17 May, 2006

Ashram Cats

When the guru sat down to worship each evening, the ashram cat would get in the way and distract the worshipers. So he ordered that the cat be tied during evening worship.

After the guru died the cat continued to be tied during evening worship. And when the cat died, another cat was brought to the ashram so that it could be duly tied during evening worship.

Centuries later learned treatises were written by the guru's disciples on the religious and liturgical significance of tying up a cat while worship is performed.



--"The Guru's Cat" from The Song of the Bird by Anthony De Mello

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

A dear friend of mine got in trouble this year at seminary. No, not theological trouble. No, not academic trouble.

She wore red shoes to church.

As an acolyte.

For those of you who don't tie up this particular cat outside your sanctuary so that God can hear you, Episcopalian liturgical ministers tend to wear funny dresses to church. There's a long white one called an alb (or a cassock-alb), and a black one with a white thing worn over it called a cassock and surplice (or cota), and a red one called a chimere--we seem think it's even more stylish and hip to give them funny names than to just wear them and call them dresses.

The funny dresses are one of my favorite pet ashram cats. They were originally designed to keep people warm during long, cold, rainy, English winters, and I put one on every Sunday for worship. In San Antonio in the summer, the temperature reaches 110 in the shade. So we air-condition the building where the church meets. And I sit there and sweat in my dress, and wonder whether Jesus thinks we've gone quite mental.

Another of my favorites are candles. At my current parish, there are two on the table (or altar) where I preside. There are also, mounted on the ceiling, a set of theater-style stage lights. Lights so bright, in fact, that when I step up to the table, I can't see the back of the room because of the glare off the white cloth on the table (the student who fussed at my friend would want me to call the cloth a "fair linen"). I've taken to casually turning the lights down when it's my turn to preside at the liturgy, so I can see who I'm worshipping with. (I'm not kidding that I can't see, by the way. A couple of months ago, somebody fainted in the back, and I never saw her) Then I went on vacation, and when I came back, it wasn't a sliding rheostat on the table spotlights, it was a standard off-on light switch. oops.

But maybe my favorite of all is the gospel procession. Long before America was colonized, there were no electronic sound systems, and the gospel book was carried out into the congregation before it was read so that all could hear the good news of Jesus. But if we're going to have a parade, we have to carry the cross on the stick, and carry the torches so we can see where we're going...
At my current parish, we do indeed do a gospel "procession." A cross, two torches (placed where they wouldn't help even if the church was dark), and a fourth acolyte to hold the Bible while I read from it. This requires, of course, that four different families get up early and get to campus early so their kids can put on their funny-looking white dresses, so that we can do the gospel procession. But here's the best part: the building is in a cruciform shape, meaning it looks like a cross to the birds flying overhead, and the table where the Bible rests is more or less in the middle to begin with. So the gospel procession moves....wait for it.....

three feet.


The congregation in California that encouraged us to go be priests takes many of these things far more casually, but the cats are still there. (Maly, if you're reading this, I still say a gospel procession three steps to the left so you're at the top of the stairs is goofy looking. Just read the gospel from the dang lectern.)

If we were making up liturgy from scratch, we probably wouldn't do any of those things. In fact, to deliberately overuse a metaphor, you can't swing a dead cat in an Episcopal church without hitting an ashram cat. We do them because we value the long tradition of the church at worship, because we value the sense of being connected to something far older and wiser than we are, something that transcends our experience and lengthens our perspective. At our best, we're honoring the Holy Spirit speaking through the centuries of Christian worship that preserved the good news of Christ Jesus for us.


Now, back to my friend.

She's a second-year student at seminary, sponsored by the same congregation that sponsored me. At every seminary, there are people from literally all over the world, who come together to worship on a very regular basis. And you want that to go smoothly, so to establish a certain amount of orderliness in what could easily be a chaotic mess, you agree on a general standard of 'this is how we do it here.' At its best, it's a relatively short document giving guidelines so that all can get beyond the "how do we do this" mechanics and focus our hearts and minds on worship.

and then sin begins to happen.

The reality of seminary life is that the rules are complicated, because trying to learn all the liturgical traditions is a complicated business. At my seminary, the customary was over 60 pages long, single-spaced. At the beginning of every year, the first-year students have to learn the traditions of that particular place. And, unfortunately, observance of the customary often means that the focus is on the rules, on the method of worship, rather than the God who we worship.

And when my friend wears red shoes to chapel, the first thought that goes through people's minds isn't "swell shoes, Julie." Nor is it to giggle at her as she gently pokes fun at tradition. Nor is it to notice, then to notice that it irritates us, and then to ask ourselves why we give a damn and whether it's important. Instead, what often happens is that we think, and then say, "that's not in the customary," or "we don't do it that way." And that's part of the environment in which future clergy are trained for leading worship.

Lord, Son of David, have mercy on us.



When it was my turn to do chapel duty, I often found myself peering through the customary trying to make sense of it. My first time to preside at worship was at choral morning prayer (a service I'd be willing to wager a week's pay you've never participated in if you haven't been to a seminary), which was a harrowing experience just because it was unfamiliar, and I had to lead, and I had to sing solo in public...and afterward one of the third-year students criticized me for not following the customary on a couple of details that (trust me) you wouldn't have noticed. And this was a friend of mine. I damn near ripped his head off.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Now, here's why this drives me crazy. The western world is, ever more increasingly, a culture that is post-institutionalized religion. To Julie's and my generation, the goofy dresses aren't beautiful tradition, they're just plain goofy. At best, since you see them in church, in the company of other unexplained symbols, they get lumped in with the transcendent. At worst, they get in the way. They are a stumbling block to proclamation of the gospel in this generation.

Julie knows this. Her kindling passion is to proclaim the transforming grace and love of Christ Jesus, and she gets impatient with people and things that get in her way. In that impatience, she rubs people the wrong way. (Including me.) But she's right a lot more than she's wrong, and when she speaks, I listen.

26 comments:

Pat Greene said...

It's hard sometimes, though, to know which are ashram cats and which are not. Some things, like albs, are easy -- others are not. When we eliminated the organ at St. Tim's for the 10:30 service, I understood why that was done, and that it allowed us to reach more people. But at Easter Vigil, I was reminded how I miss hearing it.

Anonymous said...

Cristopher you offered a good post here.

I love the Episcopal church. I love the people I meet at church who consistently become my friends. I love our crosses and candles. And the beauty of it all.

However, I can't stand 'unexplained' traditions. Why do we cover the crosses at Lent? Why are the 'dresses' so important?

The only mystery I want to experience at church is the Christ himself.

-Rebecca

Anonymous said...

Mmmmahhhh!!!! Great post.

Do you know how many applicants for a rector position wax lyrical about the "ancient rites" of the Episcopal church, and live in awe of their own magic fingers (for blessing the eucharist)? I'm so glad I follow a God that loves us despite the fact that we have most definitely gone mental.

Don't all those desert nomads wear albs? Yeah, that must be where they came from. Jesus didn't wear a tunic, he wore a tailored alb, and he knew how to tie the rope belt just so. So the question is... Where do the Brooks Brothers suits and white collars come from, in the ancient tradition? They must be an ashram kitten.

I'm going to make this column assigned reading for whoever we call.

Julie said...

Thanks. I needed that.

Julie

Anonymous said...

I have to laugh hysterically at your post. You are stuck inside your own prison, laughing at those inmates around you as though you are not in a cell yourself.

It is interesting to see how you can recognize when a few obvious traditions seem out of place in a modern world. But you can only recognize those that make you feel good to recognize.

Honestly, deep down, you know that faith itself is all just layers and layers of ashram cat's. Peel away all the ashram cat's, and indeed even Jesus disappears (poof). This is why all religious institutions discourage erasing even the stupidest of layers. It is best to keep everyone in that xen space of "feeling" and not much "thinking", for if you think too much, you expose all the cats.

Even you have now begun to misrepresent facts in order add your own layers to those that follow your teachings.

1. At the time of the infraction, your friend was a 1st year, you cleverly lead your readers to believe she might be in her second year. We all know in any good school, first year students are put through their paces on purpose. It is done to weed out the weak, and those who probably aren't all that committed to the degree. It happens in all advanced degree's, weedout classes and strange "jump though hoops" is expected. You left out this important fact and it explains more accurately what might be going on.

2. Most importantly THEY WERE RED COWBOY BOOTS, you oh so conviently left this out as well. It would have made you look a bit foolish, and your points would have been less relevant. Now let me see, if I wear no shoes some places you won't get service at
all. If I wear black shoes in the gym, they kick you out for leaving marks. If you wear sneakers to a black tie event, they won't let you in. And yes, if you wear bright red cowboy boots with a dress (so you see most of them), you deserve to be kicked out of whereever you are. It's called good manners to dress appropriately for occasions.

Finally these are the facts I'm aware of and know you have distorted them, I wonder how many others you have distorted that I am just not aware of. If you watch carefully, you can see the outlines of your own cell.

Those in class houses shouldn't throw... wait a minute, you run the house, do whatever you want. Every year science shows us that almost everything organize religion does and thinks is indeed just Ashram Cats.

Good post, but as I stated at the beginning, you too are in a cell.

Dallas said...

To give you some good advice you gave me, be gentle with Mr. Anonymous.

Anonymous said...

I can think of a place where the boots could go, lest further anonymous cowards see them.

A friend of mine was once savaged and reduced to tears by someone in the congregation, who prated that she had "ruined the entire worship experience" for him ... because, while serving as an acolyte at a service, she snuffed the candles in the wrong order.

This also reminds me of Navy boot camp, where a buddy was sent to a punitive exercise session run by SEALs - for the heinous crime of mis-crossing two strands of shoelace between eyeholes. There was arguably a point to that particular exercise - but it's preposterous to claim that shared worship experience among those called to serve God ought to be a forum or format for "weeding out the weak".

Perhaps those whose intrinsic need to pigeonhole "how we do things" or "how things are supposed to be" ought to be those weeded out - my peculiar need to think that way is prominent among the reasons I believe I'm not called to ordained ministry.

The simplest form of the question is "What exactly are you worshipping here?" Does the customary prescribe (or proscribe) particular brands? Height of heels? In inches or millimeters? Metals or alloys permitted or banned for buckles? What about laces? Pfeh.

You know, the model proposed for the seminarians in question is the one who washed His brothers' feet. I propose we all go barefoot (not to invoke any shared history, Cristopher :). Courage, Julie.

Marshall Scott said...

Q. How many Episcopalians does it take to change a light bulb?

A. Change?!? That light bulb? My grandmother gave that light bulb!!!

We have all groaned through Marion Hatchett's Sanctifying Life, Time, and Space, and, as much as I love him, his lectures weren't much better. However, his guidance on designing liturgies began with assessing the congregation you have, and the experience you want them to have. Then, he suggested, you look through the tradition of the Church - the whole Church (how do those Nestorians do things?) - to see if there is something that will offer the people you serve the experience you want them to have. It's not that you can't make up anything new; sometimes that's what's called for. On the other hand, the full experience of the whole Church is broad and varied, and you might find what you need and still be able to say, "This is not traditional here, but it is well established in the tradition of the Church." That can be useful sometimes!

meeegan said...

The phrase "the experience you want them to have" captures in a nutshell the reason behind my resistance to clergy.

What about the experience *they* want to have? Which may or may not be apparent to the clergyperson nominally in charge?

I'm convinced that the calling of two of my dear friends to the ordained ministry is supposed to be a lesson to me, but it hasn't penetrated far yet. :)

Anonymous said...

This is a great post. I am with ya...But I will also suggest that meaning-making and the use of symbols (old or new) is something all faith communities do. If we can find ways of handing the meaning down from generation to generation while allowing the symbols to morph as necessary, then we would have done something outstanding.

As it stands, we are not so good at that yet.

But this also touches on the fringes on who makes meaning in community. This is what I am a Baptist...the community is supposed to have this job. The preacher merely gives it voice.

Cristopher said...

To MEEEEEGAN:

I don't know if you're ever going to read this post again--I doubt it--so I'll email a response to you as well as post it here. I'm still new to the whole blog thing; I wish I could set this up so that you would be sent email when I wrote to you.

And (point of order) you're actually responding to Marshall, not to me, but I don't know if he re-scans comments.

Hatchett is famous amoung Episcopal Clergy. The book that I bet is on 90% or better of priests' shelves is called "A priest's handbook" and is a description, compelte with diagrams, of how to do the various liturgical actions that a priest is supposed to do. It's a good resource, because you don't get to cover all the things you're supposed to do during seminary classes, and it's good to have another's opinion to lean on. But he's also kinda heavy-handed, and he has a specific way of doing things.

He also wrote a reasonably good commentary on the prayer book, and some other useful works.

If I could rephrase Marshall, it might be something like "the experience the congregation wants to have but doesn't know how to create for themselves, which is why they have an over-educated clergyperson around." Which is only a different problem, I know.

Cristopher said...

TO ANONYMOUS:

you read both my and Julie's posts with sufficient attention to detail to comment on specifics, and wrote more than a sentence or two in response, so I'll assume for the moment that you're not a garden-variety blog troll.

(1) no, I know of no deliberate hazing at any seminary.

(2) my faith, and that of the people I worship with, encourages thinking rather than discouraging it. The Anglican tradition is built on the platform of (a) scripture, interpreted as wisely as we can, (b) the traditions and teaching of the historical church, honoring the wisdom of the spiritual masters of faith, and (c) the best of human reason and intellect.

Yes, there is a God; no, it's not ashram cats all the way down. But God doesn't look like what a pre-scientific world pictured God to be.

if you want to continue this conversation, I'll be glad to continue the conversation, but not in this forum and in your previous tone of voice. the links on the home page to this blog will lead you to a public email address or phone number where I'll be glad to converse with you.

Anonymous said...

THANK YOU, GLENN!!! Well spoken, as ever.

Marshall Scott said...

MEEEEEGAN (I hope, respectfully, that I've spelled that correctly; I may have lost count.):

I'll accept Christopher's rephrasing up to a point. However, I also would suggest that what people want is not necessarily what they need. (I know some will only hear this as arrogant; well, I can't please everybody.) The Church (as in the whole Body of Christ) in all its various subdivisions separates out and designates some to be specialists in maintaining and conveying the tradition. In and for that community, and within the context of that tradition, part of my responsibility is to offer people what they need, whether it's what they want or not. That doesn't make me morally or spiritually superior; just better educated for this purpose, as a cardiologist is not a better doctor than a family pracititioner, but better educated for a specific purpose.

This becomes a particular concern in Christopher's position. All too often, what people want is either what they've always had ("Change? That light bulb?"), or whatever is the newest trend. But in facing a changing world, what they've always had may be inadequate to prepare them to live the faith where they are. And the newest trend may be fine, but not appropriate for their particular context. We see dozens of ads on television for drugs that don't tell you what they're for: "Ask your doctor if ______ is right for you." So, having more information, like that broad spectrum of the many different ways we have expressed ourselves as Christians, is an asset to the Christian community, in helping people get what they need, and not just what they want.

As for clericalism: trust me, I have considered sacrificing a goat in hope that it would get me a plumber faster. I'm not concerned terribly about his moral or spiritual superiority, but he's a long sight better at stopping the leak than I am.

Anonymous said...

Terribly minor correction, Cristopher..."A Priest's Handbook" is by Dennis Michno. I love to compare it with Byron Stuhlman's "Prayer Book Rubrics Expanded" (high church vs. low) when working on the logistics, just to get two sometimes very different perspectives.

Or am I collecting ecclesiastical baseball cards again? :)

Cristopher said...

oops, that's right. I wrote the comment from home rather than from my study and didn't check.

It was the tone of the commentary that I was aiming for rather than the handbook.

meeegan said...

Hi folks,

Three E's. That's all. :-)

Cristopher, I knew I was responding to Marshall's comment. If you'd prefer that comments on your blog stick to responding to the original post and avoid inter-commenter threads, just let us know and I'll be happy to abide by that. Your blog, your preferences rule!

I think your rephrasing shifts the misunderstanding to a different place, rather than eliminating it. But that would only be true if every churchgoer were like me -- which all y'all in the clergy should thank your Maker that they are not.

Cristopher said...

For the record, I don't mind in the slightest if commenters (commentators? comment-posters? whatever.) respond to each other rather than to me. Sinful and self-centered I most certainly am, but not that bad.

I do, however, reserve the right to delete spam and/or general nastiness.

Anonymous said...

I think the word you seek is "blogremoras".

Not nastiness! Not! Not! See the smiley? -----> :)

:P~~~~~~~

Unknown said...

What an excellent post. I liked the story of the Ashram Cats. You know it is not just the Anglican Tradition that has them, it is in the Methodist as well. God help us. I do so pray that we find a way to reach out to this generation that has no idea about why we do what we do or wear what we wear, and could care less. And to the person who says Jesus disappears, well, lets just say its us who gets in the way of others seeing and knowing Jesus.

Anonymous said...

Cristopher,

Jen directed me to your post on Ashram cats. Fun post. It sounds like you and kinda makes me homesick for you.

I got a kick out of anonymous' comment. Anonymous needs to go back and read Exodus 32. There is a difference between worship of the Golden Calf and faithful response to the Covenant Making God of Israel.

All human language is symbolic. This is pretty basic stuff. Anonymous' comment is reduced to the sophmoric when anonymous suggests all religious language is ashram cats all the way down. The symbolic nature of language does does not mean that all the layers of metaphor can be stripped away until "poof" everything disappears.

Some symbols convey the grace of covenant-making. Other symbols convey denial structures that enable people to avoid risking faithfulness.

Julie's red cowboy boots poking out from beneath a cassock in an Episcopal Seminary is closer (though much more trivial) to something like an African-American sitting down to order a sandwich at a "white's only" lunch counter in 1950s Alabama.

Episcopal Seminaries are lost in the wilderness. It is going to take a lot of Red Cowboy Boots to help them break out of their institutional maintenence mode and realize a world is dying to hear the story of the transforming power of God at work in those who believe.

Pat Greene said...

Kevin, reading your comment on Cristopher's post made me nostalgic for the Bethel class you two taught together. : )

Cristopher, I was at lunch last Saturday, and the issue of church traditions came up, and I mentioned your post about the ashram cats. One of the people I was with argued that the Gospel procession, being based on bringing the Word of God to the people, was symbolism too important to lose, even if a lot of people don't know why we do it.

Could it be that there are two varieties of ashram cats? Some directed at the people, to connect them with the traditions of the church and "because we've always done it this way," and another to remind the church as an institutional entity (and the clergy) of its own past?

I know the church is its people, is supposed to be its people. But as we both know that there are quite a few Episcopal churches that forget that fact, with clergy being essentially providers and parishioners as consumers of services. A lot of the things you've identified in this post help foster that. But maybe some of them would not, if people were more aware of the reasons behind the symbols.

I'm having trouble explaining exactly what I want to say, here.

Anonymous said...

Hey,

It's Anonymous again... I will name myself "Anonymous42" lest there are any other Anonymous's out there and you want to keep my posts straight.

Lots to read, I love blogs and I love the fact that conversation can happen even when it would be quite impossible to say or engage with people directly. Why would it be impossible, one only needs to let your imagine run wild, you can come up with reasons.

So, let me first clear things up, if I could post with my name, I certainly would. Anonymous was invented for those of us who for very specific reasons can not. But yet, we get a voice, which results in more ideas being shared. If it were possible to engage directly, I would, but would you really want that. Do you want your blog posts to be only those that like you and see things your way? Anyway, enough said about "Anonymous", I hope you and the rest of your readership accept me at my word on this one. However, I will try not to use the cloke of Anonymous to be rude or hurtful, I think sometimes we/I make the mistake of not being as careful as I should because it is anonymous.

Secondly let me say that I love good debate, and send in direct posts not because I want to hurt anyone's feelings, rather, I am debating. I also don't hold the viewpoints of your community, so what seems harmless debate to me, might be hurtful, and for that I am sorry.
I assume everyone takes blog posts with a grain of salt, especially anonymous ones. But if people where hurt buy it, I once again apologize.

Now that I've cleared that up, and am in a better frame of mind tonight, maybe I can clarify a few things from an outsiders viewpoint. It would seem from my viewpoint, that the "cats" are rooted fairly deeply in most corners of every church and religion I've studied. Take a few of them them in Chronological order:

o 200 years ago, stories were dreamed up about the church of ladder day saints. DNA
evidence has now proven that Mr. Smith made it all up. Yet it is the fastest growing
church in the US, but all based on cats.

o 250 years ago, the founding fathers of america created their own church, because they
didn't like the King of England anymore. Understandably because his church was crafted
by a somewhat of a madman of a king who wanted a divorce.

o And just this last year, another round of archeologists have determined yet another
of the biblical stories were made up. The diggings of cities showed small
villages where the bible reported kindoms.

It would seem to me, that various leaders of various christain churches have been taking liberties to justify the distruction of some cats, while placing others on high ground.

Is your post not just another small movement in this continuing cycle? Where rules of a church are re-written time and time again. Some cats attacked while putting forth new better traditions?

I guess, you might again take this the wrong way, so I will try to summarize my point:

- All of it is made up, I was just pointing out that it is silly to make fun of one part
you all don't like, when in reality 98.5% of it is all just cats. Best just to promote
the view that what WE see as good traditions today, will be cats to the next few generations.
The stories, the tradition, the church itself is all man's invention. Just as we now
know the earth revolves around the sun, not the sun around the earth. Thank you Gallalio,
what a giant cat that was.

- The message of jesus is right (that kevin fellow has that going for him), Jesus's
message of community caring and tireless giving to others, that's real. Man's
institutions that attempt to accomplish gods message is a rather large complete
collection of cats.

- All of the cats are good, for they provide structure for delivering service to a
community. Some cats will come, some cats will go, but don't fool yourself into thinking
they aren't all cats, for they are.


:-)

Anonymous42

Cristopher said...

Dear Anonymous42,

I’ll start with something I hope we can agree on. Jesus said that the first and greatest commandment was the love the Lord your God with all your heart, and mind, and strength, and that the second was to love your neighbor as yourself. I think we can agree that if we all were to take that second part to heart, in a sense of, to quote you, “community caring and tireless giving to others,” then the world would be a much better place.

To your anonymity:
While I can make a reasonable argument for privacy (not anonymity) in the public domain, I honestly did let my imagination run wild as you suggested, and I can’t think of a particularly good reason why you must be an anonymous voice in this forum. I can think of a couple that might be true. In no particular order:
* you’re a person in a position of power and authority, for whom it would be politically damaging to speak anti-Christian thoughts in your own name. A politician from the deep South, for example, or a pastor of some kind.
* You’re someone who knows me in “realspace,” and you’re afraid of what my reaction would be to you if you used your real name. Maybe a member of my congregation?

A couple of things in response:
First, I think you vastly overestimate the amount of traffic my blog gets. Last I checked, right after I put out the hit counter, I was getting about 15 readers a week, most of them old friends of mine. This isn’t exactly a place for public debate, though I’m honored that you might engage me in such a fashion.

Second, if you know me in realspace, then I’m sorry you feel afraid to talk to me. I actually do try hard to promote openness and dialogue. And, as the original post might indicate, I tend to be a boundary-pusher myself.

Third, my invitation to you was not to try to reassure you that you could post anonymously and be comfortable, but that you could be comfortable about contacting me privately without me “outing” you. Anonymous42, I’m a priest. I know you don’t trust institutional Christianity, but maybe you can trust that, within the framework of that tradition, I am as faithful as I can be to what’s expected of me.


And yes, there are LOOOOOOTS of ashram cats in modern institutional Christianity. That was my original point.

You're pointing out specific things that were shown to be inaccurately understood in the history of Christianity. well, um, yeah. That kind of thing happens a lot. We have to use the best of our God-given human reason to try to make sense of creation.

Let me try to say this gently: you're not bringing up a new idea. Nobody goes through the process of joining a church (or, in my case, the six-year process of becoming a priest) without some consideration of what that involves, and facing the question that it might be ashram cats all the way down. We've all been there. And we continue to be Christians because it's not cats all the way down.

Learning new things does call us to question our assumptions, which is a good thing. It calls us to re-examine our conception of God, which is occasionally world-shifting in the way Galileo caused us to re-examine our concept of the universe. But revising our understanding of God doesn't mean that God is nonexistent.

Anonymous said...

Cristopher,

Just to clarify, I posted a comment under "anonymous" on another of your blog posts, but I am not "anonymous42", though s/he has some interesting ideas about which I think it would be fun and challenging to "reason together." :-)

Brendan

Anonymous said...

John

Your comment about the "Evangelical Church" piqued my interest. Have you ever been a regular attendee at modern American Evangelical churches?

Having been one for several years, I agree that there is less ceremonial grandeur. I also agree that these churches are much more in tune with the modern American consciousness than ones clinging to their liturgical traditions. Having said that, the reason these churches are so popular in my experience is that they use much more modern methods of thought control for which ceremonial "Ashram Cats" are not well-suited.

Many of these Evangelical Churches are a product of the "wellness movement" (See Roger Betsworth's "American Social Ethics") incorporating the pop psychology of Norman Vincent Peale into Christianity to great effect. This is the fertile ground from which "prosperity gospel" and the religious identities necessary for homogenous American consumerism grow. This brand of Christianity takes advantage of a larger cultural dynamic at work - the myopic focus on individual feeling of fulfillment rather than giving voice to feelings of love, forgiveness, and tolerance. And that is a very effective method for wresting control of a modern American's identity because our culture immerses us in the idea that "happiness" and "more" are synonyms. The Republicans, the self-help industry and multilevel marketing are all taking advantage of this same cultural dynamic - which is driven (as these things always are) by commerce and technology - the economic efficiency of mass marketing made possible by the mass media of radio and television improves its penetration by homogenizing cultural identity AND building that identity around conspicuous consumption. I'd suggest Benjamin Barber's "Jihad v. McWorld" and Eric Schlosser's "Fast Food Nation" as two excellent windows into the nature of this phenomenon.

I see this broader cultural movement, of which Evangelical Christianity is a part, as a serious threat to the future of our democracy, and the Constitutional values on which the U.S. was founded. It also appears to me to be anathema to the principal virtues of Christianity: tolerance, non-violence, forgiveness, kindness, humility, patience, and moderation.

These are my thoughts anyway.

Brendan