06AR11-03
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Apologia Report 11:3
January 18, 2006
Subject: The migration of liberals to conservative churches
In this issue:
EVANGELICALISM - "why Americans are fleeing liberal churches"
ISLAM - profile: "The Arab world's first Muslim tele-evangelist"
SCIENTOLOGY - visiting its new "anti-psychiatry museum" in Hollywood
YOGA - "the Hindu reformers' adaptation of Christian notions"
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EVANGELICALISM
Exodus: Why Americans Are Fleeing Liberal Churches for Conservative Christianity, by David Shiflett [1] -- reviewer John Bolt explains that in Shiflett's view "liberal theologians 'hollowed out God' and 'created a spiritual vacuum. Their deity is one most Americans cannot respect, much less worship.' ...
"What makes this volume distinct is that it is not a scholarly study filled with data nor is it written by someone with a strong partisan interest. It is largely a set of interviews with key people along with anecdotal material from sermons, news articles, and polemical writing. What is noteworthy is the author's scrupulous fairness with respect to those whom he interviews and on whom he reports. ... Shiflett demonstrates the truth of this ... by comparing the politically correct Unitarian-Universalist Creed with the magisterial Nicene Creed.
"After describing the train wreck of Episcopalianism in part 1, Shiflett goes on to engage in an extensive dialogue with a number of key figures in three traditions" (Roman Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant). "A highlight is the concluding interview with Charles Colson who criticizes some large evangelical churches for basing their church growth strategies on becoming 'purveyors of self-centered worship.' ...
"[T]his book is not just about the church's role in culture and society, it is about culture and society itself. Specifically, it posits the thesis that when the church in our culture becomes increasingly countercultural, it will prosper and when it accommodates to our culture it will die." Calvin Theological Journal, 40:2 - 2005, pp411-413.
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ISLAM
"Amr Khaled: Islam's Billy Graham" by David Hardaker -- describes Khaled as "a religious and marketing phenomenon [who is] trying to pump oxygen into the arid lives of Muslim youth" and as "the Arab world's first Islamic tele-evangelist, a digital age Billy Graham who has fashioned himself into the anti-Bin Laden, using the barrier-breaking power of satellite TV and the Internet [amrkhaled.net] to turn around a generation of lost Muslim youth." Hardaker observes that Khaled's "proudest boast" is that he "is more popular than the US talk show juggernaut Oprah Winfrey." The article's title is misleading. Based in Cairo, Khaled is more a Pied Piper of the faithful than an evangelist of those outside Islam. He describes his dream: "'I am going now to build a bridge between the East and the West,' he declares."
What does Khaled mean by this? "His prime target is the youth of the Arab world, who feel that they are second-class citizens in a world dominated by the United States and its values. To these young people he has a tough message about the destructive force of self-pity. 'We Muslims are living as parasites on the world. Our problem is that we have got used to taking without ever giving,' he says. 'Don't tell us it is a Western conspiracy against us, it is not.'"
Nevertheless, "Khaled's words are music to the ears of Western interests. But while the preacher might be hip, he is deeply conservative." Khaled strongly supports women wearing "the veil" and remains critical of loose Western morals. The Independent, Jan 4 '06 <http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article336386.ece>
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SCIENTOLOGY
"Scientology vs. Science" by Andrew Gumbel -- profiles the group's "new anti-psychiatry museum in Hollywood ... Psychiatry: Industry of Death'" <cchr.org/index.cfm/12434>. Gumbel identifies the more extreme claims made by the exhibition such as "psychiatry's long-standing 'master plan' for world domination [and] Adolf Hitler's central role in making this plan a reality." Further, the museum advances the view that "Psychiatry is the key to understanding Hitler, not extreme nationalism ('no man in history has been more prominent in the psychiatric dream of world domination'). ...
"It's not enough for Scientologists to express their near-pathological hatred of psychiatry in all its forms; they also have to feel they are being persecuted for their beliefs." Gumbel includes examples in support of this observation.
Gumbel documents other wild claims: "'Suicide bombers are assassins manufactured through drugs and psycho-political methods,' one of the displays asserts." Unsurprisingly, Gumbel notes that "the assertions themselves are characterized by a glaring failure to provide even the most basic factual corroboration."
The over-the-top declarations include arguments that "there is no justification for the theory that chemical imbalances cause mental health problems; Ritalin is never appropriate, for children or adults; in fact, there may be no such thing as mental illness in the first place." Los Angeles City Beat, Jan 12 '06 <http://www.lacitybeat.com/article.php?id=3137&IssueNum=136>
Also see <http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/sunday/editorials/ la-op-psych1jan01,1,436152.story>
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YOGA
A History of Modern Yoga, by Elizabeth De Michelis [2] -- reviewer Charles E. Farhadian explains that this book "traces the conceptual developments that link Classical Yoga, as outlined by Patanjali's Yoga Sutra [3], to Modern Yoga, as promulgated by Vivekananda's Raja Yoga [4]. De Michelis argues that classical Hinduism was shaken by the radical 'otherness' of new ideas introduced by various types of Christianity, Enlightenment, and Post-Enlightenment, which gave rise to a variety of Hindu reform movements spearheaded by some of the great Hindu thinkers of modern India: e.g., Ramohan Roy, Debendranath Tagore, Keshubchandra Sen, Ramakrishna, Narendranth Datta (i.e., Swami Vivekananda)."
Readers will look in vain for an overview of the rise of yoga in the West at the end of the 20th century. Many could more easily provide that than come up with the foundation that De Michelis provides. Farhadian notes that "Hinduism reached its zenith through the Indian missionary to the West, Vivekananda" and adds that "the reason why this book makes such an important contribution to understanding the Hindu religious tradition, are the ways in which Neo-Vedanta adopted aspects of Christianity's 'spiritual' and esoteric teaching.
"A significant strength of A History of Modern Yoga is its fine discussion of the Western Christian, and Indian influences that gave rise to Modern Yoga, including helpful introductions to Roy, Tagore, and Sen. Interspersed throughout the history are reflections on the relationship between Christianity and culture in India and the Hindu reformers' adaptation of Christian notions to further their own cause." (Imagine how shocking this last observation would be to most who are familiar only with today's pop-yoga movement. -Ed.)
"De Michelis discusses the influence of Neo-Vedantic yoga (Modern Yoga) on Western audiences of the 19th and 20th centuries who craved practices and religious techniques rather than orthodoxy. As such, there are important points of contact between Modern Yoga and the development of New Age movements in the North-Atlantic world. ...
"Because of its fairly technical language, this book is most appropriate for graduate students or advanced undergraduates." Missiology, 33:4 - 2005, p477.
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Sources, Monographs:
1 - Exodus: Why Americans Are Fleeing Liberal Churches for Conservative Christianity, by David Shiflett (Sentinel, 2005, hardcover, 224 pages)
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1595230076/apologiareport>
2 - A History of Modern Yoga: Patanjali and Western Esotericism, by Elizabeth De Michelis (Continuum, 2005, paperback, 282 pages)
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0826487726/apologiareport>
3 - The Yoga Sutra, by Patanjali (Harmony/Bell Tower, 2002, hardcover, 144 pages)
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0609609599/apologiareport>
4 - Raja Yoga, by Swami Vivekananda (Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center, 1980, paperback, 327 pages)
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/091120623X/apologiareport>
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