Interim Adventures: Defining Religious Individualism

So I won't receive any comments about my thesis until 21st. Right now I feel like I'm in a holding pattern. I'm so used to being so deep in thought that I'm not sure I can transition my brain very well to "normal" life. Things just seem so quiet up there. Lately, I've been so lost in thought I can barely drive or cook. Anyways, I know some of you have been wanting to know more about the thesis or at least read snippets of it. I've been waiting till the paper was in the publication process to share any detailed information but I think now it's pretty safe to talk about it. Well, not safer, I guess, but I'm tired of waiting.

So one of the major themes of my paper is this phrase that pretty much describes the whole Lakewood movement. It's called religious individualism. You've probably heard me talk about it and how I never want to create an operational definition ever again. All 140 pages of my paper talk about this phrase, what its defining characteristics are, how it can be applied to churches, and how it can be applied specifically to Lakewood. Then, because I'm a media studies person and crazy, I talk about how this phrase can be applied to a religious use of mass media and how religious individualist churches change the landscape of media in religion today. That's pretty much the paper in a nutshell. A very very large nutshell.

Anyways, I thought that over the next few days I'd go through what each of the characteristics were in detail for you. That sounds like a mightily nerdy blog series but stay with me. One of the things I noticed as I described the characteristics was how much any Christian could display these traits at one time or another. Knowing this has allowed me to keep a humble attitude, by God's power, when studying the people of Lakewood. For example, one of the characteristics is having a privileged attitude toward God and even though I can see this trait displayed at Lakewood, I also see it in myself. It has been too often when I have felt entitled to certain blessings because of a misguided idea of who I am rather than for who God is. God loves His children, yes, and is the keeper of covenants. Yet, above all, God is faithful to Himself and acts for the sake of glorifying His holy name.

So, over the next few days you'll learn about emotional displays as a visual indicator of religious individualism, a personal responsibility toward faith, a sense of entitlement, and an obligation to meet the personal over communal needs in a church. It is important to know that each of the characteristics must be present within a person on a consistent basis for that person to be classified as a religious individualist. Only when each of the characteristics are present, can they combine to produce the definition of religious individualism. This definition is a description of a person who sees him- or herself as set apart from the Christian community based on a religious belief in a God who is personally and emotionally involved in the individual's well being.

Sounds pretty innocuous, right? However, there's much much more to know. What does it mean to be "set apart?" What is the foundation of this "Christian community"? What does it mean to be emotionally involved? And how important is "well being" in the life of a religious individualist? These are some of the issues that I'll cover when I talk about each characteristic. I hope you find it fruitful in reading about each one as much as I did in writing about them.