Review of Frank Viola and George Barna, Pagan Christianity: Exploring the Roots of Our Christian Practices

Frank Viola and George Barna, Pagan Christianity: Exploring the Roots of Our Christian Practices, Revised and Updated Edition, Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers Inc., 2008 (first edition 2002) $17.99, ISBN 141431485X.

This book, while a bit dated, has come out with a reprint in 2012 and as such, it is not inappropriate for review and reflection. It is a popular book directed to those in Christian communities. Their aims are to educate Christians on the basis of Christian practice revealing that many elements of the modern church are not Biblical, but were instead borrowed from the culture in the first several centuries of Christianity (which the authors call “pagan”).[1] The book, being put out by the Barna group and written by Frank Viola and George Barna has a devotional agenda that encourages the house church model of ministry in contrast to the traditional church in America and Europe. This book review will give a brief overview of the contents of the book, then discuss its merits, followed by criticism of the book with a brief conclusion.

Brief Overview

This book is set to trace the non-Christian origins of much of church praxis. The book is deliberately not discussing the development doctrine and the interaction with non-Christian culture. This gives the authors freedom to discuss the external elements of the Christian social world without needing to worry about the challenging theology (which in itself did borrow from non-Christian sources in many places). It is likely that the authors avoided doing this because they want a practical guide for Christians. Christians are likely not as offended with a discussion of church buildings as they would be of the hypostatic nature of the Son to the Father. Viola and Barna want their readers to amend their practices but not necessarily their core faith principles.

The topics in the book cover the development of the ideas of church buildings, order of worship, sermons, pastors, clothes worn by clergy and laity, music (particularly choirs), tithing, sacraments (baptism and the lord’s supper), and Christian education. They do not discuss elements of the different customs and rituals that are distinctly Christian and are found in the New Testament  (after all, the goal of the book is to address those that are not found there). As a whole, they do a fair job of the development of these practices over time (even if they do vastly overemphasize Constantine’s influence on the church as a whole).

The final two chapters are not about the development of doctrine as much as an apology for the goal of the book. The book argues that the first century house-church method with a community of believers with no clergy/laity distinction and no building or “set” format needs to be the model for the current church. The authors have as the goal of the book is stated in these last chapters:

We believe this is God’s vision for the every church. In fact, we have written this book for one reason: to make room for the absolute centrality, supremacy, and headship of Christ in His church. Fortunately, more and more Revolutionaries today are catching that vision. They recognize that what is needed is a revolution within the Christian faith – a complete upheaval of those Christian practices that are contrary to biblical principle. We must begin all over again, on the right foundation. Anything else will be defective.

And so our hope as you finish this book is threefold. First, we hope that you will begin asking questions about church as you presently know it. How much of it is truly biblical? How much of it expresses the absolute headship of Jesus Christ? How much of it allows the members of His body the freedom to function? Second, we hope you will share this book with every Christian you know so that they too can be challenged by its message. And third, we hope you will pray seriously about what your response should be to that message.[2]

To accomplish this goal of transformation, they first have a chapter on biblical prooftexting as they anticipate objections that modern church practice does have a biblical precedent. They seem to think that the addition of chapters and verses has allowed for prooftexting and they trace the development of that idea.[3]

The final chapter then is an outright apology for the housechurch methodology as the redemption of Christianity. They cite some Barna studies showing dissatisfaction with the modern church and feel this is the solution (it should be noted, however, that they have no sociological data that shows Christians would find this method less objectionable). Rather than sociological support, they have ideological support. They argue that since this is the model in the Bible, it is far superior to any other viewpoint as it is inspired by God rather than contrived by a culture that had nothing to do with God.[4]

Merits of the Book

The book does have some very good data presented in it for an audience who would find it relevant and who would otherwise probably not learn about the topic. One of the goals of my own work is to bring the fascinating history of Christianity to life in a modern context so that the lessons of history can be used for modern decisions. Viola and Barna have attempted this same idea – they bring up topics from ancient history in a way that is directly related to the modern world. I end up disagreeing with some of their conclusions, but I find this goal admirable.

 Another point at which they and I agree is that the modern church laity (and probably clergy as well) fails to understand many of the rituals that they practice frequently and thereby challenge the value of those same rituals. As a case in point, few people know the origins and meaning behind the “exchange of peace” in the worship service. The exchange of peace is the modern reworking of the sacred kiss (which expressed peace) in the ancient world. The goal of the practice was used to present true forgiveness to everyone else in the community so that before communion was served, it was clear that there were not internal conflicts between Christians in the community.[5] However, most modern Christians do not understand this concept and use the time spent for that as a brief fellowship moment and ask each other how their weekend was spent. Indeed some churches have even embraced this lack of knowledge and changed the ritual from the “exchange of peace” to a “greeting of friendship.” While this new idea might have some value, it is hardly the value that was originally placed upon the ritual and it does not seem to have been deliberately set aside, instead, ignorance seems to have caused it to transform.

 Further to the previous point, the goal of the book for people to inquire as to the origin of their rituals is admirable. This book confronts the reader with shocking statements about some of the elements in Christian practice. While the statements are sometimes hyperbolized (see below under critiques), the effect is good – people are encouraged to ask why they certain functions are performed and a positive understanding could be the goal (either being informed by this book or other study). I am not necessarily sold on the value of simply abandoning the practices, but it very much one of my goals that practices be understood.

This book also shows Christians that many of the rituals that they find dear are not in fact included in the New Testament (or at the manner in which they are done today is not described in the New Testament). Many practices can only be traced to later generations which needs to be known. I am not as critical of later tradition as Viola and Barna are, but I do think people need to know that these practices are not necessarily “biblical.” Further, the scriptural support for these practices are often seen as “prooftexting” and this needs to be revealed. I am not convinced that all justifications for all of these rituals are “prooftexting” in its true sense, however, it is accurate that the Bible is used thematically (i.e. if the New Testament has a theme x, then it is logical to apply that same theme to today’s situation in an updated manner).

Many of the developments of thought about particular practices are described generally well by the book. While they tend to hyperbolize some of the points for dramatic effect, the “bare bones” data they present is accurate. For instance, they present the development of the church building and they do a good job discussing the buildings we currently know existed and when this practice became popular.[6] However, they go too far when they claim that there were no Christian buildings built before Constantine. While it is technically true, there were many houses (such as the one at Dura-Europos that the authors do discuss) that were transformed and were no longer residences. They see some type of distinction between a place built for one use and a remodeling project now tooling to be a Christian gathering place rather than building something anew.[7] This distinction seems to me to be rather technical and it is hard to imagine that they are not trying to push the data to support their own point. This example shows the value and challenge of their presentation.

Finally, this book is refreshing in that it is a ministry book that does not depend upon vague, uncited, assertions that cannot be discussed. This book does do a good job of presenting evidence in good Chicago style formatting of their assertions. There is some critique of the evidence they used (see below), but the fact that they took the time to do it makes a review like this constructive rather than destructive. It is possible for a reader to analyze their evidence so that the value and challenge of it can be explored. This is something that is more and more rare among ministry related books and this book sets itself off as distinct in that setting.

Critiques of the Book

The book has many challenges on historiographic and ideological grounds, simple mistakes, updated scholarship, and the hyperbolic nature of the presentation.

  

The first major challenge to the study is the supersessionist ideology which the book depends upon in order to make its case. The book admits that many of the practices of the modern church were found in ancient Israelite religion and later Judaism. However, the author relies upon the book of Hebrews by arguing that these practices are all obsolete and as such, should be avoided at every turn. While Hebrews does present a type of theology of replacement, most of that theology is restricted to the temple sacrificial system. While this system is attacked as a forerunner to the celebration of the Eucharist in the manner it is done, most of the critique is not about sacrifices, rather it is about the existence of a priest. If one reads Hebrews carefully, there is not necessarily any challenge to the nature of the priesthood. While it is true that the priestly function of offering sacrifice would no longer be necessary, there seems to be a lack of understanding that priests had far more functions than just this one aspect. Further, the role of the synagogue (which of course had almost no relationship with the temple sacrificial system) is not considered as separate and is therefore equally replaced.[8] This aggressive supersessionism makes one wonder why the book did not equally argue for removing the Hebrew Bible from the canon.

 The second major ideological challenge to the book is the relationship of Christ and Culture.[9] This text seems to argue for an aggressive separation known only to a very small portion of Christian history. This book has as an assumption that any borrowing from the culture around oneself is in and of itself wrong. For instance, the chapter on the sermon shows that the style of the sermon was based upon Greek oratory (with its three part literary structure). It is further pointed out that many of the early Christian leadership were trained in secular schools to learn rhetoric.[10] However, it is unclear why using a literary form that makes sense to a culture is wrong. The same logic could be addressed to the very book itself. It is written in English in an opinion book format to a culture that uses those mediums to present ideas – is that an inappropriate format to discuss religion because it was “borrowed from the culture around us?” This type of absolute separation from any type of secular influence is extremely rare in the history of Christianity. Indeed, the monastic movements in the fourth to seventh centuries would not stand up to this measure.

The response to the previous challenge made by the authors would certainly be that my presentation is not fair as there is a model provided in the New Testament; however, the New Testament itself would not stand up to the scrutiny of being free from “pagan” influences. For instance, the chapter on the sermon challenges the idea of using flowery imagery in the Greek literary style.[11] However, it does not mention that the book of Acts does this same thing. The sermon of Stephen, for instance, in Acts 7 is very much in the style of a Greek oration (and also, by the way, is opposed to supersessionist rhetoric). Further, Paul’s letters are in the literary style of ancient letters and 1 Corinthians has even been shown to be in the Greek oratorical style of deliberative rhetoric which was used politically to gain unity in a group.[12] Therefore, serious question can be asked as to how opposed the New Testament is from using “pagan” practices to present Christian messages (it should be noted that nowhere in this book do Viola and Barna claim that messages portrayed in church are not Christian).

On the whole, I will avoid picking apart particular issues that Barna and Viola discuss, but one that permeates throughout the entire book is that of hierarchy and clergy. The authors have as their goal a unity of believers with no distinction between those who are laity and those who are clergy (and certainly no type of hierarchy). The authors argue that this was a later development that is not found in the New Testament. In some senses, there are portions of the New Testament where this is almost true. However, on the whole it is not. Here are a few examples where the concept of a pastoral office is anticipated in the New Testament. Paul, our first written Jesus movement source still in existence, sees himself as the spiritual father of both Onesimus and Philemon because he converted them.[13] While this is hardly a formal pastoral office, it does not particular strike the reader as a community of absolute equals (after all, the surviving letters of Paul are him telling his congregations what to do). Further, there does not seem to be a discussion of the Gospel of Luke-Book of Acts, which clearly has a group of apostles and then the rest of the congregation. There is even good reason to think that there was yet another division – those who were “attending” but had not fully joined the movement and held everything communally (essentially what Ananias and Saphira were before attempting to join the group).[14] This shows not only a concept that might anticipate modern clergy, but even distinctions among the laity as well. Finally, this book does not look carefully at the Pastoral Epistles (particularly 1 Timothy) that has as its goal a unification of the community through formal offices. While some might not like this particular aspect of I Timothy, it is awfully difficult to read it without recognizing it is there.

 In addition to these previous challenges, the most striking problem with this text is the double standard presented of worshipping “in the style of the New Testament” while making textual study of the New Testament itself a major component of worship. By definition, the writers of the New Testament have no book to study. If Viola and Barna truly want to argue for worshiping in the style of the New Testament, then the fundamental component of exegesis of the New Testament would logically have to be abandoned for exegesis of the Hebrew Bible only. This of course is slightly ridiculous and would never be supported by the authors. However, it reveals a double standard that is a major ideological challenge which is not directly addressed.

The final main critique (getting beyond some of the mere mistakes made) is the sources that the authors use. Earlier, I lauded the authors for citing sources carefully. However, the problem is which sources they chose to use. In many ways this book was a veritable “who’s who” of outdated scholarship. When doing a statistical analysis of the frequency of outdated scholarship cited, the numbers are staggering. Philip Schaff whose main work was published in the 1860s was cited 23 times. Edwin Hatch (1895) was cited 27 times. Will Durant (1950) was cited 37 times. H. Richard Niebuhr and Daniel D. Williams’ The Ministry in Historical Perspective (1956) was cited 29 times. John F. White (1964) was cited an amazing 83 times. Rupert Davies (1968) was cited 19 times. Josef Jungman (1959) was cited 18 times. Frank Senn (1983) was cited 42 times. Graydon Snyder (1985) was cited 19 times. The only books which were up to date (given the first printing was 2002) which were cited more than ten times were Everett Ferguson The Early Christians Speak (1990) which was cited 18 times and David Norrington To Preach or Not to Preach? The Church’s Urgent Question (1996) was cited 30 times. While it is not necessarily bad to have older scholarship, when the weight of the citations of work that is at least 30 years old far outweighs the current work question needs to be asked. It unclear why the authors have acted in this manner but their doing so seriously calls into question the credibility of many of their claims. It is likely that they avoid more modern discussion because modern scholarship has questioned whether there was a single New Testament Christianity. In fact, there were many types in the early going and the authors are trying to argue now for a single type of Christian practice while at the same time trying to argue that it is the style fashioned by the New Testament.

Conclusion

While there are many challenges to this book (and some might argue that some of my scholarly analysis of this text is a little unfair for the book’s purpose), it has some very good points. The challenge with this book, as with so many ministry books, is that there is very good information in the text which everyone would benefit from reading. However, the overriding agenda of the book is far more questionable and those who do not already agree with Viola and Barna on this home church model of Christianity are prone to simply dismiss the entire text. By getting the work half right, the authors are in danger of losing their whole audience.  

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[1] I will avoid using the judgmental term “pagan” not only because it has all kinds of implications, but also because the category is not very helpful. By definition it is anything that is not Christian or Jewish – as such, it is too unwieldy to produce helpful conversation. 

[2] Viola and Barna, Pagan Christianity, 250.

[3] Ibid., 221-241.

[4] Ibid., 243-259.

[5] For an excellent study of this ritual, see Michael Philip Penn, Kissing Christians: Ritual and Community in the Late Ancient Church in the Divinations: Rereading Late Ancient Religion Series (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005).

[6] Viola and Barna, Pagan Christianity, 9-46.

[7] Ibid., 15.

[8] To show how the synagogue is not considered relevant, on the chapter on the sermon it mentions that synagogue worship did meet regularly, but does not mention that it was from the synagogue’s exposition of a biblical text that the early Christian sermon was based. See Viola and Barna, Pagan Christianity, 87 footnote 5.

[9] To use the phrase from H. Richard Niebuhr’s classic work.

[10] Viola and Barna, Pagan Christianity, 89-94.

[11] Ibid., 92.

[12] See Margaret Mitchell, Paul and the Rhetoric of Reconciliation: An Exegetical Investigation of the Language and Composition of I Corinthians (Tubingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1992).

[13] Phlm., 10, 19.

[14] Brian Capper, “Interpretation of Acts 5.4” JSNT 19 (1983) 117-131.

Review of Hal Taussig's A New New Testament

Taussig, Hal (ed.), A New New Testament: A Bible for 21^st Century, Combining Traditional and Newly Discovered Texts. New York, Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013. 603 pages. $32.00.  

Hal Taussig, with the collaboration of nineteen church leaders and scholars, has taken on an ambitious project – to collate a new New Testament which includes other texts from the time period of the New Testament in order to find new meaning within and without the standard texts of the New Testament. Taussig is to be congratulated for not only presenting these texts with introductions, but also spending the time to describe the process by which this project began and how it came to its conclusions. The book, then, can be assessed on two levels – first on its content as a contribution to the scholarly and pastoral study of religion and second on its methods and goals of the group of scholars who developed the book.

The book as a whole has some laudable elements but Taussig pushes these elements to their extreme end. To do this does show a certain type of integrity in that any “hidden agenda” is quite frankly stated outright. However, many of these agendas are not necessary and the book at times can be considered far more clever than wise. This review will reveal some of the quite valuable aspects and goals of the volume, some of the scholarly merit and challenges to the text’s integrity as it stands, as well as some of the more questionable goals for the book’s use in modern society.

Brief Description of the Contents of A New New Testament

The book is a collection of the 27 New Testament texts along with 10 other texts not traditionally held in New Testaments: The Prayer of Thanksgiving, The Gospel of Thomas, The Odes of Solomon, The Thunder: Perfect Mind, The Gospel of Mary, The Gospel of Truth, The Prayer of the Apostle Paul, The Acts of Paul and Thecla, The First Letter of Peter to Philip, The Apocryphon (or Secret Book) of John. It also includes several appendices which hold a historical and practical background to the collections of texts, study guides for group study, resources for extracanonical literature, and introductions to each of the books with very brief bibliographies attached.

The collection is grouped according to type rather than traditional order. Taussig addresses some of the problems with this approach (such as the Gospel of John) could easily have fit into the category of “Gospels Featuring Jesus’s Teaching,” “Literature in the Tradition of John with an introductory set of prayers,” or (where it is placed) in “Gospels, Poems and Songs Between Heaven and Earth.” The reason Taussig has organized the collection in this way is so that the extracanonical literature would be more vibrantly compared with the New Testament if it was set within the framework. This openness to reorganization also allowed Taussig to put some texts together in the New Testament that make good sense (for instance, The Gospel of Luke and Book of Acts are finally set one before the other to show it as a two volume work).

The collection also begins each section with an early Christian prayer. The goal of this organization is to show that people in worship used these texts from their very beginning devotionally.[1] To accomplish this goal, he uses The Prayer of Thanksgiving, The Prayer of the Apostle Paul, and The Odes of Solomon which he divides into four parts simply so that every section can have its own prayer. It is surprising that all of the prayers selected are extracanonical when there are also prayers within the New Testament itself that could have been used (The Lord’s prayer being the most obvious example).

Taussig emphasizes the goal of the book is to increase understanding (and spiritual behavior) about the early Jesus movements (seeing them as varied) through these texts in the first several centuries in a balanced manner. He insists that the new books included are not more important than the old.[2] In so doing, he did not follow the original plan of removing some of the New Testament texts, which had been presented for an analogous project headed by Robert Funk in 1996.[3] However, he equally asserts that in the first several centuries of the Jesus movement, there is no reason to think that the books which did not eventually make the New Testament were read any less than the books which did make the New Testament.[4]

One of the goals of the book is to display the diversity of the Jesus movement both by comparing those outside the New Testament with those inside, as well as seeing the diversity within the New Testament itself.[5] To this end, the short introductions to each of the texts included emphasize some themes that would be in contrast to one another. The most common themes discussed as kind of “red threads” throughout the texts are in relation to gender, inclusion/exclusion of Jews and gentiles, the manner in which one unites with God, and responses to persecution.

The “companion” at the end of the text provides essays which discuss relevant topics to the use of the book as a whole. The essays cover the following topics: “The Discoveries of New Documents from Old Worlds” (discussing the challenge with ancient manuscripts both within and without the New Testament), “The books of A New New Testament: an overview” (discussing the goals of the book as a whole), “Two Surprising Stories: How A New New Testament came to be” (discussing the canonization process of the traditional New Testament as well as the process by which this volume was created), “What’s in A New New Testament” (discussing several key conclusions that can be drawn for a 21^st century audience from the collection as a whole), “Giving birth to A New New Testament and retiring the idea of Gnosticism” (discussing the scholarly problems with the category of Gnosticism and the implications if they are not dismissed as heresy), “A Rich Explosion of Meaning” (discussing the practical value of this text and conclusions that can be drawn from it by showing similarity between the Traditional New Testament and the extracanonical books), and an “Epilogue” which uses Taussig’s anecdotal experience for his view of how the text will be received and used.

The translations in the text are from two main sources. The New Testament texts are based upon the Open English Bible (an updated version of the 20^th Century Bible) which is freely accessible and not in copyright. The editors then adapted this translation where they felt it needed aid. The particular issue mentioned is in the case of gendered language that the updaters tried to make as inclusive as possible while still being faithful to the text.[6] The translations of the extracanonical texts came from a variety of sources with two key rules (the gendered one as mentioned above), but also with the principle that this text would have no transliteration – something that is nearly unique in the texts that come from Nag Hammadi.[7]

The selection of texts came about by a group of ecclesiastical leaders and scholars who met for the final time in New Orleans in 2012. The counsel (as it was made to mimic a church counsel) was attended by 19 members (with one who could not make the meeting but did provide opinions in the project). To the books credit, these figures are not only listed but a brief description of each member is included in the text.[8] The 10 additional texts were selected based upon two main principles: 1. It had to be dated no later than 175 C.E. and 2. That it had a significant spiritual contribution for the 21^st century in dialogue with the traditional New Testament. Some texts were difficult decisions because of these two principles. For instance, The Diary of Perpetua was seen as spiritually significant, but was outside the time frame for the project. 1 Clement was within the timeframe, but it was not seen as providing enough of a contrast to the existing texts for it to be included.

Finally, the main stated goal of the book is to provide new spiritual insights for Christians (and non-Christians) in the 21^st century. The concept of opening possibility for new texts to be included in one’s spiritual life could lead to new spiritual discoveries and insights particularly around issues that are often accused of being outmoded (such as gender, human rights, exclusivity, ecclesiastical authority, etc.).[9]

Merits of the book

Some aspects of this book are quite valuable. The most valuable aspect is the emphasis on diversity within both the early Jesus movement and the New Testament. As a teacher of the New Testament, my goal is always encouraging students to see diversity within the New Testament. The 27 books that make up the canon are wildly different. The fact of the matter is that if Christians wanted a very concise and clear exposition of their faith with no tensions or contradictions, they could have simply adopted one book as their holy book. Instead, there are at least 66 of them (including the Old Testament) with very different themes and theologies. There are ways that people have attempted to read them together so that contradictions are lessened, but no one denies the fact that they are diverse. The Book of Hebrews, for instance, presents a different kind of theology than found anywhere else in the New Testament (presenting Jesus as a high priest making the sacrifice of himself in the Platonic “heavenly temple”).

Taussig’s method of emphasizing the diversity – through the addition of other texts is probably a very good strategy for showing people how to read these texts. When one sees other texts, to which one probably is not as devotionally attached, it is easier to learn the strategy of how to read them critically. After doing this, then a reader could move back to the canonical texts with this new skill set.

The other side of inclusion of several other texts of the New Testament undoes some of the unintended consequences of canonization. When a set group of texts are selected as “special” then that by nature, makes other pieces of literature as less special and less important. This seems less of an issue with general literature as much as literature from the first several centuries of the Jesus movement about Christianity. These texts are somehow always seen as the ones which “didn’t make it” rather than just being pieces of literature like any other. While some (such as Taussig himself) might argue that discouraging the value of other texts was in fact some of the goals of canonization, other scholars would disagree. A canon is simply a rule or measure. It is not that other texts cannot be viewed, it is that when they are viewed, they are measured against that standard. That being said, there is no doubt that there were a number of texts that were circulating in the first several centuries of the Jesus movement which were simply not to be read. Some of those texts (such as the Apocryphon of John) were definitely on that list.[10]  However, it would be a gross overstatement to think that anyone would have criticized another Christian for reading 1 Clement. Therefore, Taussig’s book does help avoid that problem. By presenting the New Testament alongside other works, the other works might be able to be seen in a more valuable light than they had previously.

Another valuable point to this book is its intended audience. It clearly is written for those who have no idea that these other texts even exist, much less have a strong opinion about them. As a teacher, I can never condemn the bringing of new material to a group so that learning can be possible. It is true that there is a vibrant literary collection from early Christianity and this book might well bring out ten works which would not generally be known.

Further, this collection is a better collection than many for the task of it being viewed by a larger audience due to the restrictions placed on the counsel for selecting which books would be included. Most collections are of The New Testament and other Early Christian texts. Usually most all of the texts which Taussig’s counsel included are included; however, others are also included in a maximalist type of way. For instance, Bart Ehrman’s The New Testament and Other Early Christian Writings: A Reader includes twenty five additional texts including rather disputed ones such as The Secret Gospel of Mark. I generally would applaud Ehrman’s maximalist approach in a teaching setting (after all, just because everything is included it does not mean it needs to be all assigned). However, if the goal is for a wider audience who is not necessarily reading this text with others (either in a classroom or a community), including some of these strange and disputed secondary writings might keep them from getting too excited about the idea of reading other early Christian texts. Here, Taussig’s project might be helpful as one of the major criteria was that the texts included dialogue in some way with the New Testament itself.

The final value of this volume is his practical view of “Gnostic” texts. By placing some of the texts alongside the New Testament that some might consider “Gnostic,” he shows the actual difference between these texts and the New Testament itself. To be fair, even a casual reader will see striking differences between The Apocryphon of John and the New Testament. However, not as many will see as many between The Gospel of Thomas or The Gospel of Truth. Further, even from just those three texts, it will be clear to a reader that these are not the same thing. The category of Gnosticism is outdated and unwieldy.[11] This practical display is probably far more important than the essay Taussig wrote on the topic (to which I will respond below).

Challenges to the Book

 The book, as discussed above, does have practical value. However, there are serious challenges both in the scholarly data presented as well as some of the ecclesiastical suggestions made by Taussig.

The largest challenge practically for this book, which unfortunately might undo some of the practical merits of the book, is the main goal of the text to be for spiritual formation in alternate ways. Taussig claims that this book was written to find new ways of being religious: “A New New Testament’s more diverse picture of Christian beginnings supports the possibility that Christian practice and belief in our day might birth new and different ways of seeing God, morality, worship, human sexuality, and work.”[12]

The spiritual element that one might discover, however, Taussig finds to be 21^st century spritiaulity that was always present in Christianity, only lying dormant. He sees in this book the “possibility of claiming twenty-first century new meanings inherent in the first- and second-century Christ movements.”[13] As a historian, I have serious question how many of these 21^st century ideals were truly present in the first century. While there are plenty of theories of texts in literature which might suggest that if something is in the text, it does not matter if it was originally intended or not; however, Taussig does not present the texts like this. He presents a new history – there really were other types of theology that would match up very well with 21^st century mindsets about inclusion, human rights, and response to conflict, it is only the later suppressors of that theology that has led for it to be forgotten until the past twenty years. This view can be challenged. While it is very possible that women had a much larger role to play in the first several decades of the Jesus movement than later on (as can be seen in the New Testament itself), it is not clear to me that a full scale gender equality at all levels of Christian organization (a point Taussig wants to make as it is a 21^st century issue) existed in the first century at any time. The fact that it might have been slightly “better” does not equate with the present ideal.

Further, the spiritual priority of this book does not show very much respect or understanding with the concept of a book of faith. When Taussig off-handedly suggests that ten other texts ought to be read alongside the New Testament for spiritual insight merely because they are as old as the New Testament, almost any reader would recognize that this is not sufficient. The argument is not that there were not other older books that were later suppressed (of course there were – if there were no other choices, then obviously there would be no need for a standard canon). However, a book of faith is a mythos that is created by a community for meaning and identity. It is not so easy to simply suggest adding some new books to this collection.

Taussig, in his essay about the creation of the New Testament,[14] tries to show the ambiguity present in the creation of the New Testament and the creation of these other texts and argues that as the sources are equally ambiguous, there should be no problem. However, for a book of faith, its source is often not as important as its use. In fact, one glaring mistake Taussig makes in that chapter is he does express that the only criterion used in selecting the New Testament was use. Consider, for example, Eusebius’s famous discussion about which books were included in the New Testament (a citation that Taussig quotes in full). Eusebius categorizes them based upon use – he has three groups- those which everyone accepts and uses, those which some people accept and use, and those which no one accepts and uses. The source of the text is not discussed. It is not as if the church depended desperately upon the traveling companion of Paul who was a physician to give credence to a ministry of Jesus (given that Paul never knew Jesus and shows little knowledge of the historical Jesus in his writing).

Finally, this lack of respecting the true issue behind the idea of a book of faith loses his core audience – Christians. Throughout the book, he states that the problem is that certain texts are simply ignored by churches. This is not only true for the extracanonical books in the New Testament, but he says the same thing about Hebrews and Jude.[15] His spiritual goal of the book is mostly relevant to those who already have a spiritual connection with the traditional New Testament. However, because he does not begin from the concept of a book of faith, he does not have a convincing argument as to why they ought to open that book and allow for other texts to be included.

In addition to this practical concern, there are also several scholarly concerns about both the accuracy of some of the book’s claims on both the diversity within the Jesus movement and the New Testament itself.

The first major challenge is the presentation that Taussig promotes about the process of canonization. He claims that no true “New Testament” was developed until the 7^th-9^th century.[16] However, he only counts that which is in an actual book. He notes that Jerome had all of the same sources in the fourth century for the Latin Vulgate, but it was developed in at least two volumes.[17] The challenge to this idea is, of course, that the number of volumes is due not because they saw the New Testament as having many books – only because of convenience in the production of books.

The inaccuracy is further developed when he claims that “it is highly improbable that there were any separate collections of the twenty-seven books of the New Testament in the first four hundred years of Christian Tradition.”[18] While it is not exactly clear when he begins “the Christian Tradition,” it is reasonable to assume it begins somewhere near the year 30 C.E. at the approximate death of Jesus. Most scholars would place Codex Sinaiticus, Alexandrinus, and Vaticanus within that timeframe (in addition to some others). While it is true that some of these texts included 1 and 2 Clement, the difference was not great. The only way that Taussig’s claim is technically accurate is that all three of these manuscripts are not separate – they have an Old Testament connected to it.

Lastly on this point, Taussig argues that the issue was not settled even by the 9^th century but that Martin Luther brought the issue to the forefront again by attempting to remove The Book of James and The Apocalypse of John from the Bible. The Council of Trent in 1560, then was the reaction to this to keep this from gaining traction.[19] The problem with this claim, of course is that while Luther did challenge these books because he felt they did not present his concept of grace fully enough, his translation of the Bible (which was the standard for a very long time) had these books included. What was truly at issue at the Council of Trent on the issue of the canon were not these, but the so called “Apocrypha” – the handful of books that were in the Greek version of the Old Testament but not in the Hebrew Bible. Luther felt that these were helpful books, but not scripture. The New Testament – Taussig’s point of discussion – was not discussed much at all.

It is likely that Taussig stretched these facts to their extreme to try and paint an overly aggressive picture of the diversity possible within the books of the New Testament. However, this type of pushing the boundaries to the extreme begins to look ridiculous to the outside observer and he runs the risk of being dismissed. The worst of all of this is that he could have made the same point without the exaggerations. His first several pages of the chapter discussing the early development of canon and list is mostly accurate. That alone should provide the reader with the idea that there was, at one time, diversity in the components of the New Testament.

In addition to this inaccuracy there are many mistakes throughout the introductions to each text of the New Testament. Some of these mistakes are simply errors[20] whereas others are due to his emphasis on diversity among texts. The latter issue presents itself most strikingly with his comments on The Gospel of Matthew. Consider the following comment about the Gospel of Matthew’s relationship with Judaism: “In view of the many ways Christians have put down and done harm to Jewish  people in the past 1,900 years, it is a treasure to have the New Testament include such an explicit endorsement and spiritually rich exploration of Judaism.”[21] This presentation of the Gospel of Matthew, as any expert in the field knows, is only half true. While it is true that Jesus is the new Moses who interprets Torah, it is also the book which has some of the most anti-Jewish moments in it. The end of the narrative (the “great commission”) makes it clear that the book is directed for use among gentiles rather than Jews. There is good reason to think that the Gospel Of Matthew might well consider the Jesus movement as the ancestor’s of Abraham (and thereby those not included in the Jesus movement are not). However, the religion of the group of gentiles is probably akin to the religion of Paul’s opponents in Galatia – those who think Gentiles should become proselyte Jews when joining the Jesus movement. Therefore, Taussig’s comment is one half correct, but ignoring the other half makes his introduction misleading. It is likely he has done this to promote diversity and tension between books and in so doing, reduces diversity and tension within books. If the Gospel of Matthew can be painted as the “pro-Jewish” one, it can be contrasted with the Gospel of John as the “anti-Jewish” one (never minding that neither text is so simply for or against the Judaism).

A further scholarly confusion in this text is his chapter on “Gnosticism.” As mentioned above, he should be applauded for practically challenging the concept of Gnosticism for the largest cohort who hold on to the category – the general public rather than specialists. However, his chapter on the topic does not portray the complexity of the issue.[22] First, he puts so much emphasis on Karen King’s work, that he spends more time parroting her than fully explaining the problem. He mentions Michael Williams a few times, but never cites the text (even though Williams’s book on the topic was written a full 7 years before King’s). The actual problem with the category Gnosticism is not so much “retiring” it (as both King and Williams suggest) but rather, what can be done after the fact.

The challenge of dismantling the category of “Gnosticism” and still moving forward as a scholarly field has significant challenges. While nearly all scholars are happy to recognize that Irenaeus’s large cache of “knowledge falsely-so called” is not a single group and that any category suggesting that Marcion, the Gospel of Thomas, and the Apocryphon of John are all the “same” is foolish. The writings are simply too diverse for such a statement. However, the scholarly solution to this problem has not been sufficiently provided. Michael Williams has adopted a rather optimistic view that new categories can be used so long as we know what we are doing when using them. Karen King has presented a more pessimistic view that the name of the category has changed, but the actual function of it has not – the texts are compared to other texts that used to be considered “Gnostic” thereby ensuring the category exists while at the same time not claiming it.[23] Ismo Dunderberg’s Beyond Gnosticism, for instance, does a brilliant job of analyzing some key components of the fragments of Valentinus. However, it should be noted that nearly every single comparison with these fragments are the very same texts that used to be present in the old category of Gnosticism. The functional difference, then, is simply the name Gnosticism has left us, but the idea in practice persists.

Finally, Taussig unnecessarily attacks Elaine Pagels’s work, The Gnostic Gospels. He claims that Pagels suggests, through her attempt at making the Nag Hammadi library known to the larger world, a category that brings forward the old clichés of Gnosticism.[24] While it is probably true that some of her work is used by others for that end (Taussig discusses the modern “Gnostic” religious movement, for example), Pagels’s own work hardly has this view. When The Gnostic Gospels was written, she was comfortable using the category of Gnosticism (as even Williams and King were at that time!), but her point in the book is the diversity among materials in Nag Hammadi, not how they fit neatly in one category. If he truly wanted to find the culprit for this, he should have looked to Hans Jonas’s famous book, The Gnostic Religion written well before the Nag Hammadi library was discovered.

In addition to these scholarly problems, there also are some concerns with the texts themselves as presented by Taussig. First, his use of the Open English Bible has problems. While I suspect that the main reason for using this translation was simply that it was out of copyright and free to reproduce. Further, not only is it free to reproduce, but when one looks at the Open English Bible itself, anyone is welcome not only to copy it, but change any element where he or she sees fit. Indeed, the preface to the translations of A New New Testament states this is the reason it was selected.

The problem with this free Open English Bible is that it is not a very reliable translation. The Open English Bible is a “language updated” version of the Twentieth Century Bible developed in 1901 (and later revised in 1904). The Twentieth Century Bible was prepared to be a “plain English” translation of the Bible in contrast to the Victorian type translations that were made in the past. It was not a bad version – in fact, many of the catchy phrases that are in the New Revised Standard Version were based on this translation. However, the Twentieth Century Bible was based on what was the best Greek text of the time. Now, there are far superior Greek texts and the translation has become obsolete.[25] The Open English Bible has simply used that inferior text and updated the language. Taussig and company, then, have taken this updated version and updated it again. The steps between the Greek and the actual text have become so great that serious question can be asked as to the validity of the text itself. 

For those texts not in the New Testament, Taussig has used a variety of different translators to provide the translation – some of which are not bad. However, there are some major flaws in the production of them. First, Taussig introduced chapter and verse numbers for texts that never had them before now. While I sympathize with the frustration of not having as easily organized of a numbering system as the New Testament, when chapters are introduced, it by definition creates punctuation and paragraph breaks which are not present in the text. It gives Taussig the freedom to lead the reader to a particular conclusion (as he does with Thunder: Perfect Mind by suggesting that the final section is merely an “Appendix”).[26] Further, he does not provide the brackets for scholarly reconstruction of texts. When working with Nag Hammadi texts, it is imperative that readers know what words are in the text and which are reconstructed. While I rarely question the reconstructions presented by the experts in Nag Hammadi, to simply omit them completely is irresponsible scholarship. People deserve to know what is truly in the texts and what scholars think is in the texts.

Therefore, as a whole, I am glad that Taussig’s book exists. However, I wish he would have scaled back many of his comments so that the value of his idea (to have a volume which presented Nag Hammadi and New Testament texts side by side) could be more easily grasped. Here, readers will have to get beyond some of the strange suggestions by the book in order to be able to gain the value. Had Taussig simply followed the preface written by John Dominic Crossan, he would have triumphed greatly:

I conclude by thinking – and asking you to think as well – about gain and loss. I gave you only two examples where I think our traditional New Testament has lost something precious. It would have been better, for example, to have both Timothy and Thecla in there as confrontational challenges rather than Timothy alone. Better for the New Testament, better for Christian history, better for women, and, yes, better also for men.[27]

Crossan’s approach is not complicated by any calls to new spiritual enlightenment –simply one encouraging dialogue and challenge (which he does think would make a difference in people’s lives, just not the way that Taussig does). This is the value of these texts for the New Testament – they ought to have been used that way. Taussig went farther than Crossan by trying to suggest that this will be a new Bible for spiritual seekers. Unfortunately that is unlikely. It is far more likely that it will be used and appreciated by a very liberal base who like the idea of difference (but I highly doubt they will seriously gain spiritual insights for their own identity from texts hitherto unknown to them).

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[1] Taussig, A New New Testament, xxxi.

[2] Ibid., xix.

[3] Ibid., 509-510.

[4] Ibid., xxiv.

[5] Ibid., 519.

[6] Ibid., xx-xxi.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Ibid., 555-558.

[9] Ibid., 519.

[10] See Lance Jenott and Elaine Pagels, “Antony’s Letters and Nag Hammadi Codex I: Sources of Religious Conflict in Fourth-Century Egypt” Journal of Early Christian Studies, 18 (4), 557-589. 

[11] As first discussed by Michael A. Williams, Rethining “Gnosticism”: An Argument for Dismantling A Problematic Category Princeton University Press, 1996.

[12] Taussig, A New New Testament, 520.

[13] Taussig, A New New Testament, 519.

[14] Ibid. 500-509.

[15] “But Hebrews has been mostly ignored by official Christendom; in a real way, it has been treated as if it were not really discovered, even though it was included in the traditional New Testament” Taussig, 383.

[16] Ibid., 507.

[17] Ibid., 506-507.

[18] Ibid., 506.

[19] Ibid., 507-8.

[20] For instance suggesting that Paul’s epistle to the Galatians was not written to the city of Galatia, but instead to all “Gauls” everywhere – Taussig, 294.

[21] Ibid., 25.

[22] Ibid., 529-536.

[23] I am indebted to my good friend, Alexander Kocar, Ph.D. candidate at Princeton University, for this insight into the field of Nag Hammadi and related studies.

[24] Ibid., 532-536.

[25] Bruce Metzger, The Bible in Translation: Ancient and English Versions (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2001), 106-110.

[26] Taussig, A New New Testament, 185.

[27] Ibid., xv.

Benedict XVI as an exemplar of the changing role of the church and state

I am not a political scientist or a modern theologian. However, as I always tell my students, I pretend to be both. The problem with that, of course, is that having a little knowledge is sometimes far more dangerous than having none. However, this blog is specifically set up for me to workshop ideas rather than publish papers. I do hope that some who know more than me about modern theology and politics might have some helpful feedback.

I ran across a fascinating article on how Pope Benedict XVI is both alike and different from John Paul II. Right now there is all kinds of discussion about why Benedict is retiring (including some conspiracy theories that are so absurd as to be howlers). I have no interest in that aspect of his papacy – except for perhaps the new precedent that might be being set (though time will only tell there), and how he will function in retirement (will he, like other retired world leaders continue to be active in nonofficial roles, etc.). However, this excellent study by Brian Flanagan does not get involved in conspiracy theories about the pope’s retirement, instead it focuses on his legacy and asks what he did and how.[1]

Flanagan proposes that while staying in the tradition of John Paul II theologically, Benedict did it in an entirely new way. Rather than being the charismatic personality that traveled the world, he focused on the office of the bishop of Rome and spoke outwardly through the office, often hiding his persona from the public. Consider Flanagan’s comments:

In contrast to John Paul’s sense of personal, charismatic authority, Benedict’s model of papacy views its authority as rooted in the office itself, in the duties and responsibilities of the bishop of Rome, and in the pope as the guarantor of the tradition of the church. In comparison to John Paul, Benedict at times seemed to hide his personality behind his words, and to hide his particular preferences and theological opinions behind the office itself. I believe that this was intentional—not just a matter of personal idiosyncracy, but a conscious change of direction toward a less personality-driven papacy. At one level, it was rooted in a theology of episcopal collegiality that he assisted in crafting as a peritus (‘expert’) at the Second Vatican Council. But at a deeper level, it is consistent with his relative suspicion of the mechanisms of a secular world. As an Augustinian theologian, Benedict, despite his twitter feed, exercised a great deal of caution when stepping out into the whirlwind of the modern media cycle. He avoided, by choice as well as by temperament, much of the cult of personality that has been such a dominant aspect of the modern papacy and which arguably reached its apex in the example of John Paul. His resignation is therefore a coda, not a surprise ending, to a deliberately diminished, intentionally less monarchical, model of papacy.[2]

One can see that Flanagan interestingly suggests that the lack of the charismatic individual and instead the office actually has the effect of shifting the figure of the pope to be a less domineering force. Theologically, this makes some sense (and there is reason to think that much of what Benedict does is motivated by what makes sense theologically to him) – it is the seat of Peter which has authority – the human on it is temporary.

While I believe that Flanagan is probably correct, I also think that this is an example of how religion and politics have changed in the past several hundred years all the way to the role of the bishop of Rome. To show how it is changed, it is first necessary to understand the “two swords” doctrine which was established by Pope Gelasius I (492-496).  The concept was that God had two swords by which he would exercise his will – the sacred and the state. However, the true sovereign was God. Further, there was an obligation that all of God’s believers were in his kingdom and it was the moral duty of this authority to have that sovereignty expressed (despite whatever political borders might be the case).[3] While the two swords theology might sound like a division between the church and state, the argument was that God was the true sovereign and all government or church was merely his agent. Further, the church (encapsulated in the Bishop of Rome) was the interpreter for God, and as such, the church became the de facto authority of the world. While this might be shocking to some, for this paper, the question of who was truly in charge has less importance than the idea of sovereignty spreading beyond political borders (and therefore justifying moving beyond those borders as a role the government and the church in tandem out to be doing).

This model was challenged by the famous Peace of Westphalia in 1648 at the conclusion of the 30 years war. Many are aware of the decision at the end of the thirty years war which allowed states to choose their own religion (or rather the ruler of states to choose their religion) – “cuius regio, eius religio.” The practical argument presented was that political borders now were sovereign in and of themselves. So long as a nation did not bother others, they could do mostly as they pleased. The idea of sovereignty had formally changed. Not surprisingly, Pope Innocent X condemned the peace of Westphalia as a direct challenge to the two swords theology.[4]

The Peace of Westphalia, however, has mostly failed. While it is true that there is a basic idea of national independence from others, the idea that a nation can simply do whatever it likes without the rest of world stopping them is simply not the case. The volume of the Sacred and the Sovereign was conference papers discussing the Kosovo military operation. Aside from what one thinks of running interference for a Presidential sex scandal, the stated reasons for the Kosovo military operation were that what the government in Kosovo was doing to its own people was unacceptable (hardly the Westphalian idea about allowing someone to do whatever they liked so long as it was in their own borders). I should present as an addendum that I do not know the intricacies of the Kosovo conflict and I would have no doubt if there were in fact many things going on with the crises that had little to do with international politics.

The observation most notable in the volume was that while there is no idea of a universal religion any longer (the two swords theology only works if the government believes the views of the church), but instead a universal value system that allows some things but not others. It begins to ask the question, “what would it say about us if we did not act on behalf of these others.”[5] Therefore, religion does have an important place – but no longer is it because it is assumed that all nations should be following the sovereignty of God. Instead, the true sovereignty surpasses any figure or nation and instead is in a system of ethical values.

The way the church can still have a place globally is through these “global” values (understanding that not everyone has these values, but the idea is presented here just to show the international nature of activities). John Paul II, for instance, accomplished this task through his charismatic personality. Aside from a few moments of directly challenging the Soviet Union, John Paul II, for the most part traveled the world and encouraged politicians and laypeople to act in certain ways in accordance with universal values (of course those values would be channeled to be in accordance with those of the Roman Catholic church). Benedict XVI did it in a different way – through the office of the Papacy, he presented the values that he felt should be universally held (with his controversial comments about homosexuality, Islam, etc.).

What is most present, however, is the abandonment of desire to truly have the two swords theology expressed as they might have during the period before the Reformation. One did not see, for example, either Pope leaning upon world leaders to act in certain ways because it was their duty as God’s arm to bring universal religiosity upon the earth. Instead, when they exercised their political ambitions, it was independent – either through being so well liked, or through their own office.

Here, I do not attempt to get involved with the intricacies of Roman Catholic politics – not only is it something that is not my interest, I do not have the knowledge to truly speak about it. What is strking here is how churches and government are expected to interact. No longer do we even have the Bishop of Rome sitting down and meeting with world leaders to be their top advisor on practical political matters in most cases. Instead, it is a much more nuanced argument about values that show a more “modern” tendency.

A final note is simply a caveat that I do not believe that either of these popes particularly was innovative in this matter. I am sure that previous papacies were in accord with this. I only use these two current popes as examples to show a general trend.

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[1] Brian Flanagan, “John Paul II, Benedict XVI, and the upcoming conclave: Considering the role of the pope in a post-Christian world” Marginalia Review of Books, http://themarginaliareview.com/archives/1833, accessed Feb. 27, 2013.

[2] Ibid.

[3] John D. Carlson and Erik C. Owens, “Reconsidering Westphalia’s Legacy for Religion and International Politics” in John D. Carlson and Erik C. Owes (eds.) The Sacred and the Sovereign: Religion and International Politics (Washington D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2003), 12-14.

[4] Ibid., 14-19.

[5] Susanne Hoeber Rudolph, “Religious Concomitants of Transnationalism: From a Universal Church to a Universal Religiosity?” Sacred and the Sovereign, 139-153.

Review of Christian Smith’s Soul Searching and Souls in Transition.

Christian Smith, Soul Searching: the Religion and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers (Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2005).

Christian Smith with Patricia Snell, Souls in Transition: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of Emerging Adults (Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2009).

The following is my review of two volumes presented by Christian Smith on the sociology of religion for “young people” in a longitudinal study (the first volume discussing teenagers (ages 13-18) and the second emerging adults (ages 18-23). One hopes that when time provides, a third volume will appear that covers religiosity in ages 24-29 (the stated goal of the volumes). I should present as a caution that I am not a sociologist and that this study on modern religion is formally outside my field (being a historian of early Christianity and Judaism). However, this topic is one that matters much to me and I find myself continually exploring it in sociological contexts. I feel there is much merit in sociological analysis (and I find myself frequently reading key elements of it for my own research as can be found by figures such as Rodney Stark), but also some limitations. This review is more a case study of the merits and limitations of sociology than it is a true review of the books.

The greatest merit in these volumes, as stated by Christian Smith, is that it does an excellent job dispelling popular myths about the generation of “young people.”  There are many myths that he takes on such as that the younger generation are generally not religious, that they are spiritual seekers who look for truth from every walk of life, that education was linked with irreligiosity, that they are reacting to their parents and have abandoned all that they were teaching, and that the meme of being “spiritual but not religious” is among them. Smith does a good job of dispelling all of these arguments. He measures whether these memes are true (as he says he finds them frequently in literature) and shows why they are simply false. The “spiritual but not religious” meme, for example, is shown that participants did not even understand what the term meant much less supported them.

The hypothesis he presented, then, was that many frequent discussions about the movement of younger adults in religious settings are inaccurate. He then proves this through careful observation of the trends. Second, he proves this by not only showing that these are false, but also supplementing them with the positive statements that can be made about this generation concerning its view of religion. For this alone, these books are a very helpful resource for anyone interested in the topic (and I highly recommend this for any readers who work in ecclesiastical or social worlds where the views of people aged 13-23 is of primary significance).

With these valuable aspects, I now move to the critiques and limitations that a sociological study has. First, sociology is in the social sciences and as such, needs to present a hypothesis that will be proved true or false. In this case, the hypothesis was that teenagers and young adults do not hold many of the key memes that are present in rhetoric about this group. This was accomplished well. However, a problem occurs when a sociological study attempts to do anything more than that. Because the study was discussing a particular age group, for instance, any continuity between the age group studied and other age groups would not be sampled (after all, the point was to prove that such views were not present in one age group – the view of others was not important). However, when trying to present the alternate case and come to conclusions about “what these subjects actually are” the agility of the data is insufficient for the task. These volumes illustrate this point well – they have a primary purpose that is done well, but their secondary purpose of trying to present an alternate is awkward at best due to the constraints of sociological inquiry.

First, sociology finds a predictive theory that is true of a social movement, often across boundaries – this often can lead to a “lowest common denominator” type of approach to descriptive analysis. In this study, the major predictive theory was what Smith calls “Moralistic Therapeutic Deism (MTD).” Smith argues that MTD is the primary belief structure of students ages 13-18. It has the following 5 characteristics:

1. God exists who created and orders the world and watches over human life on earth.

2. God wants people to be good, nice, and fair to each other, as taught in the Bible and by most world religions.

3. The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself.

4. God does not need to be particularly involved in one’s life except when God is needed to resolve a problem.

5. Good people go to heaven when they die.[1] 

While this is definitely predictive – that if a new student group were interviewed, then they would probably hold most of these views. However, while it is a prediction, it is insufficient description. Of course, do hold this view, but that is not the only view they hold. Smith has shown us what can be proven and measured as far as social science goes. Diversity builds from there. This type of lowest common denominator thinking is not a bad thing – it is a necessary component of sociology and (as mentioned above) does do a good job answering the proposed hypothesis. It simply has limits and one who reads this as the only view held (seeing it as sufficient for description) is not correctly reading it.

The problem that arises next is not one for all of sociology – only a study that attempts to analyze the whole of a group – there is no control group. In any study where there are no boundaries on the number of people, it is difficult to effectively find a control. This study examined all of the people in America ages 13-23. While it was done through sampling, the point is that the whole of the people were meant to be included. Therefore, the only way to find a control would be to go beyond the bounds of America (where cultural factors might skew results) or a different age range (where generational factors might skew results). My own preference would have been if Smith had simply used a different generation as a control, but the challenge would be present. Therefore, the value of the study was still there in proving the hypothesis, but the lack of a control made some of the descriptive conclusions seem more telling than they might actually be.

 One of the major problems of this study for descriptive analysis was the age range presented. The data was set for this group alone (ages 13-23). However, there is no data present as to why these figures were so different from other age ranges. This would not be a major concern if there were very good reasons for this age constraint. However, the study has as its hypothesis that the reasons for considering this age group as distinct are not accurate.

Not only is the age constraint not given a proper discussion as to why it is being considered in isolation, there is even data presented that challenges the category. First, the study has as one of its most important points is that the religious view of the teenagers and emerging adults were gained from their parents – making this the view not only of the younger generation but also of the older.[2] Secondly, Smith trumpets the study of N. Jay Demerath which argues that liberal Protestantism as a whole is very prevalent among adults (which would, in many ways, be quite similar to the MTD described above).[3] Therefore, this age constraint makes it seem as if these views are unique. In reality, the views presented are held by the group they study, but the study does no job whatsoever about discussing whether this is common to other groups or not (and it should be noted does it claim to do so – this is a simple limitation of sociology – a sample population has to be selected and the study cannot discuss any other population with accuracy).

The results, however, are challenged beyond the relatively reasonable question concerning the age range. First, the first volume covering the ages of 13-18 does not take into account the unreflected faith of many teenagers. Not surprisingly, when asked about more advanced theology, teenagers did not know their own faith system. They had trouble articulating what it was that made them distinct with the exception of ethics. However, when looking at the correlation between actual life choices and religious devotion, the correlation showed that there was a significant difference.[4] Therefore, the lack of articulation might not be as much a lack of holding the views as much as simply teenagers struggling to articulate anything given their relative age and probable lack of reflection on their own beliefs (as it was presented that they did usually take their view from their parents).

Another challenge is the ridiculous goal of finding a single voice for an entire generation of people in America. The millions that would be presented are so diverse that it is not surprising that many of the results are mundane. A much more meaningful study might have focused on a smaller group that could be more easily studied and nuanced to give a full description. I understand that this is not the goal of this particular study, but as a historian, this is precisely what is required to be able to speak with confidence rather than vague generalities.

The above challenges might be subsumed by Smith’s desire to be a competent sociologist. The reason he does not look into the unreflecting nature of teenagers is that he does not want to dismiss the view of teenagers – their view needs to be taken seriously on its own. Therefore, while it might be true that they haven’t reflected on their faith, that lack of reflection is component of what they believe – it should not be dismissed. However, the second volume of the series, because it was a longitudinal study, took as its main focus a comparative tactic (did 18-23 year olds change their view from the view they had when they were 13-18). This comparative tactic made it difficult for the second volume to respect the subjects as much as the first volume did. The 18-23 year olds did not have their own descriptor of how they viewed religion, instead, the question was if MTD was still the primary way of expressing their religiosity. The answer was that it was mostly true with many caveats.[5]  The fact that all of these caveats were in place suggests that if Smith were to simply describe the religiosity of this group with no preexisting idea at all, he might well have come to a different solution. However, because it was comparison, the second volume was dominated by the first. The results then are skewed and amazingly the views expressed by teenagers (even with their challenge of articulation and lack of understanding) are going to frame the conversation with people well into their twenties (particularly if the third study uses this same comparative tactic, and there is no reason to think that it will not).

The second critique is not in method, but one of the conclusions that Smith draws. While discussing MTD, Smith briefly calls this type of faith “parasitic” meaning that it only can exist if larger full religions are present. His argument seems to be that this is the case because it exists across the religious spectrum (Protestantism, Roman Catholicism, Judaism, LDS, etc.).[6] However, he does not spend the time to prove why this is the case, it is simply his logical inference that could be challenged easily. Why is it that the five principles described above could not be held in isolation? There is no real reason other than that they have developed from a larger worldview. However, the sustaining power of the MTD (if it even truly exists as a complete worldview) could well continue without the larger religious systems (just as many religious movements derive from another religion while abandoning many of its original tenets, e.g. Christianity separated quite easily from Judaism).

 The final section of this post are not critiques of Smith, but ways that someone not familiar with this type of writing could misconstrue the data. The first one has been covered at length – that is the “lowest common denominator” type of analysis that sociology finds itself in. The second is the ease at which the second volume of the book can be understood poorly if not seen as a comparative work, and the third is the misconstrual of the phrase “feeling good” as a characteristic of MTD.

If one does not understand comparative longitudinal studies (and I will be the first to point out that I am not an expert in them), it is possible to misunderstand what Smith says in the conclusion. Smith argues that there is essential continuity between religiosity in the teen age years with religiosity in the emerging adult years.[7] However, this is not suggesting that the religious views of teenagers are identical (or necessarily even close) to the religious views of emerging adults. All it is saying is that those who are religious in their teen years are also likely to be religious in their emerging adult years and vice versa. Not only do their views shift to be more reflective, but it is possible that the religious tradition could even change in those years – it is only the case that they are more likely to be religious in some sense.

The second piece that is easy to misconstrue is the concept that one of the goals of MTD is to “be happy and feel good about oneself.” There is no reason to think that this is simply superficial or primarily different than other adherents’ view of religion. Most religious movements have as their center profound meaning for the adherents. Peter Berger discussed it in terms of identity and meaning as a society in response to the chaos of the world (that which humans cannot deal). This meaning is the way humans manage the world and find a place in it (in addition to solving the problem of theodicy).[8] How is this meaning so fundamentally different than “feeling good?” I do not think Smith was trying to express a superficial sense of this, but it would be possible for readers to get the wrong impression if they were not familiar with sociological discussion of religion.

In all, Smith’s work is quite valuable and should be read. It only needs to be understood in a sociological context with sociological constraints. He very convincingly proves his hypothesis – caution should be taken on how far this data can prove alternate hypotheses.

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[1] Smith, Soul Searching, 162-3.

[2] Ibid., 166.

[3] N. Jay Demerath, “Cultural Victory and Organizational Defeat in the Paradoxical Decline of Liberal Protestantism” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 34.4 (1995): 458-69.

[4] Smith, Soul Searching, 218-258.

[5] Smith, Souls Transformed, 103-142, 180-256.

[6] Smith, Soul Searching, 166.

[7] Smith, Souls Transformed, 282.

[8] Peter Berger, The Sacred Canopy.