Dear Keepers of the Faith:

Where there is anxiety innovation reeks of invasion and tradition smells like home.

In the mid-1970s, the church of my youth was in crisis. Founded as a church-plant grown from tent-meeting revivals, there was a growing dissonance between their image and their origin. In the half century since its birth, the Omaha Gospel Tabernacle had shaken them loose from their fiery salvationist roots as the current generation was striving for mainstream respectability.

The term tabernacle was not just a metaphor; it was also architectural. Older members pointed out that under the plaster and behind the brick additions, the original church structure was an iron frame held in place not by permanent rivets but by nuts and bolts. Disassembly and rebuilding could occur quickly if God led the congregation to a different place to proclaim the Gospel’s power. It was a nod to the church’s foundational vision that identified with the wandering people of God following the divine cloud and pillared flame across the wilderness all the while longing for the Land of Promise. It hearkened equally to the Tent of Meeting in the Old Testament and the tent of revival their first, albeit mobile, home. Attachment was not to be trusted; ornate buildings and prestigious addresses were the for the fat and happy who, in their love for comfort and affluence, were far too willing to call this world home.

Those early founders were impassioned resisters of the roaring-twenties when quick wealth and flowing liquor fueled a modern Gomorrah akin to the Children of Israel’s hedonistic reveling before the Golden Calf. The call to salvation was a serious reckoning that released sinners from Satan’s grip, bringing sobriety to spirit, soul and body. The Christian’s duty was to, in the words of the Fanny Crosby hymn: 

Rescue the perishing, 
Care for the dying, 
Snatch them in pity from sin and the grave; 
Weep o’er the erring one, lift up the fallen, 
Tell them of Jesus the mighty to save.

This message found deep resonance during the Great Depression. The words of the '20s revivalists now sounded retrospectively like a prophetic call ringing clearly in the ears of a devastated nation. Certainly, the people were paying the price for their debauchery, as poverty and depravation touched every home. A spirituality that pointed beyond this veil of tears to glorious mansions yet to come, lifted broken and hurting spirits. The new technology of radio, a media hungry for content, was quickly sated by air-wave preachers bringing fervent calls for righteousness into the living rooms of farmhouses and tenements.

But by the final quarter of the twentieth century, those Gospel roots seemed quaint. Post-war affluence fueled white suburban stability, and the former inner-city commitment to the down-and-out was jettisoned for comfortable camaraderie with the up-and-coming. Portable buildings and dramatic salvation no longer made since to the newly sophisticated. Grandpa drove a horse and buggy or caught the streetcar, and Dad had a Ford or Chevy, but now with a new Mercury or Buick there seemed little reason for opposing the outside world. Tent meetings had gone the way of the outhouse, and in a two-and-a-half-bathroom age it seemed absurd to renounce much of anything. The Gospel message was no longer a call to a transformed life; salvation was a matter of attitudes and values. 

Sober judgment too was a metaphor; after all, Jesus drank wine, and the early disciples gambled. A good Christian could be recognized not by a way of life, but by opinions on personal responsibility applied to topics like abortion, premarital sex, drug addition, poverty, crime and homosexuality. Tensions arose over concerns confined by taste—the length of men’s hair, women in pants, washing the car or doing yardwork on Sundays. And then came the Pentecostals.

Initially as attendance swelled their robust singing and spirit-filled enthusiasm seemed familiar. It hearkened back to the old tent meeting days when repentant sinners released from their carnal bondage ecstatically celebrated their redemption-borne freedom. But the addition of rhythm instruments, especially the guitar, the leisure suits, the Pat Boone shoes and too much turquoise cemented distrust. While much of what was said and sung seemed reasonable, the flamboyant style, flashy wardrobes and relentlessly bad grammar gave off a low-class vibe; and those seeking a different respectability found themselves hankering for a Bible-based rebuttal. Unfortunately for the status-quo/status-climbers, there were no verses confirming that a sport coat and tie was the only appropriate attire for men leading worship. Miriam played the tambourine, David danced in front of the Ark and the Apostle Paul confirmed speaking in tongues as a bona fide spiritual gift. Left with little theological cover the keepers of the tradition, disinterested in a backwards social slide, had little ammunition when the pastor raised one hand in praise then thumped a tambourine during a Sunday morning service. Future unity was up for grabs. The plans for a new building in a respectable neighborhood and a higher-class more marketable name were put on hold for over a decade.

All this came rushing back to me this past week when I heard an interview with McKay Coppins, the author of Romney: A Reckoning. Suddenly, I now think I better understand what has happened to the Republican party.

Finding rhymes in pew and politics, I remain,

With Love,
Jonathan Krogh
Your Pastor