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Faith beyond Belief: Evangelical Protestant Conceptions of Faith and the Resonance of Anti-humanismAuthor(s): Omri ElishaSource: Social Analysis: The International Journal of Social and Cultural Practice, Vol. 52, No.1, AGAINST BELIEF? (SPRING 2008), pp. 56-78Published by: Berghahn BooksStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/23182447 .

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Faith beyond Belief Evangelical Protestant Conceptions of Faith and the Resonance of Anti-humanism

Omri Elisha

Abstract: This article explores the cultural significance of faith among

US evangelical Protestants. It is argued that evangelical conceptions of

faith provide an idiom for expressing religiosity that transcends con

ventional notions of belief, which alone do not account for the ideals

of evangelical subjectivity. Through an analysis of group rituals in a

Tennessee megachurch, along with a discussion of the historical roots

of evangelical theology and the growing influence of charismatic Chris

tianity, the article highlights an emphasis on radical intersubjectivity that calls upon the faithful to submit to the totalizing authority of divine

agency. It is further argued that evangelical conceptions of faith feature

a strand of anti-humanism that resonates with the increasingly authori

tarian politics of the post-welfare era, which are explored in relation to

the growing phenomenon of altruistic faith-based activism.

Keywords: anti-humanism, conservatism, evangelical Protestantism,

faith-based activism, intersubjectivity, megachurch, spiritual gifts

"Christian, what do you believe?" With this liturgical cue, congregations around

the world recite the Apostles' Creed. The Creed is a concise summary of Chris

tian doctrine, punctuated by declarative refrains ("I believe in God the Father

Almighty ... 1 believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son," etc.) that enhance its function as both a tool of religious instruction and an affirmation of individual assent on the part of seasoned churchgoers and novices alike. Among evangeli cal Protestants, who are devotional if not fervent adherents to the precepts of

the Reformation, such 'confessions of faith' affirm biblical doctrines honored as timeless and indomitable testimonies of what 'true' Christians believe.

However, beyond the ritual frames in which formal creeds are invoked,

evangelicals often characterize their religious subjectivity in experiential

t Social Analysis, Volume 52, Issue 1, Spring 2008, 56-78

doi: 10.3167/sa.2008.520104

® Berghahn Journals



Faith beyond Belief | 57

rather than strictly doctrinal terms. If you ask most evangelical Protestants in

the United States, for example, to describe what it means to be a Christian,

they are not likely to recite the Apostles' Creed or to list specific doctrines

ordinarily hailed as 'beliefs'. What you are likely to hear are personal con

version narratives, that is, individualized testimonies about the experience

of being 'bom again', complete with intimate details of sins committed and lives redeemed through the 'surrendering' of oneself to God and 'the Lordship

of Christ'. While evangelicals commit a great deal of thought and energy to

questions of belief as such (e.g., What do 1 believe? How strong is my belief? What causes disbelief?), the descriptive idiom by which they convey their

religiosity both among themselves and with outsiders does not stress preposi tional assent as consistently or uniformly as one might expect. This raises an

intriguing problem: is it possible that evangelical Protestants are not quite the

believers that they appear to be?

The condition of belief is commonly taken to be the dominant paradigm of

modern Christian religiosity. Western scholars have been rightly criticized for

universalizing the category of belief beyond Western Judeo-Christian contexts, a tendency that has resulted in various misleading "shadow fallacies" (Ruel 1982) and academic theories that frame religion in largely ethnocentric terms

(Asad 1993). However, the possibility that the operational significance assigned to belief might vary within Western Christian traditions remains largely unex

plored. In this article I argue that American evangelical Protestants conceive and

enact their sense of religiosity in accordance with a different idiom, one that

takes belief strongly into account but encompasses broader theological ideals

associated with faith. Contemporary evangelical conceptions of faith influence the practice of performative rituals and religious disciplines that instill moral ambitions—related to but distinct from doctrinal beliefs—that in turn character ize and constitute evangelical personhood.

To be sure, evangelical Protestants are staunch defenders and exemplars of

religious belief. I would hardly suggest otherwise, for that would be a dubious

position to take with regard to people who, after all, commonly refer to them

selves categorically as 'Bible believers'. Nor do I mean to contradict the endur

ing premise, held by theologians and secular scholars alike, that the concept

of belief is one of the defining features of historical Christianity. I do, however,

want to destabilize that premise by proposing another level of interpretation.

Although Western notions of belief are rooted in an ideology that, as Lopez

(1998: 34) notes, attributes all religious expressions back to "an inner assent to a cognitive proposition ... a state of mind that produces practice," this is

only part of the story. The ideology of belief does not adequately account for alternative ways in which religious experience and subjectivity are constructed, even in a social milieu where it is presumed to be normative. For the churchgo

ing evangelicals among whom 1 conducted fieldwork in Knoxville, Tennessee, the demands of Christian piety extend well beyond belief. Note, for example, that when new converts are about to be baptized, they are not asked to profess

what they believe. They are asked instead: "Have you accepted Jesus Christ as

your personal Lord and Savior?" The ontological condition of faith is linked to



58 I Omri Elisha

the pursuit of radical intersubjectivity, an experience of continuous subjection to and reliance upon divine agency.

Much of the religious discourse I observed during my fieldwork emphasized specific moral virtues—including religious devotion, humility, and compas sion—that evangelicals associate with the 'new life' into which they believe

they have been reborn. As they aspire to embody those virtues, evangelicals routinely invoke conceptions of faith, whether they do so explicitly or not. In other words, the more expansive connotation of faith described here cor

responds with a conceptual framework that is reflected in evangelical practice even when the word 'faith' is unmentioned or unmarked.

I argue moreover that evangelical conceptions of faith reveal an underly

ing resonance of anti-humanism.1 The process of conversion is understood

to involve some degree of volition on the part of individuals, most notably in the form of propositional assent ('I believe'), but the role of individual agency in the pursuit of the ambitions of Christian piety is indeterminate; some even view it as relatively insignificant. The crucial factor for most evangelical Prot estants is the process of becoming the subject of divine volition (i.e., becoming faith ful), and thereby being endowed with qualities that are understood to

originate from a divine source. As an evangelical businessman explained to

me in an interview: "As Christians, we're not perfect. I mean we're still human

beings. There is a process, and if we pursue it, Christ can help us turn around and be different. Once you place your faith in Christ, his actual spirit lives in

you from that point on. He lives in me, and he influences everything that I do. We're not puppets. We still have free will, but we have the ultimate influence

and power within us if we want to draw upon that."

Some might argue that the religious worldview described here is better known as theocentric humanism, rather than anti-humanism. This would be a reasonable

claim insofar as evangelical theology posits that humanity is uniquely privileged among God's creations while simultaneously beholden to God's absolute sover

eignty. However, I see clear analytical benefits to be gained from the position that

evangelical conceptions of faith reveal anti-humanistic strands in the evangelical

"moral imagination" (Beidelman 1986). First, the moral potential that human

beings are seen to possess is intrinsically limited, as a matter of theology, by the doctrine of 'total depravity'. Second, while the doctrine of the incarnation (Christ

as the union of flesh and spirit) is read as proof that the transcendent exists in

harmony with the temporal, it also reminds Christians of the impossibility of ever

achieving so perfect a union in the course of one's earthly lifetime. Christian piety is conceived as an endless yearning to be sanctified by a totalizing, incorruptible intersubjectivity that remains perpetually elusive yet no less real.

Finally, my reliance on the notion of anti-humanism highlights an important

authoritarian dimension of evangelical thought. Evangelical conceptions of faith

presume the active presence of a supreme moral authority whose reach extends

deep into the life of every individual. The inherent verticality of this relation

ship reaffirms a cosmic hierarchy and, at the same time, prescribes relations of social and political power—between pastors and congregants, Christians and

'pagans', statesmen and citizenry, men and women, rich and poor—that are




similarly hierarchal. The Christian subject in this worldview is truly a subject, one whose individuality is defined not entirely by an interior essence but also

by linkages to people, ideas, forces, and things that hold him or her directly accountable to the standards of an absolute, transcendent Truth.

It should be clear by now that 1 am not treating faith as synonymous with

belief. The two words are commonly assumed to mean the same thing, especially

given their semantic interchangeability in casual conversation, but their connota

tions vary. By the same token, I do not intend to reinforce a binary opposition between faith as a mode of affect or trust and belief as a function of intellect or

conviction. The culturally specific meaning of faith that 1 describe and analyze in this essay is not a complement to belief, as might be easily assumed if we rely too

heavily on dualistic notions of feeling and cognition. While Christian theologies and meditations on the self have long focused on dualistic themes (body-mind, flesh-spirit), evangelical conceptions of faith highlight a process of transcendence that encompasses both emotion and propositional reasoning and consumes both

body and mind, resulting in the 'birth' of a reconstituted, sanctified self.

As a last caveat, I am addressing faith here as a cultural construct, a category

of Christian discourse and practice, and an object of evangelical reification. 1 do not wish to reify the category myself by appearing to assign operational signifi cance to it in the same way that evangelicals do. However, as an anthropologist I

am committed to understanding the significance of faith as a 'social fact', which

requires that I explore its various connotations and observe the cultural work that it does in social contexts. From this perspective, as an object of analysis, faith is

hardly different from other useful yet empirically problematic categories within

anthropology, including witchcraft, spirit possession, liminality, and race. I begin my discussion with an ethnographic vignette based on my involve

ment in a men's Bible study group at Eternal Vine Church, a predominantly white megachurch in suburban Knoxville.2 Bible studies are discursive rituals that appear to be focused on indoctrination, but as I discovered, they are also

oriented toward the cultivation of moral ambitions and dispositions associated with idealized notions of Christian faith. 1 then discuss aspects of Western

Christian history and culture that have contributed to contemporary evangelical

conceptions of faith as I perceive them, including Reformation theology, early

American revivalism, and the intriguing influence in recent decades of charis

matic Christianity in traditionally evangelical churches like Eternal Vine. This is followed by an analysis of the ideological relevance of evangelical faith, with its resonance of anti-humanism, as it relates to developments in US political

culture, especially the popularity of 'faith-based activism' in the post-welfare era and the rise of authoritarian conservatism in the age of neo-liberalism.

Revelations

Sometimes a neldworker's best epiphanies arise from moments of boredom

and irritation. Mine occurred in the fall of 2001, during the final weeks of my fieldwork. Like a runner on the last leg of a marathon, I was exhilarated and



60 I Omri Elisha

exhausted all at once. Despite feeling a profound sense of clarity and purpose,

the constant tedium of recalling and recording daily events and interactions had become overwhelming. After 15 months of research, I had grown tired

of dragging myself to one church service after another and to countless 'Bible

studies'. I still had much to learn, but with each new revelation 1 found myself

lacking the patience and stamina to gaze into yet one more burning bush.

I was reawakened, as it were, one rainy Monday night during a 'men's Bible

study' held at Eternal Vine Church, one of Knoxville's largest and most popular congregations. The group of 12 to 15 men, most of whom were church mem

bers, met on a weekly basis to read and study the Bible, along with devotional texts and study guides. The participants regularly engaged in lay hermeneutics,

analyzing the scriptures through literary dissection while seeking also to make the Bible relevant to their personal lives (and struggles) as Christian men. I attended these meetings consistently over the course of my fieldwork, listening

as the men studied various major and minor aspects of biblical doctrine and semantics. I was often impressed by their intellectual diligence. However, I was

equally perplexed by their frequent assertions that one should not dwell on 'factual data' about the Bible merely for the sake of 'head knowledge'. In their

view, the main goal of Bible study was to cultivate a receptive moral disposi tion conducive to 'heart knowledge', which was served by the specific contents of one's propositional beliefs but not exclusively determined by them. The

logic behind this somewhat mystifying distinction was latent in much of what I observed during my research. But on the night in question, all I could think about was that evangelical discourse suddenly seemed unbearably repetitive.

We were seated around a large table, littered with empty pizza boxes and

soda bottles, in a brightly lit classroom in the educational wing of Eternal

Vine's main building. Tired of taking notes and confident that the conversation was unlikely to veer into unexpected terrain, I quietly doodled in my notebook. The evening's discussion was about Experiencing God: Knowing and Doing the Will of God, a popular interactive workbook for Christians written by Henry

Blackaby and Claude V. King (1990). We had been working through the book for several weeks, covering its 12 study units and watching companion vid

eos.3 The workbook's various anecdotes, questionnaires, and doctrinal bullet

points revolve around a central thesis, broken down by Blackaby (the primary

author) into the "Seven Realities of Experiencing God": "(1) God is always at

work around you; (2) God pursues a loving relationship with you that is real and personal; (3) God invites you to become involved with Him in His work; (4) God speaks by the Holy Spirit through the Bible, prayer, circumstances, and the church to reveal Himself, His purposes, and His ways; (5) God's invitation for you to work with Him always leads you to a crisis of belief that requires faith and action; (6) You must make major adjustments in your life to join God in what He is doing; and (7) You come to know God by experience as you obey Him and He accomplishes His work through you."

We were about halfway through the workbook when I realized how much it

repeated itself: each unit restated the key points over and over again, the inter

active exercises were all so similar to one another that they seemed redundant,



Faith beyond Belief \ 61

and the chapters appeared to do little more than reiterate the seven-point

thesis listed above. At that moment I experienced Experiencing God as flawed

literature. From my perspective as a non-evangelical academic, the story was

going nowhere. The process of intellectual discovery was circular and overde

termined. In short, I was suddenly struck by the workbook's blatant repetition and predictability. After months of scrupulous empathy, I could no longer remain silent. Throwing caution to the wind, I lifted both hands in the air,

interrupting the flow of conversation, and staged my intervention. "I'm sorry,

but 1 have to say this," I announced. "All of these chapters seem to me to be

repeating the same message over and over again, and it's the same message

that you must hear in all of your other Bible studies and Sunday services. How

do you motivate yourselves to read this stuff week after week? Doesn't it ever

just seem redundant?"

Fortunately (and not surprisingly), the men greeted my comment with grace

and enthusiasm. They seized it as an opportunity for a lively digression that, in the end, was hardly a digression at all. Zach, an unmarried carpenter in his early

forties, whose intellectual curiosity is matched only by his proud fundamental ism on theological matters, was the first one to chime in. He admitted that the

authors of the workbook certainly have a tendency to "hammer" the same point

over and over again, but he added that such repetition is necessary for spiritual growth. "No matter how much we believers keep learning about how we need

to surrender ourselves entirely to God's will, we still don't do it!" He continued: "All of us were raised in churches that told us 'You better be good,' but now

we're finding out that that's not what it's all about. We're realizing that being a

Christian is all about relationships, with God and with each other."

Jonathan, an insurance professional and part-time actor, explained that

although he had been raised in predominantly Christian institutions, the seem

ingly "simple" concepts laid out in Experiencing God still remain new to him, and his understanding of them continues to change as his life changes and as he matures in his faith. "The teaching of these concepts may be repetitive," he said,

"but they mean more to me now because of everything that I've been through in

my life. I am learning more about my wife and my marriage now than I have for

the last 15 years. The thing is, most people in this church wouldn't come back

every week, or want to get up on Sunday morning, if they weren't experiencing

something when they come to church."

In their brief commentaries, Zach and Jonathan echoed sentiments that are

widely felt (and well rehearsed) among evangelical churchgoers, especially the

rejection of the doctrinal 'legalism' that they associate with mainline denomi nations and traditional churches like those in which both men were raised. In a

post-denominational age defined by flourishing megachurches and parachurch

organizations that are either non-denominational or function as such, evangeli

cal Protestants, both young and old, are increasingly drawn to "new paradigm churches" that promise authentic spirituality (Miller 1997). As part of the new

paradigm, Christian subjectivity is defined in experiential rather than strictly normative terms, with theology reduced to digestible 'essentials' and a high premium placed on 'relationships'. Much of the popularity and successful



62 I Omri Elisha

growth of Eternal Vine is due to the congregation's clearly stated emphasis on

"moving people beyond Religion and into Relationships"—a modern twist on the old evangelical tenet that Christians can experience intimacy with God and

fellowship with one another without the restrictive mediations of institutional

religion. (The fact that Eternal Vine, like all megachurches, is as bureaucratic and restrictive as any large corporate body is an irony that is not lost on many

congregants and pastors.)

Zach and Jonathan's responses to my questions that night also demonstrate

the strong aspirational dimension of evangelical practice. Self-critical expres sions like Zach's ("we still don't do it!") are common features of conversation

that testify, among other things, to the idea that one's status as a Christian is not

linked to a state of being but rather is a process of becoming. While there are

evangelicals who lean toward a theology of 'once saved, always saved', mem bers of Eternal Vine are relatively comfortable with a more nuanced and intro

spective approach to Christian piety. The 'born-again experience' for them is the

beginning of a lifelong spiritual journey of learning how to feel, act, and live in total accordance with God's will. For churchgoers like Zach and Jonathan, the

only way one advances along the journey is by practicing 'spiritual disciplines', such as Bible study, worship, and prayer, with the goal of embodying spiritual ity, not in an abstract sense, but in the literal sense of embodying 'the Spirit'.

The ambitions of evangelical churchgoers who aspire toward this mode of embodiment are conceived at once as deeply individualized and radically intersubjective. Evangelicals measure themselves by the standards of a kind of

inner-worldly asceticism that prioritizes personal revelation while at the same time disciplines the self to increase its reliance on the agency of God, as well as

on the moral guidance and fellowship of like-minded Christians. Bible studies in this sense are more than just intellectual exercises. They are performative

rituals in which evangelicals reproduce ascetic standards and seek to internal

ize them through "discursive piety" (Deeb 2006). Rational comprehension and

affirmation of biblical scriptures are desired, but they alone do not constitute

'faithfulness'. Evangelicals yearn to embody humility and self-abnegation, vir

tues epitomized by the figure of Jesus praying in the garden of Gethsemane on

the eve of his crucifixion. Indeed, the descriptive idiom of faith relies so heavily on notions of submission and sacrifice because those very qualities are associ ated with the crucified Christ. Thus, while the desire to become 'Christ-like' in every facet of their daily lives is expressed and performed in shared cultural

practices that correspond to formalized belief structures, those practices are

also meant to produce (or inspire) virtues that are seen both to encompass and

to transcend the faculties of belief. As I have already indicated, and will elaborate throughout this discussion,

the particular mode of subjectivity that evangelical conceptions of faith help to produce is one in which the status of individual agency is diminished, in that individual (temporal) will is ideally renounced in submission to divine

sovereignty and authority. Conservative evangelicals share a view of humanity as inherently corrupted and incapable of doing anything of moral significance without the guidance of biblical and/or spiritual revelation. My experience in




the men's group and other evangelical contexts revealed that the proverbial

'leap of faith', so central to the culture of evangelicalism, concerns far more

than an abiding trust in a higher power. It is suggestive of a radical reconstitu tion of self that seeks as its outcome a life in which the will of God literally 'dwells' in the life and body of the believer.

Despite the predominance of such ideals in the religious discourse and prac tice of evangelical Protestants in general, there are significant variations in how

different church traditions theorize about the precise nature and manifestation of the intersubjectivity of faith. Evangelical Baptists and Presbyterians, for example, stress the role of the Bible as the primary medium of divine revelation, but they

typically shy away from the hyper-spiritualized notions associated with charis matic and Pentecostal churches. Among the latter, the 'indwelling' of the Holy

Spirit is prioritized and performed through exuberant rituals of embodiment referred to as spiritual or charismatic gifts (speaking in tongues, healing, proph

ecy). The existence of theological differences within evangelical Protestantism is

significant, not only because it reflects deep historical fissures in American reviv

alist Christianity, but also because of the myriad ways in which many of those once irreconcilable differences are slowly being bridged, or at least renegotiated, in local churches and in the lives of individual pastors and churchgoers.

Eternal Vine Church is a particularly useful case study for exploring new

areas of convergence (and continued dissension) across the spectrum of evan

gelical Protestantism. The congregation is fairly homogeneous in demographic terms, with a membership that is predominantly white and middle to upper middle class. On issues of theology, politics, and social morality, the congrega tion is largely conservative, reflecting the dominant attitudes of the evangelical subculture nationwide. However, among various pastors, staff, and lay church

goers, one encounters varied—and at times conflicting—approaches to specific areas of Christian life, such as questions about certain aspects of biblical inter

pretation, gender relations, social engagement, child socialization, and the aes thetics of corporate worship. The need to provide room for compromise while

maintaining a firm commitment to orthodoxy is one of the many predicaments that megachurches inevitably face as a result of successful growth. In its effort

to manage the precarious balance, Eternal Vine has become a church in which

some of the lines that once divided different strands of evangelical thought and

practice are becoming blurred, allowing previously incompatible elements to

find common (if at times unstable) ground. This coming together of disparate strands is evident in the conceptions of faith that circulate at Eternal Vine. Before discussing this case study further, I turn my attention to the theological and historical roots of the Protestant ideal of faith.

Justifying Faith

Discourse on the nature of Christian faith has existed since the early church, but it acquired new significance during the Protestant Reformation in the sixteenth

and seventeenth centuries. Reinterpreting the epistles of Paul (notably Romans



64 I Omri Elisha

and Galatians), prominent reformers such as Martin Luther and John Calvin

emphasized the doctrine of justification by faith, the principle that individu als attain righteousness not through deeds but by faith alone. Faith, in this view, is a wholehearted reliance on God and the recognition that Jesus Christ's

redemptive sacrifice and resurrection mark the fulfillment of God's law.4 At the final judgment, according to Paul's apocalyptic theology, the line between the

righteous and the damned will clearly distinguish those who have internalized this truth over the course of their lives from those who have not.

Protestant reformers insisted that the doctrine of justification by faith had been corrupted by church practices such as ritual atonement, the selling of

indulgences, and the Catholic proclivity toward 'good works'. They argued for the primacy of biblical authority over ecclesiastical hierarchy and proclaimed anew that salvation cannot be gained through ritual means or rational calcula tion. They understood the Bible to reveal that human beings are inherently sin ful and therefore cannot rely on merit or sheer force of will in order to secure eternal life. Accordingly, we cannot will ourselves to be totally faithful anymore than we can will ourselves to be born.

"Salvation by grace, through faith" provided the foundation for Protestant

iconoclasm and religious individualism. At the same time, this theological axiom suggests a sense of intersubjectivity, which is key to understanding the

significance of faith among evangelical Protestants. Justification by faith was conceived by reformers as "a religious experience whose primary characteristic

was faith or trust springing from direct encounter with the redeeming presence

of Christ" (Dillenberger and Welch 1954: 21). Faith requires a conscious deci sion on the part of the believer, but the empowering attributes of faith—the

qualities that are believed to move people into new plateaus of thought and behavior—are associated with divine agency. This conception of faith implies

that the faithful—those who are filled with faith—are subjects of a moral force

not entirely of themselves. Religiosity is framed phenomenologically as an

experience of embodied otherness (Csordas 1997).

The evangelical fervor that swept across Europe in the post-Reformation

years produced many dissenting churches and Protestant sects that embraced

the principles of justification by faith and sola scriptura with uncommon devo tion. Their rejection of papal authority and elaborate sacraments was accom

panied by a deep suspicion of intellectualism. Early evangelicals promoted 'scripture consciousness' through intensive preaching and, for the literate, Bible reading, but their orientation toward scripture was not strictly literalist. The reformers had insisted that the Gospel itself is a vital presence that must be seen, heard, and, in essence, embodied, as well as studied and learned (Gra ham 1987: 143), and European revivalists embraced this idea. In their view, faith and righteousness were outgrowths of biblical knowledge, but biblical

knowledge was not solely dependent on the faculties of human reason or aca demic learning. Evangelicals thus emerged as champions of new religious dis

ciplines that, while emphasizing 'Bible belief' as a mark of conversion, upheld models of Christian practice and pietism that sought to bring individuals into direct spiritual communion with 'the Word'.




By the mid-eighteenth century, evangelical revivalists in Europe and North

America preached doctrines of regeneration, highlighting the concept of salva

tion as a 'new birth'. They defined conversion in experiential terms and stressed

repentance. Noted revivalists such as George Whitefield and John Wesley "drew distinctions between religion of the heart and mere 'head knowledge.' The latter was derided as shallow or barren, the product of rationalists who

reduced Christian faith to the affirmation of certain reasonable propositions" (Lambert 1999: 50). Although preachers like Jonathan Edwards (a staunch

Calvinist in the Puritan tradition) were unwilling to abandon completely the

rationalist aspects of reformed theology, the revivalist critique of 'head knowl

edge' was part of a strategic anti-rationalism meant to inspire practical piety and

to challenge the authority of established orthodox churches, especially in the

American colonies. The revivalists described conversion as an inward transfor

mation, a spiritual regeneration that ushered the "indwelling of the Holy Spirit" and "[enabled] the Christian to bear the true fruits of salvation—faith, hope, and love" (ibid.).

The notion of 'religion of the heart' was not meant to privilege human emo

tions or visceral energies, except insofar as they were seen as instrumental to

the purposes of evangelism. As most early American revivalists were Calvin

ists, they followed the doctrine of 'total depravity', believing that the motives of the human heart were inherently sinful and selfish. Their evangelistic opti

mism stemmed not from a belief in the perfectibility of human will but from

the conviction that the 'elect'—those who are predestined for salvation—are

compelled by 'irresistible grace' to become utterly reliant on God. Like the pro cess of conversion itself, revivalism was thus viewed primarily as a dramatic

outpouring of divine initiative, even though it was understood that consider able human effort must be involved as well.

Diversity and discord among American revivalists intensified in the post-Rev

olutionary period with the gradual ascendance of Methodism and its Arminian 'free will' theology. Nonetheless, the doctrine of justification by faith remains to this day one of the essential unifying themes of evangelical Protestantism.

Moreover, the doctrine still carries anti-humanist and anti-rationalist overtones,

including the valuation of 'heart knowledge' over 'head knowledge' that con

tinues to dominate evangelical discourse. Evangelical pastors and churchgoers

whom I observed in Knoxville repeatedly invoked the idea of 'heart knowledge' in their efforts to clarify for themselves and others what it really means to 'know' Jesus Christ.

Evangelicalism is not without its own strands of intellectualism, to be sure.

The time and energy that evangelical churchgoers spend in ritualized study

reveal a conscious desire to cultivate piety through intellectual activity, which, as in Christianities of late antiquity, is a form of embodied practice (Becker 2006: 209). Discursive rituals in evangelical contexts are both intellectual and devotional exercises. They are performative rituals through which evangeli cals enact (and re-enact) a moral disposition, one whose primary virtue is a

'changed heart', or a radical acceptance of biblical propositions that are seen

ultimately to transcend rational deconstruction.



66 I Omri Elisha

At Eternal Vine, members of the men's group frequently raised probing, often difficult questions that came up in their Bible study: Why is so little written about Jesus's early life? How do we reconcile different chronologies in the four Gospels? Why did Jesus change Simon's name to Peter? Was God

preparing Moses throughout his exile from Egypt, or did the process begin at the burning bush? Questions such as these invariably became opportunities

for other group members to reaffirm the idea that narrative inconsistencies,

ambiguous symbols, and absent details in the Bible are of minor concern com

pared to the essentials of having faith: "Let's not concentrate on details, let's focus on meeting Jesus, on getting to know God. Let's not be Religious."

Such directives may seem like evasive tactics to an outside observer, but in the context of ritualized study, they serve to facilitate consensus and encour

age the continuous struggle of indoctrination, affirmation, and internalization.

Repetition, expository discourse, and textual interrogation are circular means to a religious end. One group member, a retired preacher who commanded

enormous respect among the men, explained this idea from a theological view

point: "God tells us only what we need to know. He doesn't have to provide

all the story details in order for the Gospel to make more sense. God wants us to move toward him by faith. The only people who are really concerned with

complicated factual stuff are atheists, and there's nothing you can say to con vince them anyway, since they have to be drawn to faith by the Spirit."

The Charismatic Ethos and the Spirit of Evangelicalism

Evangelicals of all theological stripes share the conviction that faith is, at least in part, an experience of 'indwelling' resulting from one's encounter with the

divine through revelatory media of one kind or another. But evangelical tradi tions split ways (sometimes in the manner of splitting hairs) over the precise nature of divine revelation. Many insist that all that need be known about God

is in the Bible, the infallible Word of God. Others believe that God continues to reveal—that is, actively communicate—through the mediation of the Holy

Spirit. This doctrinal divide became pronounced in the last century with the

rapid growth of charismatic Christianity on a global scale. In recent decades, however, creative convergences are increasingly common as elements of the

charismatic ethos become evident in traditionally non-charismatic churches such as Eternal Vine.

In fact, members of Eternal Vine represent an emerging trend of churchgo

ing evangelicals who find themselves attracted to and influenced by both per spectives—one emphasizing 'Scripture', the other 'Spirit'—simultaneously. At the level of church discourse and practice, this development has intensified the

experiential tenor already present in evangelical conceptions of faith, especially

in terms of intersubjectivity and embodiment. I will discuss shortly how a char ismatic ethos initially took shape at Eternal Vine, but first I return to the men's

Bible study, since the focus of our discussion that fateful evening—Henry Blackaby's Experiencing God—is in its own way indicative of how images of




radical inspiration come to symbolize the gradual overlapping of charismatic

and traditionally evangelical schemas, and why this is seen by some churchgo

ers as a radical danger.

Blackaby's workbook includes a section, entitled "The Crisis of Belief," in

which he names several biblical figures who were all spoken to directly by God.

Each of them performed the will of God first by hearing God utter a promise

or command and then by obeying his words on faith, rather than dwelling on

the implausibility of the outcome (e.g., Moses in Egypt, Joshua in the battle of

Jericho, David's defeat of the Philistines). In every case, "God called servants to let Him do these things through them" (Blackaby and King 1990: 113). Crises of

belief, Blackaby suggests, are natural human responses to divine utterances that

defy reason. Resolution, it seems, comes about only when believers transcend

belief, with its rational contingencies, and give themselves over to faith. It must be noted that Blackaby's theology is fairly controversial. A promi

nent member of the Southern Baptist Convention, he remains something of a

polarizing figure despite his popularity as a bridge-building evangelical celeb

rity.5 There is nothing new or provocative in his argument that faith, obedience, and righteousness are inextricably linked. Moreover, focusing on the exemplary

faith of biblical role models is standard evangelical pedagogy. Blackaby treads on volatile ground, however, by suggesting that people today can hear God's

voice speaking to them exactly as did the patriarchs and prophets of bibli cal times. Discord surrounding this notion reflects a longstanding theological

divide, one that has in some ways abated and in other ways intensified with the popularization of charismatic Christianity. Evangelical alarmists, including

many in Blackaby's own denomination, denounce the growing influence in

their churches of "the excesses of the charismatic movement," as one outspo

ken critic of Blackaby's work put it.6 Such concerns are predicated on the fear that strict biblical authority will be undermined in favor of unfettered experi entialism, which critics see as susceptible to human fallibility.

Modern charismatic Christianity traces its origins to early twentieth-century

Pentecostal revivals, such as the 1906 Azusa Street Revival in Los Angeles.

Ecstatic behavior and speaking in tongues (glossolalia) were interpreted as

signs of a modern-day Pentecost, a miraculous reawakening of religious enthu

siasm inspired by the Holy Spirit. The revivals were part of the Holiness Move

ment, an offshoot of the Wesleyan tradition, which is significant because of the

influence of the Wesleyan doctrine of sanctification, or the 'second blessing'. This refers to the cleansing or purification of sin that occurs after individuals are spiritually 'reborn'. Unlike the conversion experience, which is viewed as a

single momentous event, sanctification happens gradually as Christians prac tice religious disciplines (prayer and repentance) that allow the regenerative power of the Holy Spirit to operate in their lives. Pentecostal and charismatic

(or 'neo-Pentecostal') churches further emphasize a third stage called the 'bap tism in the Holy Spirit'. The Spirit baptism is expressed ritually in the form of

'spiritual gifts', incarnational practices by which the inner self merges with the

Holy Spirit to become a charismatic self, predisposed to embody or 'ingest' the

Word of God and thereby reoriented in the material world (Coleman 2000).



68 Omri Elisha

Charismatic Christianity today is a broad and diverse global phenomenon, recognized worldwide for its ritual exuberance, evangelical fervor, and cultural

adaptability. The scope of its influence is evident not only in new churches and denominations but also along the margins of established Protestant traditions

and even Roman Catholicism (McGuire 1982). Although the practice of spiritual gifts is still rejected in many conservative evangelical congregations, its gradual acceptance across the spectrum of evangelical Protestantism is a major cultural

development, revealing, among other things, the lengths that committed church

goers are willing to go to experience the 'indwelling of the Holy Spirit'. When Eternal Vine Church was created in the late 1980s, the founders wanted

to promote "new ways of doing church" and consciously rejected what they

saw as the staid traditionalism of the mainline denominations.7 At the time, this did not include any intention to encourage charismatic theology or spiri tual gifts. Building on growth strategies developed by nationally renowned

church-growth specialists, the founders adapted marketing techniques and

corporate management principles from the commercial sector and used them to attract 'churched' as well as 'unchurched' Knoxvillians yearning for some

thing new and different. The church offered diverse and innovative ministries that catered to the interests of upwardly mobile suburbanites, young families,

and college students, including recreational activities, support groups, and

educational programs. Eternal Vine also became quickly known for its casual

atmosphere and high-tech, multi-media, and non-liturgical worship services. Within a decade, over 2,000 people were flocking to the megachurch every Sun

day, requiring additional worship services and the construction of a $6 million

building complex along 16 acres of prime real estate. While innovative on many fronts, Eternal Vine is firmly rooted in the con

servative evangelical tradition. The majority of its members approach issues of

Christian doctrine, politics, and social morality from a conservative ideological perspective. Its basic methods of indoctrination reflect time-honored church

traditions of biblical fundamentalism and expository preaching. And yet, as the

megachurch has grown, the views of its members have become more varied

and complex, requiring constant negotiations and modifications at the leader

ship level and among different groups within the congregation. The influence of charismatic theology is one area where this dynamic emerged in the evolution of the megachurch, and it emerged right at the top of the leadership hierarchy.

The main figure behind the growth of Eternal Vine was Pastor Tim, an eru dite and contemplative sermonizer with advanced degrees from evangelical seminaries and secular universities. His style of preaching is reflexive and non

combative, suggestive of a kinder and gentler pastoral tone intended to counter

act negative cultural stereotypes, while remaining firm on Christian 'essentials'. The theological tradition in which he was trained includes a school of thought known as cessationism, which explicitly rejects the validity of spiritual gifts as

practiced in modem charismatic churches. Cessationist theologians insist that the manifestation of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost was a one-shot deal that was limited to the first-century apostolic church and was not meant to occur again. According to this view, charismatic worship in the post-apostolic age is little




more than high emotionalism masquerading as spirituality, with potentially damaging consequences for the spiritual lives of misguided enthusiasts.

Pastor Tim maintained a cessationist outlook for several years before under

going a personal transformation in the 1990s that altered his perspective. He

credits much of his change of heart to the influence of close friends and church staff who previously belonged to charismatic churches. According to his own

account, the change occurred one night as he was praying alone, in the throes of

a desperate desire to achieve "an intimate, experiential friendship with Christ."

Suddenly, "a river of words from a language I did not know welled up within me

and burst from my mouth in a flash flood of prayer and praise." Pastor Tim had received a spiritual gift from God—a "prayer language," courtesy of the Holy Spirit—that allowed him to experience the presence of "the living God" with an

intensity he had never felt before, despite extensive biblical learning. Recalling Paul's letters to the Romans and Corinthians, Pastor Tim came to realize that

spiritual gifts "help a man who lives out of his head begin the slow journey toward a heartfelt faith." In his case, the gift unlocked "secret chambers in my heart ... that 1 simply cannot open with the key of my mind."

Newly convinced of the validity of spiritual gifts, Pastor Tim also became

convinced that, contrary to popular belief, 'Word-based' and 'Spirit-led'

approaches to Christian faith are theologically compatible. Selling this idea to his mostly non-charismatic evangelical congregation was another matter. While

many churchgoers were sympathetic or open-minded enough to entertain the

possibility of integrating the two doctrinal views, others vigorously opposed the idea. They feared that such compromises would lead the congregation to be over-run by erratic tongues-speakers shaking uncontrollably and uttering heretical prophecies. The naysayers also had a practical concern; they worried

that potential newcomers to the megachurch, drawn initially by its carefully maintained aura of middle-class respectability, would find the presence of char ismatic excesses disturbing and undesirable.

Pastor Tim and his staff spent several years trying to find the happy medium.

They advocated the teaching that being open to spiritual gifts could be benefi cial for developing one's faith but was not strictly necessary in order to authen

ticate one's faith. Spiritual gifts were portrayed as outpourings of divine grace whose primary function was to establish intimacy with God, even though such

intimacy could be achieved through other devotional acts as well. Aware of

negative preconceptions harbored among his more skeptical churchgoers, Pastor

Tim preached a number of sermons with evocative titles such as "The Beauty of the Holy Spirit," conveying the idea that spiritual gifts are sentimental moments

of radical communion rather than normative conditions of righteousness. Practical concerns with regard to the megachurch's character and reputation

were dealt with through a similar compromise: churchgoers were (and still are) encouraged to embody spiritual gifts in private or in the context of small group

meetings, but were discouraged from doing so too openly during corporate wor

ship services. The rationale behind this was that worship services should remain

'seeker friendly', that is, accessible, intelligible, and non-intimidating to curious

yet uncommitted outsiders. The practice of spiritual gifts was thus consigned to



70 I Omri Elisria

'appropriate' settings such as community groups, prayer cells, and, in some

cases, Bible studies, as well as the private devotional lives of individuals.

Despite the resistance of some congregants and the indifference of others, the

charismatic element became steadily ingrained in the congregational culture of

Eternal Vine as a result of these accommodations.

When I first attended Eternal Vine in the summer of 1999, hints of an emerg ing charismatic ethos were already present in corporate worship, although the

practice of spiritual gifts in the sanctuary was notably subdued. Occasionally, I heard a lone congregant murmuring in a glossolalic 'prayer language', but

this was not very common. The influence was more evident in the aesthetics of the worship service, particularly the music repertoire: many of the songs

performed by the 'worship team' were known to have originated in the charis matic Vineyard Movement. In addition, congregants were encouraged to clap, cheer, and dance whenever the Spirit so moved them, and I frequently observed

worshippers succumbing to emotional outbursts of various kinds. Perhaps the

most common worship expression among churchgoers was the raising of 'holy

hands'—arms wide in the air, palms open to the sky—the iconic evangelical pose that many continue to associate with charismatic ritualism.

The practice of spiritual gifts, as mentioned, generally occurs in private or in the context of small groups, and it is understood to work along with the

worship practices described above to facilitate the gradual process by which Christians refashion themselves as receptacles and vehicles of grace. Para

doxically, while spiritual gifts are seen primarily as expressions of divine rather than human volition, attaining them requires no small amount of physical and emotional exertion. The irony of this is not lost on churchgoers; indeed, it feeds the aspirational yearning associated with evangelical faith. Some churchgoers are so keenly aware of the indeterminacy of spiritual gifts that they experi

ence their acceptance of this inscrutable paradox as a crucial component of

their self-identity as 'persons of faith'. The tension between purposeful action

and passive receptivity is both perceived and performed, as believers seek to

become Christ-like while realizing that, in body and spirit, they are unlikely ever to do so fully.

In the men's group at Eternal Vine, the influence of a charismatic ethos was

rarely explicit but always present. As the men delved into biblical studies meant

to bolster their beliefs, they also engaged in a discourse of subjectivity that per formed the ontological work of giving oneself over to an external moral force.

The discourse both prescribed and exemplified discipline and perseverance, particularly with regard to the conditions for embodying grace and the urgency of spiritual warfare, another idea directly associated with charismatic Christian

ity. At Eternal Vine, the Bible remains an authoritative and infallible text to be

read, memorized, and venerated. At the same time, to have faith in the Bible involves more than unconditional trust in its cosmic truth claims. Faith entails

becoming possessed by the Word of God. This approach is significant in terms of the evangelical's religious mandate to minister and evangelize. Through the embodiment of faith, evangelicals believe they are able to have an impact on the lives of others, believers and non-believers alike. After all, Acts 5:15 tells




of how the apostle Peter was so possessed of the Holy Spirit that his shadow

alone had the power to heal the sick.

Putting the Faith in Faith-Based (or the Politics of Anti-humanism)

Having outlined some of the ways that evangelical theology and congregational practice are informed by particular notions of faith, I now examine what it is that faith does in the political realm. The term 'faith-based' emerged in US

politics and the media as a convenient way to describe a range of goal-oriented

activities—from civic voluntarism to political activism—undertaken by religious

groups ostensibly for the benefit of a larger social good, rather than narrow

sectarian interests. Given the weighty theological significance of faith for evan

gelicals, and given that seemingly generic descriptors such as 'faith-based' and

'people of faith' are increasingly associated with the ascendance of conservative

evangelicals to positions of political influence, we must ask certain questions: What ideological work is accomplished by the circulation of evangelical concep tions of faith in the shifting public culture of neo-liberal, post-welfare America? What are the implications for socially and politically evangelical activists, who stand to benefit from the manner in which faith has been resignified?

During much of the twentieth century, the public reputation of evangelical

Protestantism was largely determined by the rigid social and cultural separat

ism of the conservative evangelical majority. Evangelicals were for the most

part disengaged from the business of social welfare, aside from supporting Christian charity organizations and routinely condemning the welfare state,

which they accused of promoting vulgar secular humanism at the expense of moral uplift. With the congressional enactment of federal welfare reform in

1996, which virtually dismantled 'welfare as we know it', evangelical leaders and activists embraced the long-awaited opportunity to re-establish conserva

tive Christian eminence in the realm of social services and organized philan

thropy. Inspired and emboldened by what they saw as a historic vindication of their moral position, a growing legion of socially engaged evangelicals—

reinforced by a vigorously 'pro-faith' rhetoric coming from both ends of the

political spectrum—touted the work of faith-based organizations that provide

poverty relief, rehabilitation and mentoring programs, and other vital social services to local communities.

Religious activism in the welfare sphere was soon seen to represent, for

evangelicals as well as a larger non-evangelical public, both a necessary and

constructive alternative to the welfare state. Although Republican-led efforts to

provide taxpayer subsidies to support faith-based organizations remain mired in controversy, the push to promote 'faith-based initiatives' at the state level has

enjoyed considerable victories, such as in 2001 when President Bush created

the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, an expansive arm of the executive branch designed to facilitate church-state partnerships.

Consequently, issues of social welfare and urban community development have been increasingly subsumed under the quasi-ecumenical rubric of faith-based



72 I Omri Elisha

activism, which, along with political catchphrases such as 'compassionate conservatism', has arguably had the effect of ingraining evangelical Protestant

sensibilities into mainstream social and political consciousness.

At the grassroots, socially engaged evangelicals continue to capitalize on

the popularity of faith-based activism as they seek to mobilize local churches

toward greater participation in welfare activism. I observed such efforts among pastors and lay churchgoers in Knoxville, and they confirm to some extent my

argument that as evangelicals practice their religiosity in terms of faith, they draw upon theologically distinct and ideologically loaded conceptions. In 2000, a group of socially engaged evangelicals founded a non-profit organization called the Samaritans of Knoxville. The organization was created with logisti cal and financial support from Eternal Vine and a handful of other affluent

congregations, Christian foundations, and private donors. It has since become

a major player in slow-burning efforts to establish a network of area churches

working together to raise the evangelical community's profile with regard to

social outreach. The practical objective is to streamline resources, volunteers,

and technical and moral support for religious as well as secular social service

agencies in the Knoxville area. The group's larger mission—to effect a regional 'culture shift' that will inspire Christians to live out their faith through acts of Christ-like compassion—echoes the spirit of evangelical revivalism.

Socially engaged evangelicals in Knoxville insist that a crucial strategy of out reach mobilization is making sure that people have their theology straight, that

churchgoers must be clear on doctrine before plunging into the field of social out

reach. This means fully grasping the nature of Christ and acknowledging one's

own 'spiritual poverty' and dependence upon God. Part of this process, however,

requires moving beyond doctrine to the point where one literally embodies God's grace. Paul Genero, founder of the Samaritans of Knoxville, described his

approach to social outreach mobilization in this way: "You got to have the theo

logical component or Christians just don't get it, and they're very condescending in their attitude. It stinks, it's all wrong ... When you work through the theology, the Holy Spirit just convicts you, and breaks you, and humbles you, and you're

just like 'You know, I was looking at this all wrong."' Good theology is conceived here as a means to an end, a spiritual catalyst

that fashions each believer into an unadulterated medium through whom the

Spirit achieves presence. It is only in this sense that evangelicals imagine them selves truly capable of mercy and compassion and thus able to form enduring bonds with people in need, including the urban poor, battered wives, elderly shut-ins, foreign refugees, and people with AIDS. Without the 'spiritual fruits' that accompany faith, the human desire to do good deeds, maintain piety, and achieve worldly success yields only arrogance and confusion. For socially engaged evangelicals, what distinguishes a program of action as faith-based is not merely its religious motivation but, as one activist put it, "whether Christ

actually lives in you like you say he does, loving the outcasts through you." Such themes are expressed repeatedly during outreach planning meetings

and mobilization workshops, which, like Bible studies, are discursive rituals that reinforce piety and self-abnegation. Despite persistent talk about 'best




practices' and 'intentional strategies' for social engagement, evangelical activ

ists emphasize whenever they gather that they are called upon first and fore

most to surrender their stubborn ambitions, to pray for guidance and fellowship with one another, and to let God do his work. Outreach mobilization, like other

realms of Christian piety, is defined by "disciplinary practices" that aim "to construct and reorganize distinctive emotions," thereby producing subjects

who are obedient to an encompassing normative authority (Asad 1993: 134). The normative authority in this case is the Word of God, which is represented variously by church institutions, religious leaders, rituals, Bibles, and moral ambitions that are understood to mediate and objectify divine revelation by vir tue of their identification with the transformative experience of faith. Under ideal

conditions, faith-based activists, service workers, and volunteers are expected to

spread and transmit their faith, through both word and deed, among aid recipi ents, institutional partners, and the broader local and regional culture.

Evangelical faith-based initiatives at the grassroots are thus imbued with theo

logical and missionary connotations that, while they may not be as explicit at

the state level, have noteworthy political implications nonetheless. The politics of faith-based activism is supported by a moral economy of altruism with distinctly evangelical overtones that in turn resonate with conservative moral values as

well as neo-liberal conceptions of civil society. In her work on the religious right, Linda Kintz (1997) describes 'resonance' as an intensification of emotions and desires that are linked to particular religious ideals, social concerns, and moral

campaigns. It is this quality of resonance that allows diffuse and diverse groups of people to become galvanized by a collective sense of urgency and common

cause. The question that remains then is: Where does the resonance that links

evangelical conceptions of faith and the ideological status of welfare under late

capitalism stem from, and what are the foreseeable social implications? The Christian Right is frequently characterized by observers and critics as

reactionary, marked by strident anti-intellectualism, anti-modernism, and anti

liberalism. While these characterizations convey the tone of so much right-wing religious activism, it is misleading to assume that they necessarily represent

the moral dispositions of all evangelical Protestants. Such generalization is

limiting and empirically unreliable when we begin to assess ethnographically the range of sensibilities and motivations that exist even within conservative

communities. On the charge of anti-intellectualism, we have already seen that

some members of Eternal Vine embrace intellectual activity, however narrow

their interpretive scope may appear to secular scholars. Unhindered by the finer

points of academic theology, pastors and churchgoers engage in decentralized hermeneutics that reinforce the lure of authenticity that drew them to the mega

church in the first place. Similarly, Susan Harding (2000) has shown that despite the reputation of Christian fundamentalism as inherently antithetical to secular

modernity, fundamentalists and revivalists such as Jerry Falwell actively appro priate modernist narratives and technologies of meaning production as they

seek to re-enchant the politics of culture. Evangelical megachurches and faith

based organizations take the appropriation of modernity even further in their

reliance on new media technologies and principles of bureaucratic efficiency, as



74 Omri Elisha

well as in their efforts to reinvigorate Christian doctrine and liturgy by breaking (or at least appearing to break) away from historical-institutional religion.

As for anti-liberalism, while attacking liberal politics is a routine pastime for culture warriors of the Christian Right, the evangelical pastors and churchgoers

that I encountered in my fieldwork more often expressed their moral indigna tion in broad and reflexive terms. There is no question that secular liberalism ranks high among factors that are perceived to contribute to the demise of

godly virtues, but it is also treated as but one of a host of humanistic decep

tions that arise whenever the Church falters in its apostolic mission to lead the

way in a fallen world. Acknowledging the social and political conservatism that

pervades evangelical public discourse, we should recognize that the social and

political attitudes of evangelicals are not uniform, and also that, as sociologist Christian Smith (1998: 129) observes, "the reasoning behind these attitudes is not a craving for cultural dominance, but a sincere belief that everyone would

simply be better off following God's ways." I propose that what links evangelical conceptions of faith and the politics of

neo-liberal/neo-conservative thought in post-welfare America is a resonance of

anti-humanism, however implicit and paradoxical that resonance may appear

on the surface. Predicated on the idea that the business of social welfare should be left to local communities, religious organizations, and other private non

profits, faith-based activism reflects an era of civic optimism that is at the same time an era in which secular and progressive ideals of governance have come under increased attack. Evangelical criticism of the welfare state rests on the belief that government policies of entitlement reinforce a naive and misguided humanism that ultimately diminishes public standards of moral, spiritual, and financial accountability. The antidote, in the logic of this critique, is a society in which upward social mobility, like entry into Heaven, is neither a natural right

(something 'deserved') nor an outcome of rational effort (something 'earned').

Instead, it is the result of one's submission to an encompassing normative

authority, be it the 'invisible hand' of the free market or that of God, imagined in either case through the paradigm of faith.

Already a remarkable expression of the influence of religion in public life, the impassioned and increasingly bipartisan rhetoric of faith in contemporary American politics is especially significant because of its specific—yet partially concealed—ideological reverberations. The rhetoric plays upon liberal notions of democratic pluralism, encouraging 'people of faith' (which, depending on the speaker, may or may not mean all faiths) to claim their rightful positions as civic leaders and arbiters of public morality. However, as a political tool wielded to greatest effect by religious (mainly evangelical) conservatives, the rhetoric of faith corresponds particularly well with a "refurbished conservatism" that

emerged in the 1980s and "increasingly subordinated the libertarian implica tions of free-market philosophy to a new authoritarianism" (Katz 1989: 125). Under this 'new authoritarianism', which provided the ideological foundation for welfare reform and subsequent political initiatives, citizens are socialized to conform to moral expectations and political obligations defined by governmental and corporate interests. With civil society becoming an ever-expanding network




of vertical and asymmetrical power relations, it represents a profoundly norma

tive turn in the regulation of citizens as subjects.

For conservative evangelical Protestants, whether they are committed to faith

based activism or not, changes in the nature of moral and political governance

are linked to a collective (but not uniformly consistent) desire to transform and

ultimately Christianize American civil society. It is for this reason that I highlight the distinction that I have drawn between evangelical conceptions of faith and the

ideology of belief that has for so long overdetermined theories of religiosity, includ

ing Christian religiosity. The distinction is more than an academic concern. The mobilization of faith is a phenomenon with real political connotations and social

consequences, some of which have already taken shape with others still to come.

Conclusion

Paul Tillich (1957: 9-10) famously denned faith as ultimate concern, a restless

passion for the infinite objectified in conscious actions and religious symbols. He

emphasized the role of language and sociality in the production of moral virtues

(notably surrender) that allow individuals to engage with the objects of their

ultimate concern (ibid.: 24-25). Notwithstanding the existentialism of Tillich's

theology or his liberal ecumenism, his distinctly Protestant ideas are consistent with evangelical sensibilities, particularly the link between faith and obedience: "The demand to be obedient is the demand to be what one already is, namely,

committed to the ultimate concern from which one tries to escape." In other

words, "faith precedes obedience and is not the product of it" (ibid.: 37). Of course, for evangelical churchgoers the logic of such a formulation is

easier said than done. The recognition of the ideal is but an impetus for the moral ambition to achieve the ideal, which, perhaps in a tragic sense, lies well

beyond one's grasp. Despite the strength of their belief, evangelicals habitu

ally imagine themselves to be lacking in the virtues of faith, which leads them to question the robustness of their piety. This process is reinforced through

socially prescribed behavior reflecting culturally determined ethics of self-cul tivation (cf. Mahmood 2005; Robbins 2004). Agency is achieved by its apparent negation, and obedience is actualized through persistent reflexive discipline. In this sense, faith as a normative impulse does precede obedience, at least

insofar as the pursuit of faith serves as an essential condition of evangelical Christian subjectivity and cultural identity.

Beyond the hubris of evangelical belief is the conflicted humility of evangeli cal faith. I have chosen to rely on faith as a vehicle for analysis because it con

notes sensibilities and sentiments associated with evangelical moral ambitions, because it captures the inherent ambiguities that arise from them, and because it is a concept whose very ambiguity makes it a potent resource in the politics of Christian conservatism. The confidence with which conservative evangelicals champion the role of biblical authority in public life is bolstered at the church level by a culture of yearning. The manner in which yearning is expressed may seem willful or self-indulgent to the suspicious outsider, but such impressions



76 I Omri Elisha

only reaffirm for evangelicals that embodied faith is a spiritual aspiration that thrives on the inevitability of human imperfection. Evangelicals take a certain

pride in knowing all too well that it is hard to be humble. I have attempted in this article to destabilize rather than negate the centrality

of belief in scholarly understandings of contemporary evangelical Protestant

ism. I build on the work of others, including contributors to the present volume,

who question the theoretical and descriptive utility of the concept of belief with

regard to non-Christian traditions, as well as those who consider alternative

approaches to its applicability in post-missionary contexts and convert cultures

(see Robbins 2007). In so doing, 1 acknowledge that notions of belief have been

deeply ingrained in Western conceptions of religion, knowledge, and person hood since the Reformation. In particular, conservative evangelicals' defense of

biblical orthodoxy and their stress on the definitive status of 'believer' over that of 'unbeliever' remind us that belief plays a major role in shaping evangelical notions of authority, boundary maintenance, and, of course, proselytization.

But I also propose that it is worth exploring alternative, co-existing, and equally hegemonic conceptions and corresponding practices that offer insights into the construction of religious experience and subjectivity among Western evangeli cal Protestants. Indeed, proselytic practices such as 'witnessing', while working within the rhetorical spaces between belief and disbelief, seek ultimately "to

separate novice listeners from their prior, given reality, to constitute a new, pre viously unperceived or indistinct reality, and to impress the reality upon them, make it felt, heard, seen, known, undeniably real" (Harding 2000: 37).

What I have sought to elucidate here is how evangelical conceptions of faith

provide for some Christian believers an experiential framework for confront

ing this reconstituted reality, subjecting themselves to its moral dictates, and become directly engaged with its intrinsic conflicts and ambiguities. The impe

tus of evangelical faith includes not only the cultivation of a Christian self and the conversion of unbelieving others but also the Christianization of society as

a whole. Religious conviction, in this sense, is expansive and intersubjective, suggesting that the consequences of the advance of faith into various aspects

of modern life are perhaps more fundamental than even the most ardent fun

damentalists would have us believe.

Omri Elisha is a Resident Scholar at the School for Advanced Research in Santa Fe,

New Mexico. He has been a Postdoctoral Fellow at Fordham University and affili

ated with the Center for Religion and Media at NYU. He is the author of scholarly

essays on US evangelicalism, including "Moral Ambitions of Grace: The Paradox

of Compassion and Accountability in Evangelical Faith-Based Activism" (2008). He has also written for popular venues such as the Dallas Morning News and

The Revealer. He is completing a monograph, based on fieldwork among socially

engaged evangelicals affiliated with megachurches and faith-based organizations in

Tennessee, that explores the diverse and conflicted nature of evangelical mobiliza

tion, as well as its ability to produce a sense of unity and purpose.




Notes

1. In referring to humanism in this context, I do not mean to weigh into long-standing debates about the compatibility of post-Reformation theology and Enlightenment phi

losophy with regard to the inherent value and/or potential of human initiative. 1 do,

however, want to highlight the fact that conservative Protestants take both the deprav

ity of human existence and the supremacy of divine initiative to be self-evident, and

that such assessments profoundly influence how they make sense of the world and act

upon it. That such a perspective is rife with apparent contradictions, including various

humanitarian, literary, and artistic traditions in modern Christianity, does not minimize

the influence of certain anti-humanist strands that endure in modern Christian thought. 2. The names of local churches and organizations in Knoxville have all been changed, as

have the names of individuals represented in my ethnographic accounts. In some cases,

biographical details have been altered as well.

3. Along with the book (over 4 million copies sold) and interactive videos, the Experiencing God franchise includes audiotapes, an activity guide for weekend retreats, and a music

CD entitled, Experiencing God: Music for Knowing and Doing the Will of God, with origi nal songs composed by Christian artists "to create a musical resource that complements the interactive study," as well as printed music sheets for use in congregations.

4. See Romans 3:28, Romans 4:3-5, and Galatians 3, among other New Testament passages. 5. In addition to his career as a church pastor in Canada and the US, Blackaby has served

as president of Canadian Baptist Theological College, president of the Canadian Southern

Baptist Conference, and a staff member of the North American Mission Board of the South

ern Baptist Convention. He is the founder of Blackaby Ministries International, and in his

capacities as a prominent evangelical minister and revivalist, Blackaby has participated in

numerous interdenominational parachurch movements, such as the Promise Keepers. 6. See Thomas Williamson, "Experiencing the Teaching of Henry Blackaby" (http://cnview

.com/on Jine_resources/experiencing_god.htm). 7. Eternal Vine Church belongs to the Evangelical Free Church of America (EFCA), a

non-ecclesiastical association of evangelical churches based in Minneapolis. EFCA is

denominational in that it unites member churches around basic doctrines and provides institutional support for small congregations, but member churches enjoy a high degree of autonomy. This is especially advantageous for an innovative and self-sufficient mega church such as Eternal Vine, which seeks to remain connected to a larger network of

congregations while at the same time maintaining a non-denominational aura.

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