Emotions in Worship

I've been in a number of discussions lately regarding the role of emotions in our spiritual formation, but most especially in our experience of public worship. The issues here are truly very complex and multi-faceted and it is easy to get caught up in stereotypes and mis-characterizations. But let me try to wade into this for a few moments and then I would really love to hear your thoughts and responses.

Some of us, obviously, are more emotive than others. Some of us are reserved. Some of us are analytical, while others are oozing with empathy and feelings. Some of us wear our emotions on our sleeves and are effusive in our expression of affection, while some people you are tempted to nudge every once in a while just to see if they are breathing. One should not be surprised, therefore, to observe that we bring these various personality types and orientations into our own personal worship experience. As you look around the congregation on any given Sunday you will see people with sincere expressive faces, hands in the air, bodies moving, voices singing, and sometimes even tears flowing. On the other hand, you will also see people with blank stares, arms folded, standing stiffly, mouths closed (except for the occasional sip of coffee) and with a look that is asking, "When will this be over?" And, of course, you will see all sorts of variations between these two experiences.

So here are a couple of thoughts to help us negotiate this dance between what we might call the "feelers" and the "thinkers." (Or if you don't like those categories, substitute "expressive people" versus "reserved people.")

First - I have noticed a very unhealthy tendency towards judgmentalism in this area. Some "feelers" tend to look at the "thinkers" as being less than spiritual. They see them as cold and not as much "in love" with God as they are. Some "thinkers" tend to look at the "feelers" as overly-emotional and artificial. They tend to be suspicious of the motives of the "feelers" and secretly suspect that the "feeler" would be just as expressive if they were singing a Bruce Springsteen song.

The truth is, of course, much different than these stereotypes. Nobody really knows what is going on in the mind and thought life of the person who is wonderfully expressive during a worship service. And it is judgmental and simply wrong to believe that we do. And nobody really knows what is going on in the emotions of the more reserved worshipper. It is also judgmental and simply wrong to believe that we do. There is a nasty tendency in us to want to universalize our experience and perspective onto the rest of the world. Because we enjoy expressing ourselves in worship one way, we want to argue that this is the best way, the way that is most real and most honoring to God. This is silly and we should stop it. Our less than gracious thoughts of others demonstrates a glaring lack of humility and an inability to understand and celebrate the great diversity within the body of Christ. The truth is we have much to learn from each other. The "feelers" have much to teach us "thinkers" (and yes, I admit my tendency here) about worship. And the "thinkers" have much to teach the "feelers" as well. Humility and curiosity will serve us well here.

The second thought I have relates to the necessity for engagement. In my interview with Rick Johnson during the sermon this past Sunday, Rick said a very helpful thing as it relates to this topic. He said that one of the disciplines he has pursued in his life with God was a purposeful engagement in public worship. His tendency, as an introverted reserved person, was to sit in the back and stay dis-engaged from the worship experience. He would show up, but more as an observer. He decided to engage and as a result he has experienced some very moving times with God in the worship services.

I believe we have a weakness in this area at Oak Hills and I would like to stir up a little dialog, and perhaps a little (just a little) conflict and get us thinking (and feeling) about this a bit. Worship is something we do. It is a verb. And this requires engagement. It requires the engagement of our minds. We are called to think. It requires the engagement of our voices. We are called to speak, to read, to pray, to sing. It requires the engagement of our emotions. And while we cannot, perhaps, artificially stir up emotions, we can purposefully let down our guard and seek to be expressive in our love for God. Worship requires the engagement of our bodies. We are called to stand, to raise our hands, to bow our heads, and even to dance a bit. I was talking about this to someone a while ago and the issue of raising our hands in worship came up. And this person said, "Well that's just not me. I'm not going to do that." May I be so bold as to suggest that this perspective is arrogant. Imagine if I told Diane on garbage night, "You know honey, hauling the garbage up the hill to the top of the driveway is not really me. I'm more of a thinking, reflecting person, not a manual labor person." She would tell me in her gentle way, "Darling, the garbage is not about you. It's about getting the junk up to the top of the driveway. Now get your keister up there."

A friend of mine at the church had his parents visit him from out of town and they came to one of our worship services. I knew something about them and for various reasons of curiosity, I watched them during the service. After the service I asked my friend how his parents enjoyed the service and he said, "They said they liked it." And I replied, "Oh really? Then they should tell their faces." I kid you not, these two people went through the service with no discernible emotion whatsoever on their faces. If I were constructing a more authentic response to the question for them, I would have them saying, "We endured it." Perhaps they did enjoy it. It would be judgmental of me to believe otherwise. But then, they should tell their faces.

So here is my simple suggestion. Let's come to our worship service with the will to engage. And here, as is often the case, we will most likely have to be counter-intuitive. If we would sooner drink snot than raise our hands in worship, perhaps it is time to push against that. We are not souls who happen to have bodies. We are bodies. Our bodies are not shells that we will one day discard, but our bodies are part of who we are and they will be redeemed. This is why the resurrection of our bodies is such an important Scriptural truth. To worship well, we will have to engage our bodies. So, lets push ourselves here and get engaged. If there are parts of the worship service that we don't like, let's remind ourselves that the worship service is not for us. There are people around us who are engaged in this less enjoyable (to us) part of the service and it would be good for us to learn from them.

The given is that we will have all sorts of opinions and tastes about what goes on in the worship service. These opinions and tastes are interesting, but not the point. Are we at the place in our lives where we are open to the possibility that we may have something to learn here?

Anyway, there are some rambling thoughts that I hope will get some responses. I would love to hear how some of you deal with the area of emotion, or the lack of it, during public worship.

Responses:

A few words on responses. Most people are wonderful in their responses, but there has been a bit of a tendency lately with some responses that I have chosen not to accept, where people seem to feel that the relative anonymity of a blog response does not require good behavior and respect for others. It is a very small minority, so most of those who read this can ignore this. But for the record:

First: I would really appreciate it if we could stick to the topic of the post. If anyone wants to talk about something else, they can catch me at church, drop me an e-mail, give me a call or make an appointment with me. I would love that. But lets try and stay on topic here.

Second: Try to avoid anonymous posts. I can understand in some cases why a person may want to remain anonymous. But let's take the risk and let everyone know who we are. Anonymous posts run the risk of not being accepted. I make no apologies for this.

Third: And this is tougher to try to express well, but I would like to encourage us all to behave well in our posts. The world is seldom divided up between the obvious good guys and the obvious bad guys, the ones who are totally right and the ones who are totally wrong. It is good to develop the ability to understand that there are some very smart, good-hearted people who disagree with us. Be curious about these disagreements. Desire to learn. Building straw men of those with whom we disagree may make it easier for us to tear down their positions, but not much is accomplished then. I would like this blog to be a place where we demonstrate how to disagree respectfully and with humility. Responses that do not follow these guidelines run the risk of not being accepted.

'Nuff said...

Kent

The 2008 Election

The 2008 presidential election is now over. No matter what your particular view about this election, what cannot be denied is that it is an election that our children and our children's children will be reading about in their history books. There are many issues in our country that need to be addressed and good people of all sorts of political stripes can disagree on what should be our most urgent priorities. But here is the absolutely amazing truth that should be enthusiastically celebrated by all who love justice: On January 20, 2009 an African-American family will move into the White House. We can easily forget that the Constitution of the United States declared at one time that slaves were counted as 3/5ths of a person. We can easily forget that the economy of our country in her earliest days was built on the whipped and broken backs of African men, women and children taken from their homes and families and sold into slavery in a country that was birthed with the credo that all men are created equal. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers had to die to resolve that very basic issue. Since then we have fought through Jim Crow laws, brutal segregationist policies, our own shameful American apartheid, lynchings, civil rights battles, blatant racism, as well as a pervasive and systemic racialization that has dominated our country for centuries.

The election of a man of Kenyan descent will not take all this away and solve all racial issues. Far from it. But the history of America shifted dramatically on November 4, 2008 and we should be proud to have been a part of it. As I said, there are other issues that loom large and other battles to be fought, but the sin of racism and the shame of our nation's history on this issue has been dealt, I fervently pray, a fatal blow.

President-elect Obama did not run as a black man. He worked hard, and with some success, at transcending the typically shallow and ignorant judgments made by so many on this issue of race. It was his desire that his campaign would be as post-racial as possible. And because of this, race did not dominate the political dialog. At times, race was not even noticed. Millions of people voted against Obama, not because he was black, but simply because they disagreed with his policies or doubted his qualifications. Perhaps it is because of this, that regardless of our political affiliations or how we voted, we are now able to step back and marvel at what has happened.

At a few minutes after 8:00 p.m. on election night, as soon as the networks declared that Barack Obama would be the 44th President of the United States, with tears in my eyes, I called my dear friend, Bishop Parnell Lovelace. I just needed to hear his voice. We spoke of those who never lived to see this day. He told me, "This is a good night, Kenty."

I sat back down on my couch and put my arm around my nine year old brown-skinned adopted daughter who is of Mexican descent. I told her that our great country has elected an African American man as President. She should never forget this day. And as she watched people of every possible color dancing and cheering and crying in Grant Park in Chicago, she looked at me and said, "Maybe I could be President when I grow up."

The idea did not sound so crazy that night.

The "Order of Worship" in the Bulletin

I recently sent out an E-corn article on the "Order of Worship that we have placed in the bulletin. I thought I would reproduce it here to make it easier for people to respond. I would love to hear your thoughts and questions. (If you are still wanting to comment on the previous blog on Addiction and Spiritual Formation, I'd love to continue to hear your comments about that as well. You can post them here or at the previous blog.)

Here's the e-corn article:

I was talking to one of my favorite semi-non-churched seeker friends the other day and he asked me a fascinating question. He said, “Kent, I just don’t get the whole worship thing. What’s the point? I usually get more spiritual meaning out of a walk in the woods than going to church. Your sermons are okay,” he said, throwing me a bone, “but I really don’t like all the singing and the reading and all the other stuff that goes on. So tell me, what’s the point of worship?”

I thought it was a wonderful question. I still do. And I realized that it would be very important for us at Oak Hills to understand clearly what the “point” or the purpose of worship is. Why have Christians for 2000 years gathered regularly to worship God? What is to be accomplished during these times? I have studied this for many years and have reflected on it deeply. I spent several months this year with a study group doing research on this very topic. I obviously can’t fully explain, in one e-corn article, all of our various understandings and “learnings” that have come from this study, but I did want to point out one little addition to our worship service that is at least a small attempt to answer this question by my friend.

You may have noticed something new in our Sunday bulletin. On the front page we have begun to include an “Order of Worship.” On the simplest and most fundamental level, this will let everyone know some of the ingredients of our worship service, as well as give some indication as to what’s coming next. Our primary purpose, though, for including this in the bulletin is actually driven by something we feel is far more important. There is a logical flow to our worship services. There is a theological, biblical and historical foundation beneath them. And we believe that a printed order of worship would help us as worshippers understand what we are doing when we come to church and, ultimately, to more fully enter into the worship experience.

The basic goal of a worship service, the “point” as it were, is to invite people into the redemptive story of God. God has existed from eternity past and has been wonderfully active in the history of planet earth. In worship we are invited to see our own personal stories in the context of the grand and glorious narrative of what God has done to redeem humankind. The danger, though, in many contemporary worship services, is that the emphasis has often shifted from God’s story to our story, from what God has done, to what we experience. There is even a danger in having our worship services center primarily around our expressions of love and desire for God (as wonderful as these expressions are), for this can also cause our worship to slowly become more about us. It is our very resolute desire at Oak Hills to develop worship services that, at their core, are about God and His story. In this way, we are graciously invited to have at least one place and experience in our week where we lay aside our inherent self-absorption and remember and celebrate that there is a bigger and more marvelous story that gives substance, beauty and meaning to our lives.

The printed Order of Worship will include the various ingredients or activities of worship that have been a part of Christian worship since the early church. These will include four overarching “movements”: The Gathering, The Service of the Word, The Service of the Table, and the Sending. The Gathering involves the recognition that we come to worship from all walks of life and from all sorts of life experiences. We also come as individuals who are called to come together as part of the unified local Body of Christ. This process of “coming” to worship or “gathering” needs to be respected and given sufficient time. A “Call to Worship” and a time of asking or “invoking” God’s blessing will be included.

The Service of the Word is oriented around Scripture, the ultimate authority for those who are followers of Christ. The Service of the Word will include Scripture reading, interviews with people, various videos, dramatic presentations and other creative elements, and, of course, the sermon.

The Service of the Table is our monthly celebration of the Lord’s Supper where we tell the story of God’s redemptive work through Christ, give thanks to God, and eat the bread and drink from the cup together as we celebrate and draw spiritual sustenance from the very real presence of Christ in this meal.

The Sending is a reminder that we are ambassadors of Christ and we are sent out into this world to declare the Good News of God’s redemption. In the Sending portion of our service, we are reminded that worship must have a “missional” aspect to it. There is no real worship without a corresponding intention to “do justice and to love mercy.” In the Sending we will seek to ask God’s blessing upon us as we go out and serve this world that is precious to Him.

In addition to these four “movements” we will also include a number of other categories that may change from time to time. We will usually have a category we call “Acts of Praise” which will include the singing of choruses and hymns, responsive readings, the offering and other ways to declare how great we believe God is and to express to Him our thanks. During the Acts of Praise we desire to engage our bodies and our emotions in expressions of our love and devotion to God. In addition, we will often have a category we will call “Community.” Here we will have announcements, extended greeting times and other opportunities to celebrate the truth that we are a family.

So, here is what we encourage you to do. As we come to worship, we can glance at the Order of Worship and we can begin to engage our minds and bodies and emotions in the experience of worship. During the Gathering we can consciously recognize that we are a part of the family of God and we are now laying aside those burdens that weigh heavily upon us and we are directing our attention to the larger story of God. During the Acts of Praise we can very intentionally seek to engage our bodies and emotions in expressing our love and devotion to God. During the Community time we can celebrate that we are a part of God’s eternal family and this specific family known as Oak Hills Church. During the Service of the Word we can humbly submit ourselves to the teaching of God’s Word. During the Service of the Table we can immerse ourselves in the story of God’s redemption and feast upon the presence of Christ among us. During the Sending we can remember that God has sent us out into this world that He loves.

It is our hope and desire that including the Order of Worship on the front page of the bulletin will help all of us more fully enter into the worship experience. It is our hope that this will help us all engage our minds, our bodies, our emotions and our hearts as we step into the larger story of God and His redemption.

So, what are your thoughts?

Spiritual Formation and Addiction

I recently read a marvelous article from Christianity Today by Gordon MacDonald. Here's the link:
http://www.christianitytoday.com/leaders/newsletter/2008/cln80808.html

In this article, MacDonald is reviewing the book, Broken, by William Moyers (son of the well known journalist, Bill Moyers). Moyers became an alcoholic and drug addict who was destroying his life. This book is a description of his recovery. I haven't read the book yet (I intend to), but MacDonald's comments were fascinating. Here are three of his observations:

1. How much addiction parallels the Bible's description of sin. Many of us were taught that sin equals bad behaviors. Stop doing this or that, we preach to one another. But what if sin has deeper roots that need to be wrenched out in a way not unlike what the addict has to go through?
   
   
2. How much the process of recovery sounds like the Bible's description of salvation, which begins with a deep-down conviction that one is lost and powerless, unable to gain personal liberty or victory on his own? Total surrender to a higher power. The Christian affirms this power to be resident in none other than Jesus the Savior himself.
   
   
3. How much the community that surrounds the addict-in-recovery (the sponsor, the group meetings, the counselors) sounds like what the church was really meant to be: a community of confessed losers whose only ticket to the table is an acknowledgement not unlike "Hello, my name is Gordon, and I'm a sinner." It occurs to me to ask, when did we become a movement of self-proclaimed "winners," when in actuality we are by nature and general performance pretty much the opposite.

These observations powerfully resonated with me. I am often struck by how our emphasis on spiritual formation at Oak Hills so wonderfully parallels the whole process of recovery from addiction. I would love to hear some of your comments on this article and your thoughts about addiction, recovery and spiritual formation. And if you are interested in further reading, in addition to Moyer's book, I would heartily recommend the book, Addiction and Grace, by Gerald May. It is one of my top five favorite books on the process of spiritual formation. I hope to hear from you.

I'm a Grandpa!

On Friday, May 16, 2008, little Brooke Sawyer Opland came into the world weighing 6 lbs. 3 oz. and stretching out to 19 1/4 inches. She is perfect and mother and daughter are doing wonderfully well. So is dad.

It is a fascinating and almost surreal experience to see your little girl holding her own little girl. It truly seems like just a few months ago Heidi was upstairs in her room playing with her dolls. I can still picture her like it was yesterday, in her feety pajamas, sneaking a finger full of butter from the fridge. By the time she was in her teens, she had perfected this glare, this evil eye, that could bore holes through her parents when we were being...well... parents. This was a powerful weapon. It was hard to stand up to. But I realized that in the last about, let's say, nine months, she had lost her weapon. She tried to shoot an evil eye at me a few times when I was being particularly annoying, but it didn't work. It lacked its harshness, its power. Her glare collapsed in mid air into a mixture of tenderness and gentle wisdom. She was becoming a mom. Little Brooke will learn to perfect this glare soon enough. And she, in turn, will teach her daughter. And the circle of life continues.

Brooke was born by cesarean section, so it was a couple hours before we were able to see her. When Diane and I walked into the room she was all bundled up and lying in her mother's arms. Nothing could have prepared me for that moment. She was so tiny. She was placed in my arms and all my inherent restlessness disappeared. I could have sat with her and gazed at her for days.

I have tried to get a grasp of what I am feeling about being a grandfather. I had a little insight into some subterranean things going on when Diane and I, later that weekend, watched the movie, The Great Debaters (a movie I highly recommend, by the way). This movie takes place in the Jim Crow south before the civil rights movement. The legacy of racism and lynchings is a painful subplot that saturates the film. When the movie was over I went outside and sat on my deck and tried to fight back tears as well as a rising sense of anger and outrage. Issues of racism have always been painfully troubling to me, but there was an intensity to my feelings that I couldn't quite place. Then it dawned on me. There is a new little girl in this world who means more to me than life itself. And I do not want this world to be an ugly place for Brooke.

So this is the promise I made to my granddaughter. In whatever way I can, no matter how small, I will never tolerate injustice. I will ignore silly slights and inconveniences, but I will never ignore when the powerful oppress the powerless. I have held the weak and tiny in my arms and she is more precious than words can say. And whenever I, or any one of us, have the courage to speak truth to power, to give voice to the voiceless, to defend the weak, we speak for the Brookes of our world and we make this world a more wonderful place for them to live.

Happy Birthday Brooke.

Grandpa Kent

Confronting Blog Laziness!

I have been a slug. I admit it. I have been continually threatened, cajoled, harassed and badgered to update my blog which is now more than four months old. I have no good excuse. It's not like I'm not an opinionated sermonizer, willing to wax eloquent on topics of which I am only vaguely familiar. In truth, I have made a bit of an ecclesiastical career out of talking excessively. So, why have I been such a slug with this blog? With a bit of stream of consciousness, let me try and answer that question.

1) I'm lazy. This may be truer than I care to admit. Writing takes concentration and focus and there are many times when I simply find myself wanting to flip channels and watch reruns of Gunsmoke.

2) After I have finished preparing and delivering a sermon, I actually find that I am a bit bored with myself and my voice and I just can't find a lot of motivation to keep talking or writing. This may not be that bad.

3) I have some traces of perfectionism in me and there is a voice in my head that tells me that whatever I write has to be really good, deep and profound. It is absurd to listen to this voice. The surest way to avoid profundity is to aim for it. It would be a good thing to learn how to simply write a blog entry that was mediocre at best. But this desire to do a really good job often keeps me from writing anything. I think it would be good for me to simply write about some silly, inconsequential thing some time. Like health food.

4) I have a bent for being controversial and I enjoy engaging in experimental thinking and I am very comfortable with working through an issue verbally or in writing. Some people like this about me and some people do not like this very much at all. The problem I run into is that there are times I would like to wade into a controversial issue and just let it be all messy and allow the give and take of conversation to help form and shape the final product. But there is a tension here. Because of my role in the church, there are some people who simply have a hard time dealing with a pastor who may look at some of the huge issues of our day through a lens that is different than theirs. There are some people who believe that their particular view on an issue is the only legitimate "biblical view" and to disagree with them is to be unbiblical. Sadly, some people have had their views shaped more by O'Reilly and Limbaugh than by Amos and Isaiah. There is a huge part of me that enjoys digging around at that. If this blog has to be written so that it always straddles the fence perfectly and doesn't disturb anyone too greatly, frankly it won't be much fun to write. I'm not always certain that I have the freedom to speak openly and frankly about issues in our world that trouble me from a biblical perspective. I know there have been times where I really wanted to write about some event or issue, but I knew it would be messy, easily misunderstood and even fiercely objected to by some. So I didn't. I don't know if this is avoidable, but i know that I really wouldn't very much enjoy writing simply the safe, sentimental, hallmarkish blog entrees. I know that some issues are only understood in the messiness of it all. I'd love if anyone had any insight here on this one.

5) I'm lazy. I know I said that already, but I believe it is one of the real reasons my last entry is over four months old.

6) I am not always certain that my having a blog fulfills any great eternal purpose. My self-absorption causes me to lean towards believing that at least some people are interested in what I have to say, but there are times that (shades of reason #2 above) I simply can't believe I have anything of value to write. And if I did, does it make any real difference? Does our wordy world really need another pastor with a lap top pontificating on stuff. Don't we have Fox News (We report. You decide.) for that already?

There may be other reasons that I haven't mentioned, but that should do for now. Regardless of all that, I've decided to stay at it. The powers and principalities that control our website (a fearsome and intimidating group to say the least) are telling me that I have to update it at least once a month, or they will send me into some alternative universe. So that is my goal. At least once a month I will try to weigh in with something either sublime or ridiculous. And I invite you to respond. To ask questions. And also, to allow me to be someone who is trying to make sense out of this world like everybody else. In this very contentious and divisive world, I still find myself crazy enough to believe that it is possible to disagree with one another in a spirit of love and humility.

One final thing before I push some magic button that sends this out into cyberspace. In my last entry (I know, from over four months ago) I mentioned the rather fascinating shifting in the evangelical world regarding the emphasis on certain political, social and moral issues. I referenced an article from the New York Times Magazine that explored this from a secular perspective. I thought it rather interesting (the article, not my blog) and I received a number of interesting responses. One of those responses was from Jenny Jiang who writes our Creative Writers Blog, A Wondering Eye (an insightful and wonderful and far more often updated blog). She mentioned another fascinating article, again from a secular source (Nicholas Kristof from the New York Times), that is entitled, Evangelicals Even a Liberal Can Love.

www.nytimes.com/2008/02/03/opinion/03kristof.html?_r=2&o

If you are interested in these things, you may enjoy this. While most of us will not agree with everything in this article, there are some very wonderful things said about people of faith here. For example, Kristoff writes:

"In parts of Africa where bandits and warlords shoot or rape anything that moves, you often find that the only groups still operating are Doctors Without Borders and religious aid workers: crazy doctors and crazy Christians. In the town of Rutshuru in war-ravaged Congo, I found starving children, raped widows and shellshocked survivors. And there was a determined Catholic nun from Poland, serenely running a church clinic."

I was encouraged that the secular press is recognizing that much of the expression of compassion in this world comes from the hands and hearts of followers of Christ. It is common with many atheists and agnostics to declare that this world would be better off without religion. This is absurd. The truth is, without people of faith, and I would say, without Christianity especially, this would be a far more horrible world in which to live. It is truly something worth celebrating when we become more and more known for our willingness to care for those who are often forgotten by the rest of the world.

Evangelicals and Politics

I recently sent a link (see below) from a recent article in the New York Times magazine to a number of friends and leaders in the church. It is a fascinating article that explores the ebb and flow of evangelical influence in the political realm and the often one-sided emphasis on a rather narrow slice of moral and political issues. Then I remembered that I have this blog and I could post the same link here and see if anybody might have any responses or reactions to it.

For a couple decades now, evangelicals have mostly been associated with the Republican end of the political spectrum. I would add that we have often been used and manipulated by those political forces for ends that are not always in keeping with the priorities of our faith. But that seems to be changing. Television Evangelist Pat Robertson just endorsed Rudy Giuliani for president. Giuliani is a pro-gun control, pro-war, pro-choice, pro-gay (sort of), somewhat irreligious guy who's been unfaithful to his wife, divorced twice and married three times and his children are estranged from him. Yet Robertson endorses him. The religious right doesn't seem to be satisfied with any of the Republican contenders. What is more fascinating, is that the current Democratic front-runners, Obama, Clinton and Edwards, all speak easily and with some authenticity about their religious faith. This is quite a turn-around. In the midst of all this, evangelicals seem to be learning how to address political and moral issues in a far more nuanced and balanced manner. In other words, evangelicals are no longer the narrow-issue voting block that can be used or manipulated by a single political party. Because of this, evangelicals, as a group, may lose some of their political power, but I hope we will gain, in the process, our political independence and speak with greater clarity on a broader and more biblically balanced moral and spiritual agenda. At any rate, I thought this article was an excellent overview of these fascinating developments, from a secular observer's perspective, and I would love to hear any of your reactions. It would be fun to have a bit of a dialog on all this. So I copied the link below. You may need to register (for free) in order to read it. Read, enjoy and comment.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/28/magazine/
28Evangelicals-t.html? r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=all