Why Christian Worship Doesn’t Work for Many Cultural Creatives —and What Might - Part One
What is a cultural creative?
In The Cultural Creatives: How 50 Million People Are Changing the World by sociologist Paul H. Ray and psychologist Sherry Ruth Anderson, the authors introduce the term "Cultural Creatives" to describe a large segment in Western society who since about 1985 have developed beyond the standard paradigm of progressives versus conservatives. In 2001, Ray and Anderson claimed to have found 50 million adult Americans (slightly over one quarter of the adult population) who could be identified as belonging to this group. They estimated an additional 80–90 million “cultural creatives” exist in Europe. Those numbers have almost certainly increased since then.
Here are some of the characteristics Ray and Sherry Anderson found in cultural creatives:
· willingness to pay higher taxes or spend more money for goods if that money went to improving the environment
· emphasize the importance of developing and maintaining relationships
· emphasize the importance of helping others and developing their unique gifts
· volunteer with one or more good causes
· love of nature and deep caring about its preservation, and its natural balance.
· involved in creating a new and better way of life
· intense interest in spiritual and psychological development (personal growth)
· see spirituality as an important aspect of life, but worry about religious fundamentalism
· concern and support of the well-being of all women and children
· unhappy with the left and right in politics
· concerned with big business and the means they use to generate profits, including destroying the environment and exploiting poorer countries
· optimism towards the future
Are you a cultural creative?
Barbara Max Hubbard says, “Cultural creatives take a stand for a more spiritualized, personalized, and integrated culture.” I’m highlighting this now because I think it is deeply informative for how Christian worship needs to evolve for these people. You might be this kind of postmodern cultural creative that I am addressing here if:
You find yourself dissatisfied with organized religion and more attracted to spirituality without the limitations of traditional Christianity.
You may have tried Eastern religious paths and meditation practices and learned from them. However, you did not find a home in them like at one time you may have in Christianity.
You want to follow Jesus but find yourself not fitting in with most of his followers?
You are oriented towards the loving life and teaching of Jesus rather than the rules and doctrines that have grown up around him.
You question the so-called “prosperity gospel” that God will make your wealthy if you just think the right things. Instead, you identify with the poor, like Jesus did, and support social and political causes that provide for the poor and oppressed.
You find it difficult to see any distinction between the lifestyle of those who profess to be Christians from those who don't—which seems to invalidate the authenticity of the kind of Christianity common today. Jesus said, “By their fruits you shall know them” (Matthew 7:16).
You find it strange that many churches teach that God is love but exclude gays and others who are different from their fellowship.
You long for authentic friendship with a few others that includes deeper mystical experiences of mediation and prayer.
And finally, you like reading these Integral Christian Network articles. That definitely makes you a cultural creative!
Cultural Creatives often have difficulty with today’s church worship services
Today’s church worship, both traditional and contemporary, has lots of challenges for many thoughtful cultural creatives such as those who read these articles.
In almost all churches, music and preaching are leadership centered, turning the congregation into a group of spectators. They do not utilize the power of the whole community but suppress the gifts of everyone else in worship services.
Leadership tends to be male-centered and performance-driven. It is established by the authority of institutions granting academic degrees for theology rather than the leaders’ personal experiences with God and spiritual gifts.
In traditional worship hymns, Scripture translations, prayers, sermons, and readings appear incurably sexist in referring both to God and humankind as male.
Gays and other non-traditional sexual orientations are not openly welcomed in traditional worship.
You find yourself tired of endless deconstruction about how little in the Bible actually happened or is true. Instead you find yourself longing the mystical experiences found in the New Testament and with the mystics down through the ages
Postmodern cultural creatives tend to be uncomfortable with hierarchies. Therefore, worship as it is practiced today especially seems like an oppressive spiritual hierarchy. Worship of God is often expressed as we are unworthy peons and only God is great. Jesus is to be worshipped as the one and only incarnation of God. Surrendering one’s life to an ancient figure like Jesus or even God can seem antiquated. Cultural creatives are about equality and don’t like the idea that there is something greater which they need to surrender to. Bowing down to God like a king on a throne seems obsolete and distasteful.
Therefore, cultural creatives present at least four opportunities:
1. A new openness beyond traditional religion to being spiritual and not being traditionally religious.
2. A hunger for community and authenticity beyond that which both traditional and modern churches offer.
3. To move beyond modern and postmodern deconstruction to forward growth and mystical experience connected to the world in loving action. This is a welcome corrective to narrow rationalism and getting stuck in reactionary critique.
4. To find a new understanding and experience of God that is big enough for our minds, close enough for our hearts, and us enough for our deepest identity.
Ideally the integral path would invite us to blend religion and spirituality. However, the challenge today is to wrestle Christianity from the powerful institutional grip of religion. Until we have freed spirituality and differentiated it from religion, it is very difficult to integrate it without losing the value and distinctiveness of the newly emerging spirituality.
Next week, in light of these opportunities, we look at what might work in place of traditional and contemporary worship for cultural creatives. Make sure you’re signed up for our mailing list to get this writing delivered to your inbox.
(Adapted from https://www.calebwoodbridge.com/blog/christianity-postmodernism-7-challenges/ and Is Your God Big Enough? Close Enough? You Enough? by Paul Smith)