Bring Us Your Loud, Your Brash, Your Foolish
In response to John D. Boy’s piece, Icons of the New Evangelicalism, this morning, Bruce Illig writes in:
Mr. Boy, I think it would be a grave mistake to assume that a change of appearance would signal any change in the basic beliefs of the evangelicals, or their influence. Would this not be the time, after the public embarrassment of their high-profile involvement with the Bush administration, for them to “go underground”, as Abram directed his Family after the explosive public politics of the New Deal and union busters? And, after the public exposure of Jeff Sharlet’s “The Family” it would seem obvious that a savvy operator like Doug Coe would follow that tack. His being the predominant force in the power broker area of the movement, other influential groups not directly tied to him would follow suit. Any minor players on the edges who wish to remain loud , brash, and foolish would be secretly welcomed by the “underground elite” as a cover and a distraction, like the CIA welcoming UFO nuts to cover military exercises. If these minor wing-nuts crash and burn, so much the better cover. Anyone who has read Jeff’s expose cannot possibly see the influence of this cabal diminishing, but increasing, and as being firmly entrenched far into the future. The question is, as they go even deeper underground, what can we do to mitigate their influence, and track and expose it? Thanks for your perspective.
What do you think?
Related: America, evangelicalism, letters, politics, The Family
September 7th, 2009 at 4:17 pm
Thanks, Bruce, for your plug for my work. The irony here is that John, a superb observer of the evangelical scene, knows the Family, or the Fellowship, better than most. But I’ll let him address that if he wants to.
I love his piece on beards. He’s writing about a very different branch of American evangelicalism than the Family, one where someone like Doug Coe wouldn’t have too much influence. (Some, though, notably w/ Warren’s international ventures.)
On the other hand, I think you could describe Coe’s movement as the original emergent church. Like the emergent movement, it’s touchy-feely, it emphasizes stylistic changes over theologically substantive changes, and it promotes what I’d argue is a kind of phony sense of egalitarianism. The difference, of course, is that the emergent churches are up front about what they’re doing. If their egalitarianism is phony, it’s because they haven’t yet figured out how to make it real. Coe’s movement, which transformed the aristocratically-inclined organization created by his predecessor, Abraham Vereide, into an amorphous evangelical-political blob, is deliberately secretive. Maybe the better adjective would be submergent.
Thanks to John for his great piece and Bruce for his thoughtful commentary. Proof that the real conversation is here on KtB.
September 7th, 2009 at 6:09 pm
I liked John’s beard piece also. He may be concentrating on a different segment of the movement, but Coe directs the agenda of the elite in government and business, and they in turn go on to direct their shill “political action” organizations to instigate “tea parties” and “anti-health reform town halls” comprised of the loud, brash, and foolish parroting their constructed lies. The most revealing part of your book on the Fellowship was to me the explanation of how these power brokers get the “populist” front to vote and act time and again against their own interests, and for the elite who basically despise them, by setting the elite agenda that the politicians and big business filter down and distort into talking points for the masses. That has always been a head scratcher for me, and now is quite clear. If the power brokers can’t use the rabble to do exactly as they would want, all of the time, at least they provide a distracting smoke screen while the “chosen” go underground. At any rate, it is easy to see which end of the spectrum wags the dog. If Coe has pretenses at egalitarianism, he must filter it down through the mass movements by remote manipulation, as no one believes the egalitarian pretenses of government any longer.
September 7th, 2009 at 6:16 pm
Minor point of clarification – Jeff, I’d qualify your use of the word emergent to “US Emergent,” a brand that largely appeals to postevangelical PhDs with a strong connection to the US publishing industry. (Though from what I can tell the interest in this product peaked in 2006 and has since waned.) The global emerging church rose out of a post-Christian UK, Europe and Australia/New Zealand a good 10 to 20 years before it reached the US shores. Also, I find that US Episcopal church much in common with the UK Anglican emerging church culture. A few good bloggers to check out on the global scene are Jonny Baker, Andrew Jones, Steve Taylor and Steve Collins.
The only bit I’d add re: the beards is that a number of church leaders have them – they’re called pastor’s wives.
September 10th, 2009 at 12:58 am
Thanks for your comment, Bruce, and for this interesting conversation more generally.
I think your point is valid, but it doesn’t really answer what I was going for in my piece. What really interests me are the long-term tectonic shifts at the social base of U.S. evangelicalism rather than the sinister schemes of its potentates. In other words, rather than talking about the proverbial “great men,” I wanted to foreground the everyday desires, practices and concerns of the people that keep the many parts of what we call evangelicalism running. Any sustained change in evangelicalism as a religious tradition and steady current underlying much public life in the United States needs to stem from these quotidian things. It is true that I focus on leadership figures, but really just insofar as they function as icons—icons that are revered and endowed with meaning in everyday situations.
More later. I kept myself awake too long reading the responses this essay has generated here and elsewhere.