Pick-and-Choose Theology: Don’t Blame Social Media, Blame the Church

Last updated on: May 30, 2016 at 11:25 am by John Vest

Pick-and-Choose Theology: Don’t Blame Social Media, Blame the Church 2016-05-30T11:25:36-04:00 John Vest

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Image from holytaco.com

Paul McClure, a doctoral student in the sociology of religion at Baylor University, has recently published a study called “Faith and Facebook in a Pluralistic Age: The Effects of Social Networking Sites on the Religious Beliefs of Emerging Adults”—you can read about it here and here. Using data from the National Study of Youth and Religion, McClure notes that social media users are more likely to agree with the following statement: “Some people think that it is okay to pick and choose religious beliefs without having to accept the teachings of their religious faith as a whole.” This leads McClure to conclude that social media is partially responsible for an increase in pick-and-choose theology. “I think technology tends to give individuals so much control over their life’s circumstances and presents so many options before them that people feel empowered to approach religion with a cafeteria-style mentality.”

Based on my own studies and experience, I think McClure has identified an interesting correlation but not necessarily causation. In fact, I think he’s using social media as an easy punching bag for a phenomenon that predates social media. Pick-and-choose theology is nothing new. Over thirty years ago, Robert Bellah and his colleagues famously described this kind of individualized religion in Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life. This wasn’t caused by social media. Rather, this is a Baby Boomer phenomenon that has been passed down through subsequent generations by the church itself, most notably in its practice of confirmation.

In a landmark called Vanishing Boundaries (published in 1994), Dean R. Hoge, Benton Johnson, and Donald A. Luidens focused on young adult Baby Boomers (ages 33-42 in 1989) who had been confirmed as adolescents in Presbyterian churches in the 1960s. They found that only 29% of their sample remained active members, even when defining active membership with a generously low threshold as those who attend church at least six times a year. They called mainline Protestants like this “lay liberals”—they are “liberal” because they reject the notion that Christianity is the only true religion; the modifier “lay” is used because the theological language they use is not connected to any particular theological school or tradition (e.g., classical liberalism, neo-orthodoxy, or post-liberalism). Rather, the theology of these mainline Protestants is articulated in common, non-technical terms seemingly not in conversation with historic or contemporary theological discourse. More important to lay liberals than traditional orthodoxy is a commitment to a shared moral code “that stresses honesty, fairness, not hurting others, and generally ‘leading a good life.’” There is a reluctance to talk about matters of faith and a rejection of anything that smacks of proselytism, even with their children.

I believe there is a direct link between lay liberalism and the “almost Christian” moralistic therapeutic deism of the NSYR. The children and grandchildren of the Baby Boomers studied by Hoge, Johnson, and Luidens are now youth, emerging adults, or young adults themselves. Instead of developing a pick-and-choose approach to theology because of the influence of social media, they have inherited this approach from their parents and grandparents, mediated through common mainline Protestant practices of confirmation.

There was a time, not so long ago, when confirmation within mainline Protestant churches was a primarily dogmatic exercise. Students were expected to memorize and recite creeds and catechisms. These catechisms defined faith by asking questions and providing answers—answers that are scripted and learned by catechumens or confirmands. While there was surely some attention given to the meaning of these faith statements, the primary focus was the transmission of orthodox faith (as understood by a particular faith community) from generation to generation. For hundreds of years, this practice made perfect sense to the church. It was an efficient and effective way to communicate the essential tenets of faith.

Yet for a variety of reasons, this practice has fallen by the wayside in most mainline Protestant churches, especially those that maintain more progressive approaches to theology and Christian practice. The world has changed in significant ways. The triumphant certainty of modernity has been eclipsed by the ambiguity, uncertainty, and humility of postmodernity. Along the way, confirmation became more about inquiry and individual appropriation than the rehearsal of concretized doctrinal statements. It is now more typical that greater emphasis is placed on confirmands developing personal statements of faith than on the recitation of historic communal creeds or catechisms.

For fourteen years, I led confirmation programs that reflect this newer paradigm. I stressed the attitude and process of actively questioning the faith young people inherit through baptism. No questions were off limits. Discussion and debate were central features of the process. My typical approach to confirmation involved presenting youth with historic perspectives on the central loci of theological inquiry—revelation, the nature of God, creation, providence, Christology, and so on. For each topic, I encouraged youth to consider the concepts presented and then come to conclusions of their own. The statements of faith they wrote and shared at the end of the process were summaries or syntheses of these conclusions.

This is quite consistent with almost all confirmation curricula that appeal to progressive mainline Protestants. These curricula teach historical doctrines and ask students to respond with statements of their own belief. Youth will either accept or reject these doctrines, picking and choosing the beliefs they find compelling, and often developing novel beliefs of their own.

More so than theological content—the particular beliefs confirmands claim and profess as adolescents—I am convinced that what students really take away from their experience of confirmation is a theological method, namely picking and choosing based primarily on personal opinion.

Picking and choosing has become the de facto theological model of many American Christians. A popular theology book from several years ago demonstrates the way in which pick-and-choose theology has become the norm for American mainline Protestants. Ronald J. Allen’s A Faith of Your Own: Naming What You Really Believe, written for an adult audience, very closely resembles the contemporary approach to confirmation I have described. In chapters devoted to core topics of Christian theology, Allen presents possible understandings from the Bible, Christian history, and contemporary reflection. At the end of the book, he invites readers to write a statement of faith based on the perspectives they find most compelling. One of the suggested methods lays these perspectives out like menu items from which to choose. It is essentially a guidebook for cafeteria Christianity.

It is not difficult to see why and how this consumerist approach to faith has taken root in American culture. It is shaped by and reinforces the individualism and consumerism that pervades our society. With a nod to Ken Wilber, Brian McLaren calls this “narcissistic boomeritis.” Like lay liberalism in general, Baby Boomers have passed on picking and choosing to successive generations of mainline Protestants.

In this way, typical confirmation practices are in fact contributing to mainline Protestant decline rather than doing anything to prevent or reverse it. Having traded in a robust sense of community for radical individualism, the excesses of cafeteria Christianity no doubt exacerbate the waning of congregational involvement among young people. The biggest problem with pick-and-choose theology—and confirmation programs that reflect it—is that it is essentially an individualistic endeavor. If young people walk away from confirmation Sunday understanding that faith is primarily about individually picking and choosing beliefs, it is no wonder they think religion or spirituality is something they can do on their own. We are socializing them to believe this way and to act accordingly.

By contrast, the religion(s) of ancient Israel, the Second Temple Judaism(s) of Jesus’ day, and pretty much all forms of pre-Reformation and pre-Enlightenment Christianity placed far greater emphasis on community than on individualism. Today, Christian doctrines from the rich and polyvocal history of the church are treated as menu items to be selected based on personal preferences. The resulting theologies are effectively idiosyncratic and potentially disconnected from the roots of Christian tradition. Somehow, we must recover the communal nature of our faith.

Yet for progressive Christians, a retreat to dogmatism or any kind of fundamentalism is not an acceptable corrective to liberal individualism. Slavish conformity to a rigid orthodoxy is not the only way to be more attentive to the communal nature of our faith. Rather, our challenge is to reconceive our understanding and practice of theology in such a way that transcends picking and choosing without sacrificing our progressive commitments. An approach to confirmation—and youth ministry in general—that reflects this reconfiguration will shape and support such a shift among progressive Christians.

This, I believe, is one of the primary challenges and opportunities for progressive youth ministry.

Theology

Previous Post

May 28, 2016

Theology and the Life of Faith