THE DEATH OF MAINSTREAM PROTESTANTISM: AN ANALYSIS OF SOME MODELS OF SPIRITUALITY DR. OLLI-PEKKA VAINIO, UNIVERSITY OF HELSINKI

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1 THE DEATH OF MAINSTREAM PROTESTANTISM: AN ANALYSIS OF SOME MODELS OF SPIRITUALITY DR. OLLI-PEKKA VAINIO, UNIVERSITY OF HELSINKI

2 The change that was in the air IT'LL SOON SHAKE YOUR WINDOWS, AND RATTLE YOUR WALLS FOR THE TIMES THEY ARE A-CHANGIN' COME MOTHERS AND FATHERS, THROUGHOUT THE LAND DON'T CRITICIZE, WHAT YOU CAN'T UNDERSTAND YOUR SONS AND YOUR DAUGHTERS, ARE BEYOND YOUR COMMAND YOUR OLD ROAD IS RAPIDLY AGIN'

3 And the change came

5 (ONE REASON) WHY MAINSTREAM PROTESTANTISM FAILED?

6 Secularizations secularization does not mean that religion goes out of fashion; instead: fragmentation and detachment of traditional ties between states and religious institutions pushing religion out of public sphere forced societal atheism

7 Cognitive science of religion (CSR) and naturalness of religion CSR tells us about general tendencies in large populations naturalness does not mean determined ; religious modes of thinking are easy for humans and hard to resist CSR gives an outline of God that triggers these natural tendencies

8 A-GOD (alpha) personal, anthropomorphic A-GOD and humans exist in some kind of exchange relationship has several omni-attributes classical theism, personal theism, open theism polytheism, even buddhism and pantheism

9 O-GOD (omega) warped negative theology: absolute ineffability and radical mysticism does not communicate with humans in any recognisable manner not dependent on context, language, tradition, or special revelation present everywhere and nowhere O-GOD is a god for elites; and mainline protestantism

10 CSR and O-GOD From the point of view of CSR, O-GOD is very hard to believe in; it is too counter-intuitive O-GOD has almost no points of contact with the mechanism that CSR talks about O-GOD comes very close to atheism

11 Communicating religious traditions Harvey Whitehouse (Oxford U) doctrinal and imagistic modes of communicating religious traditions

12 imagistic doctrinal lots of emotions, very few propositional claims, sense of belonging is important less emotions, lots of propositional claims, commitment and approval of claims, eg. ethnicity is not important local, small groups, nonfrequent but important rituals, if the group grows it adopts doctrinal modes of thinking global, frequent rituals, doctrinal communication creates resistance and causes it to split into smaller groups

13 doctrinal communication enables shepherding large groups imagistic communication works only to those individuals who can feel the message the mainline protestantism has been moving from doctrinal to imagistic mode

14 The problem: odd bedfellows large masses imagistic communication O-GOD

15 O-GOD god for modern people is there such a thing as modern person? too abstract for the masses needs a lot of education and training to be believable ; hard to sustain low level of practical relevance paradox: selling O-GOD requires heavy doctrinal communication

16 Imagistic communication attracts only a select few cannot sustain larger communities communities do not usually last long modes of worship may vary a lot paradox: reactionary attitude pushes it towards semi-doctrinal communication ( we are not like those others )

17 Lazy church the vision of the first-generation secular theologians: nones can be absorbed to the existing churches when we give up some of our doctrinal claims this did not work; the activism of the church was taken over by civil societies (which are doing it better than the church) Christendom model in Europe in religious monopoly, you do not need to sell your product religion starts to looks like a public service: you are entitled to something without actually participating in it (cf. electric grid) lazy church lacks those features that make people want to belong to a community

18 Possible futures large masses - imagistic com. - O-GOD (status quo) large masses - doctrinal com. - O-GOD (aggressive liberalism) small groups - doctrinal com. - A-GOD/O-GOD (USA model)

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