Customer Reviews

Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory: A Journey into the Evangelical Subculture in America

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a great, affirming book. It's really about a spiritual search, and the author does a great job relating the conflicting passions of modern evangelicals (desire for safety, certainty, security, in a rapidly changing and apparently [to them at least] amoral world) and, in the final chapter relates them to the original protestant vision articulated by Luther and others and to his own struggles with the culture. As he points out through interviews "it's really a lover's quarrel," but one with profound implications for day to day religious belief.

In this book, Balmer chronicles his journey across America encountering various Christian evangelicals. Each chapter describes a specific encounter such as a Billy Graham crusade, a visit to Jimmy Swaggart's ministry, the artwork of Thomas Kinkade, the Christian Booksellers Association convention, etc.

This book gives interesting perspectives on the evangelical movement, and perhaps allows evangelicals themselves to see how the rest of the world perceives their witness. However, much of the book was written in the 80's and early 90's and so now is somewhat dated, more of a historical retrospective than a description of the current evangelical movement.

Randall Balmer's widely recognized (in its fourth printing) "Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory" lives up to its well-earned reputation. In this excellent book, Balmer takes the reader on a tour of US Evangelism with visits to or with:

* The Calvary Chapel (Santa Ana, CA.), the home of Chuck Smith who revolutionized evangelism by reaching out to the "disillusioned of the 1960s
* The Dallas Theological Seminary, a fortress of evangelical and fundamentalist orthodoxy, and Darby's rapture
* Filmmaker Donald Thompson, maker of Christian Films
* The Capstone Cathedral (Phoenix, AZ.), the home of evangelist and healer Neal Frisby
* The Word of Life Fellowship youth camp, home of Adirondack Fundamentalism
* The Church of the King (North Valdosta, GA), a charismatic church that merged with the Episcopal Church, starting a charismatic renewal
* The Multnomah School of the Bible (Oregon) and its doctrine of the end times
* The Right to Life movement in Iowa
* John Perkins, founder of Mendenhall Ministries, who returned to his native Mississippi to break the cycle of poverty, despair, and oppression of blacks
* The Christian Booksellers Association's annual convention (Bibles are a big business)
* Father Innocent Good House, a Sioux Indian, and pastor of St. Luke's Episcopal Church (Fort Yates, ND) on the resistance of evangelicals to the integration of Christianity with the Indian's native religions
* Camp Freedom, an adult faith camp (St. Petersburg, FL.) and the holiness tradition.
* The Billy Graham Crusade in New York City
* The Oregon Extension of Trinity College (Klamath Falls, OR) and the misuse of the Bible by evangelicals
* Jimmy Swaggart, since his fall, at his Family Life Center (Baton Rouge, LA)
* Thomas Kinkade and his world vision
* The purpose driven megachurches - Willow Creek (Chicago) and Saddleback (Lake Forest, CA)

In "My Eyes Have Seen," Balmer conveys the multiplicity, diversity, and complexity of Evangelicalism in the US today highlighting its folk appeal and grass roots character. Evangelicalism is quintessentially American - a free market religion which has churches competing with one another for popular followings, providing a unmistakable populist cast to religion. "Evangelicals generally galvanize around a personality who articulates - and even defines - the faith of his followers according to his own idiosyncratic reading of the Bible.

Balmer feels that Evangelicalism will persist because of its timeless appeal, promising intimacy with God, a support community, an unambiguous morality, and answers to the riddles of eternity.

"My Eyes Have Seen the Glory" is the perfect reference book for those interested in in the history and many faces of American Evangelicalism. It is a not only a "must" for anyone involved in religious ministry, but also for most Americans as Evangelicalism is major force in our society society. It cannot be easily dismissed.

This book will make you think. The book is being used as reading material for my daughter's college course in religions. We bought it early and I read it during her break. The author states upfront that he will try to remain unbiased. I believe that for the most part he does. Each chapter is on a different person or organization that could claim to be evangelical. I found it very interesting and enlightenling to see the beliefs of these organizations. Some of my preconceived thinking was changed and some reinforced. The book was easy to read and not at all like a textbook. Since most of the book was written in the late 1980's, I was able to go on the internet and see the status of the people and organizations today.

America "outfitted" with its many distinctive subcultures, driven mostly by sublimated fears, remind me very much of a homeless person wandering about on a typical urban street in a daze in the summertime with several layers of clothing on. It does not take long to realize that the various layers have nothing at all to do with the weather or the temperature, but are protective covering, armor against the psychological demons that rage inside his head. In the same vein, each of America's thematic sub-cultural layers too represent armor against its most fearful and sacred psychological demons. The inner most layer of the American garment, arguably is protection against deep sexual fears, then comes genetic and racial fears, afterwards it is guilt and fears against God's retribution (for the first two), and then comes the outer most and most obvious layer, protection against violence, all of which is cultural and all of which is self-inflicted: structural, overt, covert, and international. And all disguised as an imperative for cultural survival.

Here in this volume, to the extent any of these layers can be seen as entirely distinct in the collective American mind, this author deals with the middle layer, of religious fears, as they appear as normalized religion buried in the nation's deepest subconscious mind. The author tries mightily to get his mind around it all, and does succeed in getting very deeply into this layer, not just as cultural armor, but also as "psychological and ethnic evidence" of a very normal reality in the American way of life.

In this sense, the book is as the author has advertised it: as a carefully guided journey by one who has lived the life for twenty years and has finally come up for air. But the author does not let his own experience get in the way of his objectivity. He gets out of the way of his analysis and allows the evangelical subculture to tell its own story.

As a cultural historian, it must be said that he is better armed to deal with these nuances and many subtleties than almost anyone who has delved into this subject before. And this advantage shows up everywhere in this fine piece of writing. It would be pandering to call it a tour de force, but I can think of no better way to characterize this work. It is simply a superb piece of investigative cultural journalism and writing. His style is engrossing without even a hint of condescension, as he combines ethnographic observations with his own personal understanding of America's religious "cultural history." He avoids the familiar terrain of this subject matter: pedantry, a lot of scriptural and religious "God Talk" and the associated "inside religious baseball," or even self-indulgence via testimonials, giving us a fuller insight into one of the important outer garments of the collective American mind.

An important element, among many other important elements, is finally cleared up for me here: why some deeply devoutly religious Americans evade their own responsibility for making the world better? As the has author put it here, there was a definite point in religious history when the ideological red lines were drawn in the sand and the evangelical side began to substitute "a theology of good deeds" for a "theology of good graces," shifting the responsibility for their salvation and for making a better world entirely on God's shoulders.

Their responsibility then reduced to one of earning their "brownies points" for their own personal salvation by avoiding sin, interpreting the scriptures, glorifying God, and remaining in communion with the church. Rather incredibly and incongruously, it was God's grace that finally freed them of all responsibility for their own salvation based on good deeds, and for doing anything to bring about a better world other than proselytizing.

The book covers in detail the history of how evangelical biblical ideology evolved to the present state. And in fact, a great deal of this "theology of grace" versus the "theology of actual doing good deeds," ensued as part of the break away from the Catholic Church, in the Protestant Reformation.

An important value of the book is that it dispels the caricature of fundamentalism as being just the handiwork of a handful of venal, money-hungry opportunists televangelists, such as Jim and Tammy Faye Baker, James Swaggert, Oral Roberts, Billy Graham and Jerry Fallwell. Before this book I had always "lumped" them all together. Here we see that evangelicalism is just another thread in the broader mosaic of the fabric of American folk culture. In this one-man collage, the author gets beyond the "bumper-sticker" "God talk," messages to show how evangelicalism functions in disparate social contexts across the nation. And although the author uses a travel motif, to get his points across, I believe my psychological motif is equally compelling. For mine underscores what I was hoping to get out of the book: an answer to the many "whys" that I have had about the power and influence of religion in American society?

Although, I did get a partial answer, it only came indirectly oozing up from the subtext, and turns out to be the same answer as that I had gotten from other religious writings. To wit: When the wheat is finally sifted from the chaff, God's authority is only the tip of a top-down pyramid, a rather unforgiving autocratic social hierarchy. "His" is "delegated authority" from "on high." "His" self-appointed representatives are in fact "stand-ins" for Him. They too are imbued with godlike authority even if seldom with godlike abilities. It is this mostly "unholy" hierarchy that cascades down the expanding pyramid providing social order, where, without which (or at least that is what is implicit in the subtext), it is thought that chaos would otherwise reign.

Yet in all of the author's glorious and often majestic details, there is still a disturbing opaqueness about this important element. The larger text always seems to be begging the question, why? At the end, the "whys" still all seem to remain in the shadows: From whence does all of the American madness, sexual repression, sexism, racism and violence, under the cover of religious piety come? Clearly, a first order psychological analysis (that is to say a very superficial one) heavily implicates collective guilt, but for what? Exterminating Native Americans? Slavery? A century of Apartheid? The whole myth of white supremacy? Deep conflicted feeling of sexual guilt, etc, etc, ad infinitum? This book fills in an important part of the picture, but I suppose I'll have to go back to Karen Armstrong to look for the deeper answers. But still a great read. Five Stars

This review originally published on [...]

Randall Balmer, professor of American Religious History at Barnard College, has scoured America's cities and countryside in search of understanding the religious phenomena that is American Evangelicalism. His book, Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory, recounts these tales in a lively and readable format that is informative and critical, yet respectful and loving, toward this institution of his heritage. Yes, Balmer was reared in the Evangelical subculture, but became distanced and disheartened with it as he grew up. Now, though, he is beginning to understand what it really means to him. Thus, Balmer's book serves two distinct purposes. First, he is dealing with his own personal feelings and experiences about and within the Evangelical movement. As Balmer wrestles with his thoughts on the subculture, the reader can better understand his own. Second, Balmer displays the variations in a subculture that to so many people appears so monolithic. He says, "I was pretty sure that the press had missed the story, that they had bunched Evangelicals together and failed to appreciate the spectrum of Evangelicalism in America." Balmer demonstrates that American Evangelicalism has a breadth and diversity that renders distinct categorization as a singular entity very difficult, if not impossible.

It would be nearly impossible to summarize the content of Balmer's book entirely. The book is organized in a travelogue style, and thus the chapters vary wildly. It would be better to describe the individual chapters as self-contained. In fact, reading the book is almost like reading a collection of short stories. Balmer certainly has a reason for doing so. If indeed it were possible to cram modern Evangelicalism into a box, then describing the movement in all its supposed diversity would be almost self-defeating. Two examples from different ends of the spectrum (in this author's opinion), should assist us in understanding the breadth of American Evangelicalism that Balmer wishes us to consider.

In chapter 5, "Adirondack Fundamentalism," Balmer visits the Word of Life Camp on Schroon Lake in upstate New York. The founder is Jack Wyrtzen, a fundamentalist Bible teacher from New York City. The chapter is about church camps and the never-ending struggle of Evangelical parents to pass on their faith to their children. Balmer thinks that the greatest fear of Evangelical parents is that they will not follow in the footsteps of their parents' faith. In recent years, churches often hire youth pastors who job it is to "shield them [Evangelical children] from the perils of worldliness." Wyrtzen's camp functions as a sanctuary for fundamentalist parents, it is "a place where strict parietal rules would be enforced and, more important, where some sort of religious commitment would be exacted."

Wyrtzen is the consummate fundamentalist and the services at Word of Life Camp reflect these values. It begins with music, of course, the kind that gets the kids excited while supporting a Christian message. Wyrtzen's sermon initially includes an exhortation to follow the rules of the island, especially that of modesty. But the crux of his sermon is the call to be "born again by the Word of God." He denounces the liberals that did not tell him about Jesus Christ - at least not in the way he talks about Jesus now. He says America's Army is "the greatest denomination in the U.S." because that's where he became a Christian. His goal is to bring more sheep to the fold.

The problem with this picture, according to Balmer, is that the gospel being presented is really an adumbration of the New Testament "good news." When the only news heard is bad news - that your sinfulness deserves damnation and that if you do not do something about it you'll get your just deserts. The way to salvation, as it appears to many Evangelical children, is to subscribe to a set of doctrines and adhere to strict moral guidelines often expressed in negative terms: "Now remember, sonny, don't dance, smoke, chew, or go with girls that do." Evangelicals often have sin and guilt down pat, but grace is correspondingly lacking at times.

The result of this subtle mentality in Evangelical families is that children find it difficult to grasp the significance of conversion or salvation:

"As an Evangelical parent, if you are concerned about the spiritual welfare of your children, you will establish guidelines for them so they will grow up in faith, or, more accurately, grow up with all the trappings of godliness. Their `conversions' then become adolescent (or pre-adolescent) rites of passage, often accomplished by fabricated emotions in order to convince their peers, their parents, and, most important, themselves of their sincerity... Will Evangelicalism, then, inevitably suffer from a gradual enervation of religious ardor as the faith passes from one generation to the next? Sociologists like Max Weber, who talks about the routinization of religion, insist that the answer is yes. Fervent Evangelical parents pray that the answer is no."

Chapter 14 is entitled "Oregon Jeremiad," and displays a facet of Evangelical Christianity in stark contrast to the rigid, pseudo-legalism of Word of Life Camp. The site is the Oregon Extension of Trinity College, where Douglas Frank (an old friend of Balmer's) and Thomas Alvord teach a more progressive Evangelicalism. They developed what they call the "Trek Curriculum," which is not overtly confessional or Evangelical. Rather, it is very action-oriented. Trekkers are admonished to "think before you act" and to "remember that every action has a consequence."

Frank says that Evangelicalism is completely focused on the law, to the exclusion of grace (in other words, Word of Life Camp). This emphasis on law makes Evangelicals draw lines and make unwarranted judgments about the spiritual condition of others. It imposes a kind of dualism in the world - an "us" versus "them" mentality. Those who recognize this most, incidentally, are the kids! Probably, they are some of the same kids that attend Word of Life Camp. Frank and Alvord's cadre of professors and students are working, in some sense, to moderate the fundamentalism that causes division and creates doubts in the minds of believers. Balmer quotes Frank:

"What distinguishes a Christian from a non-Christian is confession, that we confess who we are, that we fall within that 360-degree circle of sinfulness. There's a certain freedom in that, in acknowledging our humanity, our sinfulness before God and recognizing that Christ alone restores us to a relationship with God ... The gospel says we're all bastards, but God loves us anyway. The moralist says, `Maybe you're a bastard, and I used to be one.' That's a betrayal of... the good news of our salvation."

Randall Balmer's book delivers on its promise to display the vast diversity within the Evangelical subculture. From the fundamentalist teaching in the Adirondacks, to the charismatic Episcopalians, to the "Christian music scene," to the tumultuous ministry of Jimmy Swaggert, to the Oregon Extension, Balmer's point is clear: there is no such thing as a monolithic, standardized, or rigidly-defined Evangelical movement. Evangelicals agree on some foundational values, but as soon as those foundations end the vast differences begin: "Beyond general - but by no means unanimous - agreement on personal conversion, the importance of scripture, and the expectation of an apocalypse, Evangelicals contend with one another over the rigor of those beliefs and the appropriate expressions of piety."

My experience with Evangelicals is somewhat limited because of my Church of Christ heritage, but the sub-group of Evangelicals I have had more experience with than others is the fundamentalists. In many ways, their beliefs are not all that different from Churches of Christ, and learning from them initially was not difficult. I have over time, though, had to come to grips with how I can agreeably differ with them. Fundamentalists have a militant side to them, unfortunately, which makes them more than willing to pick a fight with whomever would disagree with them. I have a great sympathy with their cause, mostly because the majority of them hold so many of the same values I do. The irony, to me, is that even though many fundamentalists are willing to stand against some issues of personal immorality, they have historically been quite unwilling to stand against critical issues of public injustice. The fundamentalists should have been the first to stand up for civil rights, the first to speak against the Korean and Vietnam Wars. Admittedly, their silence was not universal, but certainly they could have been more vocal.

Thus, I can sympathize with Balmer and his quest to resolve his conflicting feelings about Evangelicals in general. The "patch-work quilt" of Evangelicalism makes it nearly impossible to pin blame on the movement itself for its inconsistencies. Balmer seems to realize this as well, admitting that despite Evangelicalism's problems the gospel is still being preached:

"That the Evangelical gospel can still be heard at all above the din of what passes for Evangelicalism in America today is miracle enough, perhaps, to capture the attention of even the most jaded observer. What it all means I'm not yet sure, but I now find it less easy to dismiss the preposterous Evangelical claims about a God of amazing grace who, despite our bumbling and nonsense and hoary theological schemes, saves us from ourselves."

In the end, perhaps it is more important to realize that non-mainline Protestants are all in this together, that although doctrine is important (and we should talk about it) unity is more important, and that the gospel of Jesus Christ calls us to follow Him above all else.

[At the beginning, I must point out that the book I read was the 1989 hardbound edition, and some of what I have to say might not apply to later editions.]

In the 1980s, religious historian Randall Balmer began to look again at the church that he had disgustedly left in the 1970s, the American evangelicals. Traveling across the country, he visited evangelical churches and organizations from Santa Ana, California to Schroon Lake, New York. This book is a compilation of his visits to these various evangelical sites, reporting what he saw and heard, and giving his own piercing analysis.

First of all, any potential reader must know that Professor Balmer began his study of the "strange-and-wacky world of American evangelicalism" with a strong distaste for the object of his study. He left that church in disgust, and his dislike for it is evident throughout this book. That said, though, I found his examination of American evangelicalism to be thorough, and quite interesting. His knowledge of the movement allowed him to give the reader a wonderful understanding of it, and his analysis was quite keen.

But why, then, do I give it a mere 3 stars? The truth is that, as he points out, American evangelicalism is not defined by its hierarchy or liturgy (although I do disagree with the author when he suggests that other Christian sects are not defined by their doctrines (pages 228-229)), and it has gone on to change quite a lot since he looked at it some twenty years ago. In certain ways, this book is already a work of history, looking at the evangelicalism of the 1980s, rather than that of today. But, I must say, that this is quite an interesting book, one that anyone interested in the American evangelical movement would find quite informative.