Introduction
Winners and Losers
Restructuring the Religious Economy A revolution is transforming American Protestantism. While many of the mainline churches are losing membership, overall church attendance is not declining. Instead, a new style of Christianity is being born in the United States, one that responds to fundamental cultural changes that began in the mid-1960s. These new paradigm churches, as I call them in this book, are changing the way Christianity looks and is experienced.1 Like upstart religious groups of the past, they have discarded many of the attributes of establishment religion. Appropriating contemporary cultural forms, these churches are creating a new genre of worship music; they are restructuring the organizational character of institutional religion; and they are democratizing access to the sacred by radicalizing the Protestant principle of the priesthood of all believers.
The new paradigm can be fo
Introduction
Winners and Losers
Restructuring the Religious Economy A revolution is transforming American Protestantism. While many of the mainline churches are losing membership, overall church attendance is not declining. Instead, a new style of Christianity is being born in the United States, one that responds to fundamental cultural changes that began in the mid-1960s. These new paradigm churches, as I call them in this book, are changing the way Christianity looks and is experienced.1 Like upstart religious groups of the past, they have discarded many of the attributes of establishment religion. Appropriating contemporary cultural forms, these churches are creating a new genre of worship music; they are restructuring the organizational character of institutional religion; and they are democratizing access to the sacred by radicalizing the Protestant principle of the priesthood of all believers.
The new paradigm can be found in many places. One of its most typical sites is within the numerous independent churches that have proliferated in recent years. These churches are contributing to what has been called a new era of postdenominational Christianity in America, reflecting a general disillusionment with bureaucratic hierarchies and organizational oversight.2 Other new paradigm churches remain within existing denominations, but their worship and organizational style differ decidedly from those of the more institutionalized churches in their denominations. Indeed, some of these new paradigm churches disguise the fact that they even have a denominational affiliation.
Included in my definition of new paradigm churches are "seeker-sensitive" churches, such as Willow Creek Community Church in
Chicago or Saddleback Community Church in southern California. These churches are attempting to design worship services that appeal to those who do not usually attend church. I also want to include in the ranks of the new paradigm a growing movement of churches that identify themselves as part of "apostolic networks."3 These churches model their organizational structure after the religious leadership described in the New Testament book of the Acts of the Apostles.
It is not particularly helpful, in my view, to use such theological terms as evangelical or fundamentalist to describe these changes in American Protestantism. Even categories such as charismatic and Pentecostal are too broad to capture the distinctive character of the revolution described in this book, although many new paradigm churches do embrace the "gifts of the spirit." Nor do I find the terminology of religious "culture wars" very useful,4 since many of the new paradigm churches cut across political and social issues in innovative ways.
To clarify the character of this revolutionb
