Rise of the Metroevangelical™

An article in today's NY Times offers a portrait of uber-perky actress and current it-girl, Kristin Chenoweth ("She Sings! She Acts! She Prays!"). In the first few paragraphs reporter Jesse Green lets us know that not only does Chenoweth carry authentic evangelical bona fides, having released a CD (As I Am) of Christian power pop, but that she manifests all of the politically correct virtues of the Manhattan elite (her regrets at having appeared on the 700 Club, her support for gay marriage, and wearing an Obama Barack for President button). And then there was the racy bikini spread in FHM (and I have to say she looks hot in the knee-high white leather boots in the NYT article).


Kinky!

For years, culturally-minded evangelicals have been urging Christians to engage culture in order to break out of the "evangelical ghetto". We were supposed to go to the rabidly secular universities, be familiar with all the various media (books, magazines, movies, music) that the world had to offer and generally take our place among the central cultural institutions of America - in short, to be culturally "relevant". Many of us bought into that project, myself included. In these positions of cultural influence, we were told, we would be able to affect the transformation of our culture "for Christ".

There is a lot of wisdom in that model of cultural transformation. Jesus himself never shied from the seedier elements of cultural life in his day, a tradition carried on by noble outreach efforts, such as XXXchurch.

That said, I wonder if there isn't in Chenoweth's story a warning to those of us who want to engage culture of the consequences of the many slight accommodations we are forced to make to get into those positions of cultural influence. With obvious talent, Chenoweth went to college and majored in Theater, eventually cultivating her career into wild success on Broadway, television and Hollywood. Bravo! But what does it say that this self-identified Baptist girl has been forced to reshape her standards to fit into these wildly liberal, but incredibly influential, cultural microcosms? Did anything resonate in her conscience when her gay theater clientele forced her contrition for appearing on the 700 Club and demanded her repentance for the crime of being remotely associated with the bane of East Coast and Left Coast sensibilities, Pat Robertson (who admittedly is nuttier than a loon)? Would Chenoweth be able to return to the small-town Oklahoma world she grew up in and that instilled in her the very values that have made her a success?

As we saw last week in the hand-wringing over uber-evangelical Rick Warren's AIDS conference and the resignation of Christian Coalition president-elect Joel Hunter after a rejection of his "social justice" agenda, these questions about who is really being influenced and in what ways when evangelicals engage culture are not insignificant or inconsequential. In fact, it seems to be the very issue we should be talking about, but really aren't.

Strangely, I think the world has much to teach us here. We only need to look at the many evangelical leaders tripping over themselves to preach on Third World debt (see my thoughts on Bruce "Prayer of Jabez" Wilkinson's disastrous project in Swaziland, "When Jabez Just Isn't Enough)", the environment and AIDS to be able to get a photo op with Bono, and then see that Bono and his U2 pals moving their assets out of Ireland to avoid paying the taxes to fund the very policies they promote. When given the opportunity, the world isn't willing to put their money where their principles are; they just are expecting you to pay for their policies without any complaint. The world must look at the Christian community (rightly so) and laugh at our desperate attempts to be hip and emergent. We are not much unlike the Seinfeld episode when Elaine shows off her horrid dancing skills completely oblivious to how bad they really are.



And I'm sure the Manhattan and Hollywood limousine liberal crowd applaud themselves when they see someone like Kristin Chenoweth fall right into line with their cultural agenda. In becoming agents of cultural change, we need to ask who we have become agents of cultural change for.

If anything, Kristin Chenoweth's success heralds the rise of a new kind of culturally relevant Christian, the Metroevangelical™ - a trend that should give Christian leaders a moment of pause. I would roughly define a Metroevangelical™ to be a thoroughly postmodern American Christian evangelical, who under pressure from popular culture feels compelled to transform objective moral values into subjective personal/political preferences. With that in mind, we would do well to remember that Jesus made a point about being in the world, but not of it.

Some of my previous observations on Evangelicalism:

The SS Titanic of Evangelicalism (12/11/05)

Evangelical Cultural Bankruptcy, Exhibit A (12/12/05)

Evangelical Cultural Bankruptcy, Exhibit B (12/17/05)