhelmed by the problems of serving a decaying neighborhood. He received what he took to be a message from God telling him to go to New York. There, at the hands of David Wilkerson (The Cross and the Switchblade), he received a pentecostal-style baptism in the Spirit. When Pulkingham returned to Houston, he discovered he had the power to bring about miraculous healings. Crutches were left at the altar rail. Incurable diseased were pronounced cured.

Many of his fellow Episcopalians were appalled by the charismatic direction Pulkingham’s spirituality had taken. Some questioned his sanity. Long-time members left the parish. But encouraged by prophetic utterances, Graham Pulkingham persisted. He formed a daily 5:30 a.m. prayer group, to which several dozen people committed themselves, despite their full-time jobs. People sold large homes to move to small apartments nearer his newly charismatic church and care for the poor of the neighborhood. Above all, there was praying in tongues.

Pulkingham’s church attracted more and more people. The weekday schedule grew to include two morning prayer meetings as well as Bible study and interpretation. They opened a street ministry and a coffee house. The young musicians at the coffee house made successful records. Many churchgoers formed communal households. People from out of town came to visit Redeemer church to see what was going on. CBS made an hour-long documentary about them. Graham Pulkington himself wrote the first of several books. Sunday attendance, which had once been 200 people, grew to 2,000 people. Even a Friday evening service would attract 800. People came from as far away as Europe.

And then, ever so slowly, things started to go wrong. The communal households became increasingly cult-like and dictatorial. Community became an end in itself rather than a means to an end. The church became so intensely inward-looking that some members only met outsiders a few times each year. As outreach locations were founded, the Redeemer leaders, including Graham Pulkingham, spread themselves too thinly. And money was tight. A household might have only three wage-earners to support two dozen people. The mentally ill were counseled by volunteers with no professional training.

In 1978, Redeemer church made televion news again — this time for a very different reason. The community was charged with holding young people against their will. When the parents brought a court case, a TV station ran a weeklong series branding Redeemer a cult.

Marriages broke down under the strain of such an intense and demanding life. While the church and its members had formerly seemed to be under divine protection in this rough neighborhood, robberies and even home invasions began to occur. Women were raped. After having spent several years absent from the church on a mission to the UK, Graham Pulkingham left Houston again, this time to move to Colorado. His replacement as leader seemed unable to cope with the responsibilities and stopped returning phone calls. Allegations of child abuse surfaced. People drifted away from Redeemer church and its problems.

Finally, in 1992 the truth about Graham Pulkingham himself emerged. Despite being married, he had been persuading the men he counseled to have homosexual sex with him. A year later, he was dead of a heart attack.

So what conclusions we can draw from this tale of disappointed hopes, with its cast of hundreds? Author Julia Duin had her own experience of living in a Christian community, and she describes community life as “so hard . . . the cost would be staggering.” Her book is published by the Crossland Foundation, who “seek to identify the causes for these disorders and the ways that these disorders can be eliminated from the church.”


Julia Duin. Days of Fire and Glory: The Rise and Fall of a Charismatic Community. Baltimore, Md.: Crossland Press, 2009. Hardcover. 368 pages. ISBN 0979027977. $24.95.