from USA Today

A gated community in the evangelical world

Many of the nation’s most powerful believers — presidents, CEOs, entertainers and athletes — won’t be found in the pews on Sundays, thus creating a growing gap between them and ‘the people.’ It’s a trend that is having a profound effect on this faith movement.

By D. Michael Lindsay

President Bush is Public Evangelical No. 1. His presidency is the capstone of evangelicals’ 30-year rise from the margins of society to the halls of power. But while the president has gone to great lengths to testify publicly to his faith, he often doesn’t do the one thing that defines most evangelicals — go to church. He attends chapel at Camp David and other special services, but the president rarely can be found in a congregation on Sunday morning. (In contrast, Presidents Carter and Clinton both attended services in Washington during their tenures.)

Surprised? When most of us think of devout evangelicals, we think of people who attend church regularly and are active in their local congregations. Yet many of the most prominent evangelicals do neither. They regularly attend Bible studies and religious gatherings, including last week’s National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, but many can’t be found in the pews on Sunday.

(Illustration by Web Bryant, USA TODAY)

I spent the past five years interviewing some of the country’s top leaders — two U.S. presidents (George H.W. Bush and Carter), 100 CEOs and senior business executives, Hollywood icons, celebrated artists and world-class athletes. All were chosen because of their widely known faith. Yet I was shocked to find that more than half — 60% — had low levels of commitment to their denominations and congregations. Some were members in name only; others had actively disengaged from church life.

David Kuo, an outspoken Christian in politics who served as a senior White House official from 2001 to 2003, has called St. Louis Family Church his “home church” for years, despite the fact that he does not currently live in Missouri, nor has he ever. “It’s an extraordinary church where the presence of God is simply palpable,” says Kuo. He, as well as country music star Randy Travis, NFL quarterback Kurt Warner and several other leading evangelicals fly to St. Louis four to six times a year to set aside time for prayer and to hear Pastor Jeff Perry preach.

“He’s taught me how to live the life … of being faithful while in the limelight,” Warner says.

The way that leaders have loosened their ties to churches in their own communities — in the places where they live and work — is deeply troubling. It signals the loss of one of the few social settings where average “Joes” used to rub elbows with the powerful, and where the powerful kept in touch with the concerns of average folks. Organized religion has always been stratified in this country. The Episcopalians were richer than the Methodists, and the Presbyterians looked down on the Baptists. For a long time, however, it was possible for the bank president and the bank teller to know each other personally through church. Today, that happens far less often.

Ties that no longer bind

Why are these leaders so disconnected from their local churches? Executives and politicians are often distressed by the way churches are run. James Unruh, who served as the chief executive of Unisys, was also at one time an elder at his Presbyterian church in California. He has since decided he will never serve again. He couldn’t stand the inefficiency of church meetings, a common refrain among those I interviewed.

“It’s very frustrating to be patient and not to try to run things because that’s what you’re doing all day in your business,” Unruh told me. Others described local congregations as “inefficient,” “unproductive” and “focused on the wrong things.”

These factors are driving evangelical leaders into the arms of fellowship groups that exist outside the churches, often called “parachurch” organizations. The shift began in the 1950s, but it grew dramatically over the past 20 years as the parachurch sector became more professional and well-resourced. Nearly three-fourths of the leaders I interviewed serve on the board of at least one parachurch organization, such as the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. They prefer these groups because they have a broader reach and a bigger impact.

David Grizzle, a senior executive with Continental Airlines, told me, “I’ve intentionally pulled back involvement at my local church level and focused more on activities of a broader scope. … I get to the same place, but through a different pathway.”

Pastors and religious leaders — not just among evangelicals, but also among liberal and mainline Protestants, Catholics and Jews — are concerned about these developments. Churches lose out on talented, bright volunteer leaders. Wealthy believers lose out on spiritual fellowship. And most important, the people in the pews lose out because, while evangelicals have political power as never before, those who wield it have lost touch with the kind of people they used to see every Sunday.

This trend is especially problematic within the evangelical world. Evangelical churches have been among the tightest religious communities in modern America, so much so that Harvard professor Robert Putnam has likened their cohesion to “sociological superglue.” During the week, evangelical congregations host an array of activities — everything from aerobics classes to support groups to midweek Bible studies. In turn, congregants get to know one another much better than they would if they met only on Sunday morning. Community is a virtue for most religious traditions, but evangelicals have excelled at it. Declining church commitment among these leaders, therefore, is ripping at the very fabric that has distinguished American evangelicalism.

Members only

In an effort to evangelize among the nation’s elite, evangelicals have launched hundreds of invitation-only programs and organizations. Business leaders in Manhattan conduct Bible studies that meet in private clubs. Fellowship groups in Washington are reserved for diplomats and members of Congress. The CEO Forum, an invitation-only group for CEOs of large corporations, has been extremely important to the religious formation of many business executives. And, ironically, meetings designed to spur Christian philanthropy are held at fancy hotels and resorts. Indeed, the evangelical advance into the nation’s higher circles has entailed an extension of, instead of a departure from, the privileged and powerful worlds these leaders regularly inhabit. Yet how does an exclusive religious fellowship square with Christian teaching?

Organized religion is perhaps the one factor that could motivate people to bridge the gap between rich and poor, especially now as more of the faithful move into the halls of power. To turn the tide, clergy around the country must engage and draw in these leaders. Otherwise, affluent believers will continue to leave their congregations — and their fellow believers — behind in their ascent, creating a gated community of the soul.

D. Michael Lindsay is a member of the sociology faculty at Rice University and the author of Faith in the Halls of Power: How Evangelicals Joined the American Elite.