Christianity Lite

“Dieting for Jesus” by Alan Wolfe, in Prospect (Jan. 2004), 2 Bloomsbury Pl., London WC1A 2QA, England.

With a card-carrying conservative Christian in the White House, can an American theocracy be far off? That’s only a slight exaggeration of the view that seems to prevail among Europeans and not a few Americans. But it’s based on a pastiche of dated stereotypes about evangelical Christians, argues Wolfe, director of the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life at Boston College.

The kind of religion these critics fear—dogmatic, intolerant, and at war with modernity—doesn’t survive the powerful solvent of Ameri­can culture. “Because U.S. culture is individualistic, populist, entrepreneurial, and experiential, old-time religions that stand for unchanging truths, rigid dogma, and strict conceptions of sin do not have much chance.”

Polarizing public figures such as Jerry Falwell don’t speak for the evangelical majority, Wolfe contends. For example, opinion surveys by Christian Smith, a sociologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, show that while evangelicals still look upon America as a “Christian nation,” they also almost unanimously agree that they should not try to force their views on others.

The specter of powerful religious institutions forcing their will on the nation is a far cry from the reality on the ground in Protestant America, where religion focuses on the authentic experience of individual faith rather than conformity to fixed beliefs. Pente­costals—the fastest-growing sect in American Protestantism—“value emotionality and spirit far more than creed and doctrine.”

The effects can be seen in evolving conceptions of sin. In the 1920s, Pentecostals inveighed against a long list of sins, from drinking and dancing to working crossword puzzles and primping in front of the mirror. Today, Pentecostal women are flocking to a church-related group called “Women’s Aglow,” which touts hairdos and manicures as visible signs of a commitment to God. Patricia B. Kreml’s Slim for Him is just one of a host of conservative Christian books that take the same approach to dieting.

As this example suggests, it’s women who are driving the rise of conservative Protestant churches, and they’re drawn by a particular kind of empowerment. Wolfe cites a Texas church that bars women even from teaching Sunday school but thinks nothing of women in Bible study groups who casually substitute the word daughter where the Bible refers to the son of God. The pastor lectures his male parishioners on the need to give sexual pleasure to their wives—men are like microwaves, he declares, while women are like Crock-Pots. Because they need to attract women, Wolfe notes, the conservative churches are surprisingly “soft” on many feminist issues, such as women working outside the home.

Some conservatives, such as Lutheran theologian Marva J. Dawn, fret that the new Protestantism’s emphasis on self rather than God reflects the narcissism of the larger culture. Wolfe, however, seems to take comfort in the fact that the more Christians diet for Jesus, the less weight they will have to throw around.