'He beat out a cadence with his fist'

A Detroit News Tribune illustration of Billy Sunday's preaching, published Oct. 29, 1916. Sunday preached in Detroit from September to November, that year, in part advocating for prohibition, which was on the ballot. 

A description of one of his Detroit sermons, from historian Larry D. Engelmann:

He appeared on the platform high above the sea of clean shining faces like a wispy cross between a businessman and an angel. Attired in a light gray suit and white shoes, a white negligee shirt of the finest linen and a white silk tie to match, Sunday feinted, walked and ran, crouched and jumped, from one end of the stage to the other, sweating from his gyrations until he was wet as a rag held under a pump. 

By his actions he kept the audience transfixed, hanging upon his every word and movement. He jumped on a chair; down on the floor again. He beat out a cadence with his fist upon the platform in order to emphasize a series of points; on top of the pulpit, he tore off his coat and collar and threw them to the stage .... 

Wild-eyed at the climax of his address, like an addict going cold turkey, Sunday told his God to help old Detroit. Throw your arms around her. Go into her barber shops, Lord, into the hotels, factories, and saloons. Help the man in the street, the floater, and drunkard. The devil has him almost out. He's on the ropes and groggy, Lord. One more stiff uppercut will finish him. Help him, Lord, to square his shoulders, raise his dukes and cry, Yes, Lord, I'll come when Bill gives the call.

The texts of some of Sunday's sermons can be read at biblebelievers.com. There is also video of his preaching from a period later in his life. The energy and style are still there, though.

The statewide ban on sale of alcohol passed in 1916. It was the first in nation. In 1933, Michigan also became the first state to ratify the twenty-first amendment to the Constitution, which overturned federal prohibition.

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The gospel and the coalition of silence

The silence from Evangelical 'leaders' regarding the issue of child sexual abuse within the Church was deafening and spoke volumes. Why no statements about the horrors of child sexual abuse and the apparent horrors of the abuse that occurred in these two churches? Why no statements from Evangelical leaders that express grave concern that there is even a possibility that these church leaders instructed victims and their families to embrace the horrors of silence? We are now told by some that the silence was because of pending litigation. Really? Since when have Christians allowed pending civil litigation to silence them over sin?     

[....] the Gospel is about a God who didn’t remain silent in the face of sin, but took self-sacrificial action in order to openly confront sin and redeem those He loves for His ultimate glory. A Gospel-centered response to child sexual abuse begins with our understanding that silence is not an option.

-- Boz Tchividjian, "Where are the voices?" 

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The Rich Mullins story

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Howard Phillips, 1941-2013

Howard Phillips, a leader of the religious right who spent more than 30 years pushing conservatives to be more true to their anti-government principals, has died at the age of 72.

He worked for Richard Nixon in the 1970s, dismantling welfare programs, but resigned when Nixon failed to stop funding programs he had promised to slash. Phillips was a key player in the founding of the Moral Majority and the politicization of evangelicals in the 1980s, and then founded a religious right party as an alternative to the Republicans in 1991. Phillips ran for president three times on the U.S. Taxpayers' Party ticket, in 1992, 1996, and 2000.

He embraced Christian Reconstructionism and libertarian economics, and was particularly interesting as a radical figure who refused to compromise. At his most politically successful, in 1996, Howard got .19 percent of the vote.

In 2000, during his last presidential run, he devoted some of his campaigning to attacking George W. Bush, a politically conservative evangelical Christian embraced by much of the religious right. Phillips, however, called Bush "a pretty new face to mask the ugly old policies" of "America's permanent power structure."

On the stump that year, Phillips said,

In this century, three Presidents in particular, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Lyndon B. Johnson have successfully launched fundamental assaults on America's heritage of Constitutional liberty. None of their successors altered the course on which these Presidents directed us.

Neither Harding, Coolidge nor Hoover undid the damage done during the Wilson presidency. Eisenhower consolidated and extended the systems put in place under FDR's New Deal and carried forward the institutional policies of the Truman presidency.

When Richard Nixon became President, instead of challenging the neo-Marxist revolutionary agenda of LBJ's Great Society, he consolidated it and extended it, while providing increased funding for its activities.

Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, and Clinton all operated in the context of LBJ's Gramsci-esque political reality which was, in essence, a Federally funded war on the Constitution, on the culture, on the military, on traditional educational policy, and on the family.

Instead of e pluribus unum, America has become 'a house divided,' with its citizens defined on the basis of gender, ethnicity, race, and sexual orientation.

A runaway Supreme Court has, without serious challenge, asserted legislative claims never intended or granted by the Framers. Religious liberty has been assaulted, respect for the sanctity of human life has been abandoned, local control of crime has been undermined, and private property rights have been jeopardized. 

[....] 

But the real reason for the pro-Bush dynamic of the Year 2000 election is the overriding disgust with Bill Clinton and the desire to end the Clinton era.

Moreover, America's permanent power structure needs a pretty new face to mask ugly old policies.

That is the reason 'Dubya' is the clear favorite.

Once disgust with Clinton is, a few years hence, superseded by a new political reality, with Dubya having been in office for one, two, or three years, sensible conservatives and Christians will discern that, in GWB, they have installed Clintonism without Clinton.

Phillips got more than 98,000 votes cast for him that year, about .09 percent of the total vote. He finished in sixth place, behind the Green Party, Reform Party and Libertarian Party candidates. Despite his electoral failures, though Phillips was a real force for radicalization on the Christian right.

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Judges seem skeptical of homeschoolers' persecution claims

The three judges set to decide whether a German homeschooling family qualifies for asylum in the United States seemed skeptical during a court hearing Tuesday in Cincinnati, Ohio, according to news reports.

Uwe and Hannelore Romeike are arguing that homeschoolers ought to be considered a "particular social group" persecuted by countries that have laws requiring all children attend public or state-approved private schools. According to U.S. law, people persecuted because they belong to a "particular social group" are granted asylum. The law does not define the term, but federal courts have generally interpreted it as meaning a group that has some immutable characteristic. A lower court found that the family could not be considered religious or political refugees. If the Romeikes lose the appeal, they will not be required to return to Germany, but they will have to leave the U.S.

One of the three judges who will decide the case asked pointedly whether any German law is targeted at homeschoolers specifically, or if the law is not rather of general applicability. He also said that it's entirely possible for children to attend a public school and still receive additional private training from their parents, the Associated Press reported.

"Germany is not forbidding home-schooling ... It's not like saying you can't teach them at home in the evenings," said Judge Jeffrey S. Sutton, a George W. Bush administration appointee.

A second judge said that ruling in the Romeike's favor would mean "opening the door" to many, many asylum seekers. The judge speculated that such a precedent would possibly mean anyone in any country being punished under a law not supported by the United States would be entitled to refugee status.

The third judge on the panel said that Germany's rules about mandatory education do not seem designed to suppress Christianity or oppress homeschoolers, but to integrate minorities into society and teach tolerance.

Michael Farris, the Romeike's lawyer and the head of the homeschool organization that encouraged the family to emigrate to America when they were facing legal trouble at home, rejected the idea that public schools might be socially valuable by teaching tolerance. He said, "If that's tolerance, it's tolerance unknown in a free society," according to the Baptist Press.

After the 38 minutes of oral arguments and judges' questions, the Baptist Press' reporter concluded that "the judges suggested that they may not grant asylum, arguing that mistreatment by the German government is not tantamount to persecution and not necessarily a ground for allowing the family to remain in America."

That is exactly what the Justice Department lawyers are arguing.

In court, the Obama administration representative said the German law "is not a great law." But that's not the same as persecution, he said, and isn't grounds for considering those in violation of that law a protected, "particular social group."

Farris, for his part, was holding out hope on Tuesday afternoon that the judges would decide in favor of the homeschoolers. In a statement he said "tough questions were asked on both sides, and it's hard to predict the outcome," but "God can intervene."

The German homeschoolers have may supports on the American right -- including Glenn Beck and Mike Huckabee -- who are hoping for divine help. As Hannelore Romeike noted outside the courthouse after the hearing, "there are so many people praying for us."

In addition to prayers, supporters have also organized social media campaigns calling attention to the case and accusing the Obama administration of siding with Nazis and harboring Latin American criminal immigrants while deporting good homeschooling Christians. To date, more than 120,000 people have signed a petition stating that the "Romeikes hope for the same freedom our forefathers sought. Please grant the privilege of liberty to the Romeike family."

According to the Home School Legal Defense Association, the federal courtroom overflowed with supporters during the hearing. The Associated Press put the number of supporters in attendance at about 50 or 60.

It could be several months before the appeals court judges rule on Romeike vs. Holder.

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Hitler wins: the disjunction of law & politics in Romeike v. Holder

The definition of a very vague legal term is at the center of oral arguments being heard today in a federal appeals court in Cincinnati, Ohio. That term is "particular social group."

In US law, that is one of five named groups of people eligible for asylum -- and the most ill-defined. The other categories are race, religion, nationality, and political opinions. If someone can demonstrate they are being persecuted or that they fear being persecuted on those grounds, they can be granted refugee status in America. People also have the right to asylum if they're being persecuted because they belong to a "particular social group," but what that means, who that applies to, is a matter of a legal dispute. In the case in court today, the question is whether or not homeschoolers count as a "particular social group" and should be granted asylum if they come to the US from a country where homeschooling isn't legal, such as Germany.

The political agitation coming out of this court case bears only the slightest relation to the legal issue, though.

The activists who care about this case, Romeike vs. Holder, don't appear to be at all interested in the legal issue at the heart of the case. They are, though, very interested in the way public perception of the case allows them to agitate against the Obama administration and for homeschooling.

The Romeike family has become a cause célèbre on the American right.

Uwe and Hannalore Romeike left southwest Germany in 2008, facing mounting fines for their refusal to send their children to either a public or private school. At the behest of the Home School Legal Defense Association, a non-profit committed to advocating for the rights of parents to homeschool, the Romeike's travelled to the US on tourist visas and then applied for asylum, claiming they were being persecuted in Germany for their religious belief that they should homeschool. The family does not belong to nor affiliate with any religious organization, but cited numerous Bible verses that they say instruct them to educate their own children, despite their lack of official credentials to do so.

The couple also claimed the German education system was teaching their children all sorts of things that they were opposed to, including witchcraft, though they didn't offer any evidence to support those claims.

Uwe Romeike told the authorities, "God requires me and my wife to educate our children at home ourselves."

In 2010, a federal judge ruled that the family was indeed a "particular social group" -- i.e., homeschoolers -- being persecuted in Germany, and thus could be considered to have the right to asylum in America.

The Romeike's lawyers also argued they were being discriminated against because of their political opinions and religious beliefs, but the court didn't accept those arguments. The family had no history of political activity. They certainly were religious, but the law they were accused of violating had no religious component to it, and didn't qualify, legally, as amounting to religious persecution. The judge wrote, however, that the family was being attacked by the German government because the German government, "for some unknown reason," wants to suppress the particular social group that is home schoolers. Their request for asylum was granted.

Then, a year ago, the immigration appeals board overturned the court's decision. The board ruled the Romeike's were not legally entitled to the status of refugees, as homeschoolers do not constitute a protected class, since they are a diverse group, amorphous. The main legal standards for establishing a group as a "particular social group," established by the precedent of court rulings, require the Romeike's lawyers prove that homeschoolers are a group with immutable characteristics. This means they have to make the case that being a homeschooler involves "a characteristic that either is beyond the power of an individual to change or is so fundamental to individual identity or conscience that it ought not be required to be changed." There are also other interpretations of what this term means that have been used by the courts, as is outlined in a Boston College International and Comparative Law Review article that strongly supports the Romeike's asylum case. The extensive legal issues involved in this case are further argued by one of the HSLDA lawyers in a long blog post here.

None of that shows up in the popular arguments being about this case, however.

Instead, the HSLDA is promoting arguments like this:

That comparison has been picked up and repeated by those who strongly support homeschooling and strongly oppose Obama and, generally, American liberalism. For example, a self-described "homeschooling guru" blogger writes,

the Obama Administration, while disregarding millions of illegal immigrants and Mexican drug lords sneaking over the Southern borders, dismissed the judge’s argument and immediately set their sights on an innocuous homeschooling family from Germany .... This case should be on the radar screen of every parent who values the freedom to raise and educate our children without government interference.

A FOX News story opened with the same comparison between "good" immigrants and the bad ones: "While the White House and many lawmakers push to grant legal status to immigrants who crossed the border illegally, the Romeike family thought they followed the rules -- but now face deportation."

None of this has anything to do with the case, in reality. The merits of the case -- on which the case will be debated and will be decided -- have not the slightest relationship to the question of immigration reform or general immigration policy. The politics of immigration aren't at issue in the federal appeals court.

The case has even less to do with Nazism, but the political agitators have been very aggressive in associating Germany's education law to that dark period of German history, making the hand-wavy argument that either this family should get asylum in America or the Nazis win. Though public education has existed in Germany since Luther, and was law long before Nazis took charge, people defending the Romeike's right to be seen as persecuted refugees repeat claims that German education policy is, at bottom, a Nazi policy.

As HSLDA head Michael Farris put it,

the German government wants to prohibit people who think differently from the government (on religious or philosophical grounds) from growing and developing into a force in society. It is thought control. 

It is belief control. It is totalitarianism dressed up in politically correct lingo. 

In the same vein, HSLDA has argued people should speak up in support of the Romeike's because:

While Dietrich Bonhoeffer's face may not symbolize principled opposition to growing government encroachment on the freedom of religion to everyone, that's what it communicates to Christian conservatives in America today.

Nor are the ad hitlerum arguments always so subtle.

A Neo-Calvinist homeschooler wrote that in this case, the US Attorney General is taking the side of Nazism in federal court. The homeschooling father writes:

This may be a glowing example of the argumentum ad hitlerium fallacy, but consider the facts. Adolf Hitler will be one of Eric Holder’s witnesses for the prosecution against the Romeikes. This is a human rights contest where the prosecution will posthumously call Adolf Hitler to testify on their behalf whenever German law is invoked, and the German Supreme Court’s upholding of these Nazi laws is the primary witness in Eric Holder’s case against the Romeikes.

No facts are actually involved in that paragraph. But details of how and why German education policy developed aren't relevant to rhetorical excess, nor to the political argument for homeschooling and against government generally. And anyway, no one who is making this argument-by-free-association seems to have bothered to investigate why Germans tolerate and even avidly support the ban on homeschooling.

It's enough, politically, to shout "Hilter!"

Or, as a columnist at the right-leaning Washington Times wrote, "small-minded and grasping totalitarianism .... It sounds like they aren’t really big on religious or philosophical diversity over there."

Even if it were what it seemed like or sounded like to those who think loose comparisons to Hitler serve as evidence of totalitarian intent, that wouldn't be relevant to this court case being heard in Ohio today. The decision won't be based on anything having to do with Hitler. Or immigration. Or any of the political conflicts being actively aggravated by homeschooling advocates in loose connection to the Romeike case.

The court case isn't about any of these things.

But then maybe that's the point, because HSLDA can lose this appeal and still advance its cause and rally its base with all this rhetoric and agitation that's only tangentially connected to the court case purportedly arousing it. Getting people up in arms can serve a purpose. And people are unlikely to strong emotional reactions to debates over the definition of "particular social group" in a US asylum law passed in 1980. The politics of this and the legal case in the courts are, when one looks at them, only barely related. The two discourses never quite intersect, even when they're presented as being (and necessarily, for the sake of the politics) entirely the same.

This is what's really crazy about the public debates about politically sensitive court cases -- knowing the facts of the case and legal issues being debated doesn't really turn out to be particularly relevant to the social groups who really, passionately care.

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A tax on sex outside of marriage

Chuck Colson died a year ago today. The one-time Watergate criminal, who converted to evangelical Christianity after his indictment, played a pivotal role in the political mobilization of American evangelicals, particularly by popularizing and promoting the work of Francis Schaeffer and the idea of "worldviews," and also in convincing evangelicals to work with Catholics on common social causes.

In one of his very last daily radio commentaries, broadcast April 2, Colson argued tax policies necessarily reflects legislator's worldview, and that conceptions of "sin" are important to the shape that those tax policies take. He said,

... the number of sin taxes is increasing, perhaps because legislators simply want to be on record as opposing the 'sins' of alcohol, smoking, and even sugary drinks! 

It’s odd, though, that despite this feeding frenzy, nobody is proposing to tax an activity that nearly every previous generation saw as truly sinful and harmful to society: sexual promiscuity. 

In fact, the word 'promiscuity' is no longer uttered after the word 'sexual' in polite company, although the word 'freedom' certainly is. And we actually celebrate sexual promiscuity. 

... now the Sexual Left not only excuses sin, they want us to actually subsidize it.

It's a clever argument, partly playfully facetious, built not on argument for a policy position per se but the deftness of the reversal of the policy position being opposed, an argument via subversion, mutates mutandis.

That style was not incidental to his success, I don't think.

The late Colson's radio commentaries can be heard here. Colson's columns for Christianity Today, including those he co-wrote with the Catholic theologian Robert P. George, can be found here. The radio commentaries of those who have continued his work -- including those of popular Dietrich Bonhoeffer biographer Eric Metaxas -- can be heard here.

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George Beverly Shea, 1909 - 2013

George Beverly Shea, who sang at Billy Graham crusades for more than 60 years, died on Tuesday at the age of 104.

According to the PR Newswire article, he was

Born in Winchester, Ontario, Canada, where his father was a Wesleyan Methodist minister, Shea's first public singing was in the choir of his father's church. Between Crusade, radio, and television dates in many countries, he sang at hundreds of concerts and recorded more than 70 albums of sacred music. At age 23 he composed the music to one of his best known solos, "I'd Rather Have Jesus."

He won a Grammy in 1965, and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Grammys in 2011. He was inducted into the Gospel Music Association Hall of Fame in 1978 and the Religious Broadcasting Hall of Fame in 1996.

According to Shea's authorized biography, written by Paul Davis, Shea turned down an early offer of a career in secular music. He won a radio competition, singing Go Down Moses and was offered a recording contract, but wasn't comfortable with anything but gospel music. After he joined with Graham in 1940s, he wholly committed his talent to evangelical outreach. That talent did not go unappreciated. As Davis writes,

In those dizzy, busy days of Billy Graham Missions, his hit records barely kept pace with demand as his multiple admirers flocked to see him in person or on the silver screen in his movie musical shorts or cameo in Christian feature films.

The New York Times reports he was "perhaps the most widely heard gospel artist in the world."

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Edith Schaeffer, 1914 - 2013

Edith Schaeffer has died at the age of 98. 

Schaeffer co-founded L'Abri with her husband Francis, and was a monumental figure in late twentieth century American evangelicalism. She taught that homemaking and hospitality were important Christian ministries, and that art and beauty should have a cherished place in contemporary Christian life. According to Schaeffer, God was creative and brought beauty into the world and Christian women, through feminine service to their families, could do the same.

Tim Challies, pastor of a Baptist Church in Toronto, writes a brief history of L'Abri, and Schaeffer's role in that work: 

In 1948 the Independent Board for Presbyterian Foreign Missions sent the Schaeffers to Switzerland as missionaries. In 1955, after identifying significant disagreements with IBPFM and subsequently withdrawing from that organization, they decided to simply open up their home and make it available as a place to demonstrate God’s love and provide a forum for discussing God and the meaning of life. They called it L’Abri after the French word for “shelter.” By the mid-1950’s up to 30 people each week were visiting. 

Edith had an integral role in maintaining the home and mentoring those who visited. She wrote or co-wrote twenty books, including Affliction, a book on suffering, and the autobiographical The Tapestry: the Life and Times of Francis and Edith Schaeffer, each of which received the Gold Medallion Award from the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association (in 1979 and 1982 respectively).

Os Guinness once called Schaeffer "the secret of L'Abri."

World Magazine explains that for Schaeffer, Christianity could be expressed through hospitality, since "hospitality meant a real love for strangers, and having time for them when she didn't have time for them: 'Sit at our dinner table, have a meal with us, sleep in our beds, under our roof.'"

Schaeffer's son, Frank, who has been very critical of his parents, notably in a book titled, Sex, Mom and God, writes that his mother was a paradox, embodying both the best and worst of Christian fundamentalism:

I trust my mother’s hope-filled view of death because of the way Mom lived her life. Mom first introduced me to a non-retributive loving Lord who did not come to “die for us” to “satisfy” an angry God but came as a friend who ended all cycles of retribution and violence. Mom made this introduction to Jesus through her life example.  

Mom was a wonderful paradox: an evangelical conservative fundamentalist who treated people as if she was an all-forgiving progressive liberal of the most tolerant variety. 

Mom’s daily life was a rebuke and contradiction to people who see everything as black and white. Liberals and secularists alike who make smug disparaging declarations about “all those evangelicals” would see their fondest prejudices founder upon the reality of my mother’s compassion, cultural literacy and loving energy.

For a sense of Schaeffer's impact on evangelical women, one only has to look at the many reader reviews of her work on Goodreads and Amazon.com.

Of her book, The Hidden Art of Homemaking, for example:

• I read this book when I was a young wife 26 years ago and it still inspires me today. All of Edith Schaeffer's books have had a huge impact on my life. Expressing beauty everyday where ever you are is one of her ideas that I think about all the time.
• it's light, but inspiring, and makes you feel like cleaning up at home, baking a loaf of bread, and inviting friends over for coffee and conversation.
• My pastor's wife gave this book to me when I graduated from high school, w-a-y back in 1974. I've read quite a few books about homemaking since then, but this one is timeless. It remains, hands-down, the best book on home arts that I've ever read. Filling a home with beauty does not require a lot of money, it requires a lot of love. Edith knows how to stimulate creativity by sharing examples from her own life such as creating makeshift furniture, feeding people, filling a home with music, welcoming guests, incorporating art in the home, caring for a sick family member.
• When I first picked up this book, I wasn't to excited to begin reading... But as soon as I cracked the cover, I was hooked. And not only that, but I found myself being inspired to use my talents to enrich myself and others. Even though I'm not really 'artistic' I was encouraged to use whatever talents I have to their fullest extent and enjoy the process.
• She was my mentor by books.... If your husband brings someone home unexpectedly for dinner and all you can do is dump tuna on a plate in the shape of a can, she has help for you.

At the end of her life, Schaeffer lived with her daughter and son-in-law in a small southern Swiss village called Gryon. 

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John Piper retires

John Piper -- the preacher who formulated "Christian hedonism," and done as much as anyone to promote Calvinism to evangelicals and stoke the revival of interest in Jonathan Edwards in the late 20th, early 21st century -- retires his pastorate tonight.

Justin Taylor describes the scene:

Tucked into the coat pocket of his charcoal suit jacket will be his compact ESV Bible, and in his worn leather briefcase will be a cheap folder, and in the folder will be a 11-page double-spaced typewritten sermon manuscript, with an array of handwritten circles and connecting lines and underlines and exclamation points and notes.  

Within a couple of hours the singing will cease, and he will rise from the front-row pew, place his sermon manuscript on the wooden pulpit, offer an introduction, and then read from Hebrews 13:20-21, the text for his Easter sermon that will double as his farewell sermon.

The farewell sermon will be live-streamed at Desiring God, this evening.

Piper has been the pastor of Bethlehem Baptist since 1980.

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The Scopes trial (full film)

via Justin Taylor

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In the days of the ark

Today marks the grand opening of an ark: a San Antonio megachurch's 24,800-square-feet replica of the apocalypse-surviving boat of Genesis 6, 7 and 8. The structure is two-stories, has 13 classrooms and is designed to hold 850 children. It also houses a number of animatronic animals including a talking macaw and a giraffe that raises and lowers its head.

The animals have names like "John Bunyan" and "Dietrich Bonhoeffer."

A facebook page dedicated to The Ark calls it a "place of fun, learning and worship" for toddlers and Kindergarten-age children.

My San Antonio reports:

Called The Ark, it cost almost $5 million and will open to the public Saturday and for church programs the next day. It aims to spur wonderment but also to underscore the Bible's authenticity, said Matthew Hagee, executive pastor. 

"I want them to say it happened," he said. "The Ark was real. Salvation is real. What God desires for Noah, God desires for me. For Noah, it was a boat. And for me, it was Jesus Christ." 

In recent years, churches nationwide have ramped up resources for innovative children's buildings, mindful of their appeal to young families, and Noah's Ark has enjoyed longstanding popularity for such spaces. A Christian theme park in Kentucky is building a full-scale replica.  

But the scale and sophistication of Cornerstone's new facility -- and particularly its collection of electronically controlled animal replicas -- might be unmatched nationally, say experts in Christian children's ministry.

A children's minister at the church told the media the ark is meant to compete with the "whiz-bang Disney stuff," and to send a message to parents: "We don't just want your kids to come here and learn. We want them to experience God."

The imitation boat manages to symbolize a lot of the distinctive messages of the megachurch, including its emphasis on the historicity of such Bible stories as Noah and the ark, and also its emphasis on apocalypticism.

Cornerstone was founded in the 1970s by controversial Pentecostal pastor John Hagee, who is still the senior minister of the 20,000-member church. The biblical character Noah has figured into the teachings of both the older and the younger Hagee. Mathew Hagee preached a sermon series called "Build an Ark" about "the divine warnings the Word of God gives us about the day an age in which we live." Noah's ark, he said,

tells us that the wise pay attention, they make a plan … they are prepared. When something changes in their life, they are not affected.  

I pray that you will become aware of the situations surrounding you and that you will begin to build yourself an ark. I want you to build yourself a spiritual ark for your family to take refuge in, a financial ark to provide for your children and your grandchildren, an ark for your marriage, and an ark for your ministry. Ultimately, in every area of your life, I want you to consider how you can be better prepared for the things that are coming your way so when they do come, and trust me they will come, it is not a matter of if you will be victorious, but for certain that you will live in total triumph.

The elder Hagee also mentions Noah and the ark in a recent book where he suggested the apocalypse could begin on December 12, 2012. John Hagee opens the book, Can America Survive?, by comparing the nation to another gigantic boat, the Titanic. He writes:

Why do I belabor this point?

Because America, believed to be the most powerful and 'unsinkable' nation on the face of the earth, is now racing across the stage of history in a similar perfect storm -- this one driven by the winds of political correctness, economic meltdowns leading to the death of the dollar, the rejection of Israel, the maniacal nuclear ambitions of the theocratic dictatorship in Iran, the ten prophetic signs that we are the terminal generation now being fulfilled in Biblical prophecy for the first time in world history, and the very real fact that in the near future planet Earth is going to experience, on a specific day, global ecological disaster in which a third of humanity will die.

The tenth "sign," according to Hagee, is the similarity between the world today and the world "in the days of Noah."

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Judge: pastor not protected from public criticism, accusations

Pastors are public figures, and aren't completely protected from former members' online criticism and accusations, according to a California judge.

Bob Grenier, the pastor of a Calvary Chapel church in central California, is suing his step-son, Alex Grenier, for defamation. The pastor claims he is being attacked and his reputation is being ruined by his step-son's blog and internet activities, activities that Alex Grenier says are designed to call attention to allegations of a long history of physical abuse, sexual abuse, and "ecclesiastical corruption."

According to the lawsuit, "Alex continues to this day to conduct a cyber-bully hate campaign by scouring the internet continuously, hour-by-hour, day-by-day, for the purpose of generating negative posts about his Parents." The suit claims the younger Grenier uses as many as nine websites "aimed at ruining credibility of Parents," regularly accusing the elder Grenier of child molestation and stealing from the church.

Two of the pastor's other sons -- adopted and biological -- have confirmed Alex Grenier's accounts of abuse.

Bob Grenier of course denies these allegations, but the primary case that's being made in the California court is that such allegations should not even be allowed. Similar to the argument that Sovereign Grace Ministries' lawyers are making in a Maryland court, the point is to protect internal affairs from outside scrutiny. In this week's preliminary ruling, however, a California judge rejected the idea that Bob Grenier's purportedly private affairs were really private and should be protected as private.

The judge ruled that the pastor is a "limited purpose public figure," and as such subject to a fair amount of public criticism.



Statements about public figures are only defamatory if they false statements, damaging statements, and published with "reckless disregard for the truth."This means that Bob Grenier does not just have to prove that his step-son's online statements were wrong and hurtful, but that Alex knowingly published false information intending to harm his step-father. According to the preliminary decision, the pastor is a public figure, and the bar is raised for claims of defamation:

Plaintiff, as pastor of Calvary Chapel Visalia, has placed himself in the public eye sufficiently to be considered a Limited Purpose Public Figure. Defendants have submitted evidence showing that Plaintiff has a Web site promoting his church and has video feeds of church services available through the Web site. Additionally, Plaintiff has published and distributed a book about his activities as a church leader, and has been active in various community events such as the mayor’s annual prayer breakfast and as a volunteer chaplain with the local police department. Plaintiff has also been active in producing and promoting regional church activities. In these public activities, Plaintiff claims to adhere to, teach, counsel, and to promote high standards of Christian morality and the teachings of the Bible, topics of substantial public interest. The evidence submitted supports Defendants’ claims that Plaintiff sought to have not only church members but others in the community see him as a church leader.

Such court decisions are good news for the growing number of online "survivor" communities that share and bring attention to allegations of "spiritual abuse." It's bad news for the many churches that want to squelch such public criticism of how they counsel members.

The court is scheduled to hear arguments about "reckless disregard for the truth" in the Grenier vs. Grenier case in April.

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'Free exercise' of religion & the covering up of child sexual abuse

The "free exercise" clause of the First Amendment has been used for lots of things. In a lot of different ways.

It's been understood by the Supreme Court to mean that those fired for their religion still have a right to unemployment benefits, and to mean that religious institutions have the right to define "minister" any way they want, and to fire those so designated for any reason. It has been applied to protect the rights of those who sacrifice animals, and those who are required by their faith to distribute literature. The idea that government can't rightly pass a law prohibiting the free exercise of religion has been successfully used to defend those who won't salute the American flag, those who won't send their children to public schools, those who use controlled substances in their worship, etc., etc., etc.

Now Sovereign Grace Ministries, an association of New Calvinist churches led by C.J. Mahaney, are arguing that "free exercise" also means churches can't be taken to court on charges of covering up sexual abuse.

The churches, in an official press release, argue:

SGM leaders provided biblical and spiritual direction to those who requested this guidance. This care was sought confidentially, as is a right under the First Amendment. We are saddened that lawyers are now, in essence, seeking to violate those rights by asking judges and juries, years after such pastoral assistance was sought, to dictate what sort of biblical counsel they think should have been provided. SGM believes that allowing courts to second guess pastoral guidance would represent a blow to the First Amendment, that would hinder, not help, families seeking spiritual direction among other resources in dealing with the trauma related to any sin including child sexual abuse.

On these grounds, the church is seeking to have lawsuits alleging leaders protected child predators and covered-up child sexual abuse dismissed, the Associated Press reports.

According to the lawsuit, the "biblical and spiritual direction" that was offered to help families "dealing with the trauma related to ... child sexual abuse" involved a lot of covering up evidence that crimes occurred.

Sovereign Grace Ministries is accused of forcing abused children to forgive their abusers.

They are accused of disciplining those who wanted to tell legal authorities about the abuse.

And more.

According to the suit, which was filed on behalf of eight who were once children in the church:

The Church directed members to unquestioningly 'obey' the Church in all matters, including methods of parenting, place of residence and employment .... Between 1987 and the present, the Church repeatedly confronted occasions of sexual predation of children was occurring under the Church's auspices. The Church failed to alert law enforcement authorities, and failed to take any steps whatsoever to protect the children from sexual predation. Instead, the Church taught members to fear and distrust all secular authorities, and expressly directed members not to contact law enforcement to report sexual assaults. This practice has not stopped, as is evidenced by teachings as communications as recent as August 2011. On those occasions when the Church was not successful in persuading the parents of the victim to refrain from contacting law enforcement, the Church interfered with the administration of justice by tipping off the sexual predators that they had been reported to law enforcement. The Church provided sexual predators with free legal advice and counsel on how to evade accountability, and repeatedly worked with sexual predators to mislead law enforcement. The Church was willing to, and did, make false statements to law enforcement officials and in courts of law in its efforts to protect sexual predators.

The lawyers representing the people claiming they were abused and that church leaders knew about it and didn't report it are making a fairly straightforward case that being a minister does not relieve one of all legal responsibilities. On-going crimes have to be reported. People being harmed have to be protected. Dissembling on behalf of a pedophile isn't protected by the First Amendment or any amendment, and isn't a right recognized by the United States Constitution.

As the co-council explained in an interview:

You cannot participate in wrong doing regardless of your status as a pastor. They don't have the right to put people into harm's way. And they don't have the right to step in the middle and obstruct justice. So there are duties imposed by law that when you know that you have somebody who is harming people, you are not allowed to let that person keep harming people.

Sovereign Grace Ministries' lawyers, on the other hand, is making the case that "Maryland courts can’t get involved in the internal affairs of church business." They filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit on First Amendment grounds on Monday. They are of course also making the argument that they are not guilty of the cover-ups of which they've been accused, and have made multiple statements about the high priority they place on the protection of children against sexual assaults. The first legal line of defense they church is using though, is the argument that even if they did cover up sexual abuse of children, the courts do not have the right to "second guess" that pastoral care.

The argument is that religious institutions are -- or ought to be -- autonomous and self-governing, and courts have no right to interfere with religious groups' internal affairs. (Arguments against "second guessing" have also been used in extra-legal contexts to quell or at least quiet critiques. See Rachel Heald Evans' piece, "How [Not] to Respond to Abuse Allegations"). According to the Associated Press, this legal argument has been defended by some legal scholars and a number of judges. Courts in the states Utah, Wisconsin, and Missouri have said the First Amendment does protect religious institutions from intruding courts.

Other experts disagree with that position. One law professor, for example, told Christianity Today that "the First Amendment is not—and shouldn't be—a defense against child abuse." Even in the cases of clergy-penitent privilege, where the law doesn't require that crimes be reported, that legal protection does not normally extend to cases of child sexual abuse.

Sovereign Grace Ministries is not the first to make this case. They're following the legal strategy laid out by the Catholic Church. In Rhode Island, a decade ago, the Diocese of Providence argued that it had a First Amendment right not to turn over documents allegedly pertaining to its own cover-up of child sexual abuse. The argument worked for more than nine years, but was then rejected by the court.

The judge in that case ruled:

By no elastic stretch of the most fertile imagination can one rationally conclude that such information or any such communication deserves or merits confidentiality as expressions of religious freedom.

The church subsequently settled the suit for $13.5 million.

The next hearing in the case against Sovereign Grace Ministries is scheduled for March 8.

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Evangelicals so dominate the North American religious scene that 'evangelical chic' may be impending.

-- Bob E. Patterson, in Carl F.H. Henry, published 1983

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American evangelicals ♥ Pope Benedict XVI

One of the really fascinating stories of American evangelicalism in the 20th century is how evangelical attitudes towards Catholicism completely changed. In 1926, one of America's leading fundamentalist pastors, J. Frank Norris, attacked Catholicism and warned American evangelicals not to trust them, with sermons and articles with titles like "The Conspiracy of Rum and Romanism to Rule this Government."

Such attitudes persisted even into the 1960s. But things have changed since then. As Religion News Service notes, American evangelical leaders have responded to Pope Benedict XVI's announcement of his resignation by praising the man, and saying how much they will miss him.

Daniel Burke writes:

Just a generation or two ago, such lavish praise might have been unthinkable. During the early 1960s, evangelist Billy Graham — sometimes dubbed the Protestant pope — took heat for inviting Catholics to join his revivals. But after the modernizing reforms of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), denominational barriers fell and ecumenism prospered.  

Meanwhile, evangelicals developed an appreciation for Catholic culture, and Catholics found ready evangelical allies in the battles against secularism, abortion and gay rights.  

'One of the challenges of evangelical Protestantism as it became a political force was to find a vocabulary to talk about the role of Christian faith in a diverse, pluralistic society like the United States,' said R.R. Reno, executive editor of First Things, an interreligious journal. 'By and large, they turned to Catholicism.'

The other major factor in this cultural shift -- besides Roe v. Wade, which at first was considered just a Catholic issue that evangelicals shouldn't particularly care about -- was the Cold War, and the Catholic Church's opposition to communism.

The American religious historian Barry Hankins has written about the change in the "marketplace of ideas" that brought evangelicals and Catholics together.

Of course, there are still those out there like William Tapley, who talks about the papacy in terms of the antichrist and assorted end times prophecies. That's just an extreme fringe, though. The days of Norris-style warnings about Catholicism has passed.

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Beer and church

There's something about beer and church.

The combination seems incongruous, especially when the church in question is a conservative one, evangelical, the sort of church that might well talk about sin, might well put an emphasis on condemning some individual behavior such as drinking as sin. It seems like it must be something new, combining beer and church. It's become something of a regular feature in major newspapers, the gosh-gee story of a church in a bar.

In the New York Times, for example, over the New Years holiday, there was a piece on Steve Gilbertson, 52, who "preaches under a mesquite tree, in the shadow of a saloon best known for the quality of its country-western bands and the fervor of its regulars’ allegiance to the Green Bay Packers."

There, "Mr. Gilbertson’s Sunday services end just as the saloon opens at 10 a.m. He said he does not judge or mind if his congregants stick around for a drink, as some of them might do."

Is it really that strange, though? The logic of the church in the bar isn't a 20th century invention; it's as old as evangelicalism.

Last summer, the Associated Press ran a similarly toned piece on a church in Pensacola, Florida. The lead:

On a balmy Sunday morning at the Flora-Bama Lounge, Package and Oyster Bar, barkeeps set up their stations as churchgoers filtered in under a Jack Daniels banner.  

The iconic bar, which sits on the Florida and Alabama state line, is famous for its annual mullet-tossing contest — patrons gather on the beach and throw dead fish from Alabama into Florida.  

Bikini contests, bar brawls and drink specials are the day-to-day business of the beach bar that calls itself "America's last roadhouse."  

But for one hour every Sunday, the Flora-Bama is home to about 450 regular congregants of Worship at the Water, an outreach service of the Perdido Bay United Methodist Church.

Going back a little further, the Boston Globe had a piece in 2011 about a church in a bar in the Fenway Park area, where the double irony was that the bar was named Church. From that story:

The pastor of Fenway Church, 28-year-old David W. Hill, a Fenway resident, acknowledged the oddity of worshiping in a bar called Church. 

'When we started the church we were hoping for a nontraditional place. We hadn’t really realized that a club could be an option,' Hill said. 'But when we saw that Church had just opened up, we thought, Whoa, that’s kind of cool. It really fits with our whole nontraditional-type theme that people could come and experience Jesus in a bar.'

Whether it seems strange or not, though, however "non-traditional" it appears, there's actually a long history of this.

Quakers, who were opposed to the institutionalization of religion in a way many contemporary American evangelicals might find familiar, have met in taverns. In London in the 1600s, a Quaker meeting was held in a tavern called the Bull and Mouth. In the 1700s in America, Quakers occasionally held services in taverns as part of the process of reaching out to sympathetic non-Quakers. In his journals, the itinerant preacher John Woolman recounts holding such a meeting in a tavern in New Brunswick, New Jersey. He writes: "The room was full and the people were quiet."

The logic of this -- of churches in bars -- is actually quite familiar to American evangelicals. It's in the genetic make-up of American evangelicalism. The explanations one might find today are the same as those offered by John Wesley, when he talked about why he preached outside of churches.

During the revivals of the eighteenth century, Wesley was famous for preaching in the open air. As he explained it, that was,

not out of choice, but necessity; but I have since seen abundant reason to adore the wise provi­ dence of God herein, making a way for myriads (sic) of people who never troubled any church, nor were likely to do so, to hear that word which they soon found to be the power of God unto salvation.

While the founder of Methodism didn't prefer preaching out of doors, and suggested that ministers preach inside when they could, he also firmly believed that the really important thing was reaching people. The instructions Wesley gave to Methodist ministers emphasized this above all:

You have nothing to do but save souls. Therefore spend and be spent in this work; go always, not only to those who want you, but to those who [need] you most.

Despite what one reads in the papers, non-traditional meeting place are actually a deep part of the evangelical tradition. It comes out of the core logic of evangelicalism. 

Though it's true that there's a long history of evangelical opposition to alcohol, it's also the case that evangelicals believe -- most essentially -- that people should have an intimate and personal relationship with Jesus. The kind of relationship that might mean having a beer with the savior, as country music singer Thomas Rhett imagined in his song, "If I Could Have a Beer with Jesus":

Churches in bars might seem strange, and the apparent weirdness makes for a colorful bit of reporting, but they're really not, given the history of evangelicalism.

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The economics of Left Behind, the movie, then and now

Left Behind, the movie, was either a commercial success or a commercial failure, depending on how you look at it. Depending on your expectations, and your understanding of the market for explicitly evangelical films.

The new version of the movie -- planned for release at the end of 2013, starring Nicolas Cage -- may or may not succeed in theaters. The way it's being produced, though, demonstrates how significantly the market has changed in in the last 12 years.

The original Left Behind was the most financial successful independent film of 2001, bringing in more than $2 million on its opening weekend in February of that year. It ultimately grossed $4.2 million, domestically.

An opening of $2 million can be horrible. Formula 51, also released in 2001, starring Samuel L. Jackson and Meatloaf (!), took in about $2 million on its opening weekend, and was considered a bomb, though investors made their money back and a bit of a profit on video rentals and foreign sales. Bubble Boy, starring Jake Gyllenhaal, took in $2 million on the opening weekend, ultimately grossed more than $5 million, and was also considered a commercial failure.

Nevertheless, Left Behind did a lot better than a lot of other films. Of the 356 films from that year ranked by Box Office Mojo according to commercial success, Left Behind came in at 157.

That isn't bad, but calling it a commercial success certainly evidences a limited vision. It's a success for an alternative movie, available only to a certain sub-market, a film blocked out of the mainstream distribution networks, advertised mainly through Sunday schools and prayer groups.



This is certainly how the production company, Cloud Ten, viewed the film. Their marketing strategy included selling DVDs before the theatrical release, with coupons included inside. They hoped to make money by keeping production costs very low -- scenes set in Israel were shot in Ontario with camels from the local zoo -- and attract an evangelical audience by casting Kirk Cameron and several celebrity ministers and Contemporary Christian Music stars as extras. As the executives of Cloud Ten saw it, there was no way to attract a mainstream audience or compete on the open market, given the hostility of the film industry and film critics towards evangelical Christianity and movies with a message.

One of the top people at Cloud Ten told Christianity Today that the film was guaranteed to be panned by critics, whatever its technical quality, "just because of the message."

The attitude seemed to be, why try?

The authors of the book, by contrast, have consistently sought to escape the limitations of the evangelical market, believing that their story could sell and would sell in the American mainstream, if produced and pushed correctly.

Left Behind, the book, for example, was published by the Christian publishing company Tyndale House, but was not sold only in Christian bookstores, as most Christian fiction had been up to that point, but by major booksellers and at Wal-Mart. Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins' subsequent series was published with a secular publisher, Penguin, specifically because the company argued it could market the books to evangelicals and non-evangelicals. Those books were advertised on Christian radio, but also in USA Today.

LaHaye and Jenkins believed the 2001 film would be as successful as the Left Behind books, reaching millions, if it was made right and sold right.

That belief caused a pretty severe rift between the authors and the film producers: Jenkins panned the movie as harshly as any of the non-evangelical critics, calling it a poorly produced, glorified "church basement" film. LaHaye went further, actually filing suit against the producers for breach of contract, for making a bad movie, a suit that was settled out of court in 2008.

Cloud Ten defended itself as doing the best it could, given the circumstances. Circumstances have changed, though, and opinions at the studio seem to have shifted, too. Since regaining the rights to the film in 2012, it has put in motion a plan to reboot the series, this time with mainstream actors and a reported budget of $15 million. A distribution deal has been struck with Samuel Goldwyn Films, which isn't the biggest outfit in Hollywood, but has succeeded with other evangelical-friendly films such as Amazing Grace, which grossed $21 million, and Fireproof, which grossed  $33 million.

There are also now mainstream (if not solidly bankable) actors attached to this project, including Nicolas Cage, One Tree Hill's Chad Michael Murray, and High School Musical's Ashley Tinsdale.

That news has been met by some of the snark that Could Ten execs predicted back in 2005, when Peter Lalonde, who has written the new Left Behind scripted, bashed Hollywood for being anti-Christian, saying, "Of course Hollywood sends messages every day, but they have always had this mindset towards Christian films, and frankly I think they still do."

Whether or not that's true today, and whether or not Lalonde still thinks that's true, the market has changed, and the strategy for making and marketing an evangelical film has changed too. Now everyone, it seems, agrees with LaHaye and Jenkins.

The new Left Behind is attempting to recreate the success of other explicitly evangelical films, following a version of the model developed by Sony, which brought in $34 million domestically with Courageous and $43 million with Soul Surfer, a film made for $18 million, given serious publicity, and released in more than 2,000 theaters in 2010.

Part of that change can be attributed directly to the Left Behind books, which demonstrated a mainstream market for evangelical stories. The authors really envisioned a change in the market for novels and for films, where religious works wouldn't be segregated off into a sub-market but would be widely available, go mainstream and succeed.

Whether or not the new Left Behind movie attracts an audience is an open question. The brand isn't what it was at the beginning of the century. The controversies that might have sold tickets have long since gone away. The fact that investors are putting more up more than three times the amount the original movie brought in, though, goes to show how the market for Christian fiction has dramatically different than it was.

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E-books & the changing market for Christian fiction

The data on digital books, the market for e-books and e-book readers, is kind of conflicted at the moment. Prognosticating the future of reading is for the most part futile, anyway, but the tea leaves right now are especially mysterious.

Sales of e-readers dropped by about 36 percent, apparently due to the popularity of tablets and devices that do more than reading, leading some industry experts to predict the waning of the Kindle moment.

The rate of e-book buying has also slowed. The market's soft. About a third of those who read e-books haven't bought one in the last 12 months. This might be because they haven't read the ones that are already on their digital devices. An analyst talking to the New York Times called it the "overloaded night stand" effect: "someone isn't going to buy any more books until they make a dent in reading the ones they've already acquired."

On the other hand, the percentage of Americans owning an e-reader went up in the last year, from 10 percent to 19 percent, and the percentage who owned any kind of device that can be used for reading digital books increased by 15 points, so now more than one third of Americans could read e-books if they wanted.

Which they do: as of November 2012, about 30 percent of people who read had read an e-book in the last 12 months.

I don't know what to make of that. What's happening or what's going to happen. It's not clear whether the whole trend has crested or whether, as others say, the digital book future is just beginning.

The market, however, has already changed the way people read and what people read. The effects can be seen in the market for Christian fiction, which looks different now than it it did in 2007, and different in ways that can be directly linked to digital books.


For one thing, in the last five years, the sorts of Christian fiction that are available, the genres and sub genres, has dramatically diversified. The market has opened up so that, for instance, a novel about Reformed Christians on an alien planet in the future fighting a guerrilla war to defend "New Geneva" against invading Khlisti, a new religion described as "incorporating revamped Marxism, Islam and a dash of New Age spirituality," can now not only get published, it can reach number nine on Amazon's chart for science fiction sales. As the author of that book said, "The advent of e-books changed everything."

For another thing, in the last five years, the sorts of people reading Christian fiction has diversified. Where once only a dedicated customer could have found Christian fiction at a special store devoted to evangelical products, now people are stumbling across these books, picking them up (virtually speaking) on a whim, reading them without knowing really what they are or what they are about. This can be seen in the backlash against Christian fiction's lack of a label, though presumably not everyone who found themselves surprised to be reading Christian fiction was angry about it.

Both of these changes -- diversifying readership and diversifying genres -- can be traced the change in the ways e-books are sold.

As NPR's Zoe Chace reports:

The price of an e-book isn't fixed the way it is with physical books. Ten years ago, a publisher would have sent out its books to the bookstore with the price stamped on the cover. After that, it was done — the publisher couldn't put it on sale to sell more books.

'The exciting thing about digital books is that we actually get to test and price differently,' [Sourcebook President Dominique] Raccah says. 'We can even price on a weekly basis.' Once publishers have this tool, the ability to adjust prices in an instant, they can do whatever they want with that tool — like use it to get publicity. That's what Little, Brown did with presidential historian Robert Dallek's book on John F. Kennedy, An Unfinished Life.

In the middle of November, Little, Brown dropped the price from $9.99 to $2.99 for 24 hours — the digital equivalent of a one-day-only sale. 'That sparks sales; it gets people talking about it,' says Terry Adams, a publisher with Little, Brown. 'You've just expanded the market.'

Dropping the price of An Unfinished Life did get people's attention. 'Here, we had an opportunity to increase the audience,' Adams says. The book — originally published in 2003 — launched itself back onto the best-seller list. And because Little, Brown could raise the price again, it wasn't stuck with a money loser.

This kind of promotion leads to discovery, something that used to just happen in brick and mortar bookstores. But with fewer of those around, publishers are using price to create discovery.

That strategy has been very popular with Christian fiction publishers. It's not uncommon to see whole lists of evangelical novels being sold on Amazon for $2.99, $.99, or even being given away in a promotional blitz.

Such strategies have changed the shape of Christian fiction, as the genres adjust to the market and make use of the market that's there. In the past, the Christian fiction market has taken the specific shape it had because of other developments in how books are produced and distributed. Christian romance emerged as a distinct genre only after a distribution network of retail outlets was organized, catering specifically to evangelicals, and especially evangelical women. Christian fiction only breached bestseller lists and broad cultural recognition after big box retailers such as Wal-Mart began carrying Christian fiction titles such as Left Behind and The Shunning, embracing the idea that buying such books was act of cultural identification that left customers more strongly allied with the cultural politics of the corporation.

Digital books, Kindle and Amazon, have likewise transformed the market, so what Christian fiction is, and who reads it, and how many, have been changed by how books are sold.

These latest developments to the market may well also determine the shape of the Christian fiction market in the future. How, of course, remains to be seen, but then, even the ways that market developments of the past have already had an influence on the markets for Christian fiction is only very poorly understood.

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Culturally contested Christmas

A curious historical fact: the first people to work to "take the Christ out of Christmas," as it were, were not atheists, or crass materialists, or secularists/pluralists trying to diminish the role of Christianity in American culture. They were Protestants.

Protestants were very conflicted about Christmas in the 1800s.

For one thing, many were opposed to the "mass" part of Christmas, i.e., the Catholicism implicit in the holiday. If December 25 was a religious holiday, that seemed to mean accepting the Catholic tradition of the church calendar and the Catholic idea of tradition, the same tradition that led to the veneration of the Virgin Mary, the authority of the Pope and the church councils, and all the sundry things Protestants argued should be rejected because they're not in the Bible. The Bible which says nothing about a gift-giving solstice holiday.

At the same time, Protestants felt a strong impulse to take the cultural practice of the day -- the Christmas of the tavern, the Christmas of the department store -- and repurpose them as devotional practices.

This meant that they were at the same time critical of the non-religious celebrations of Christmas and leery of the religious celebrations too.

As Leigh Eric Schmidt writes in Consumer Rites: The Buying and Selling of American Holidays:

Through much of the nineteenth century, the Christianization of Christmas was a quite fragile proposition, tentative and fragmentary. Every time a pastor tried to remind his congregation that Christmas was a solemn religious event that 'should be observed in the heart as well as at the hearth, in the temple as well as at the table,' he seemed to have to admit that the most visible observances of the season were 'rioting and vain amusement' -- shooting guns, callithumpian music, practical jokes, heavy drinking and the like. The churches were invariably hard pressed to communicate the devotional dimension of Christmas; the raucous plebeian version of the celebration always threatened to drown them out.

Confessedly, these Protestants in the Puritan mold were partially to blame for the sorry state of Christmas devotion in the colonial and antebellum worlds. The tradition of holiday purgation, long shared in by Congregationalists, Presbyterians, Baptists, Quakers, and many Methodists, bequeathed a model of thorough desacralization that actually helped Christmas go its secular way in American culture. Time and again these Protestants insisted that Christmas was just like any other day, that it was without 'any peculiar sanctity.' At best, Christmas was an object of 'mistaken piety'; at worst it was the occasion of superstition and corrupt tradition. Given these presuppositions about the idolatry of the ancient church calendar, when low-church Protestant began their home-centered recovery of Christmas in the middle decades of the nineteenth century, they often welcomed it back explicitly as a 'social holiday,'not as a 'religious observance.' As one Sunday School publication, the Baptist Teacher, editorialized in 1875, 'We believe in Christmas -- not as a holy day, but as a holiday.'

As has been regularly pointed out, the so-called "war on Christmas" is pretty specious. It is the case, though, that the meaning of Christmas is and has always been culturally contested. In its practice, this holiday is often conflicted, with multiple meanings, divergent rituals, discordant customs, and perpetually competing interpretations.

It's common today, for example, to find evangelicals at once upset that Christmas has been "commercialized" and that Wal-Mart clerks don't recognize the religious nature of the celebration in their standard customer greetings. This isn't a new thing, though; the conflict over what Christmas is has a long history. And it's not only the case of a conflict between the American Protestant majority and others, be they Catholic or non-religious. The conflict runs even through American Protestantism itself.

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