Part of what helped the church to draw in so many people, Wilford argues, has been a strategy that has upended another commonly held assumption about centers and peripheries. While it’s common to speak of contemporary religious life in terms of “seekers,” such a usage typically refers to the individual, not the institution, as the one who is doing the seeking. Wilford suggests that Saddleback has reversed this scenario; by catering to individuals’ tastes, needs and preferences, the church, in effect, becomes the seeker. “It is not a matter of churches presenting their organization to the ‘seeking’ masses,” he writes, “but rather of actively seeking the masses out.”
This insight may press the point about “inversions” a little too hard; after all, if churches are trying to cater to “consumer” tastes, and consumers find the church based on those tastes, aren’t both parties doing at least some seeking, much in the same way consumers and producers in any marketplace seek one another out? Nevertheless, postsuburban megachurches, according to Wilford’s argument, have been more flexible and more receptive to their constituents’ needs and tastes than have their mainline or Catholic brethren, and this flexibility is largely responsible for their enormous growth. At Saddleback, this institutional seeking of the “religious customer” has taken a number of forms, including the development of a vast array of tastes: several alternative rock services, a “Spanish-language adult contemporary service,” an African American gospel service, a service featuring traditional hymns. If this menu seems to echo various spaces of consumption—a mall, perhaps, or a tourist resort that has lots of various dining and activities options—that’s quite literally by design. Wilford notes that Saddleback’s campus is intended to “mirror the architectural design of its surrounding environment,” a landscape well known for the prominence of its shopping spaces and opportunities for consumption. The line between consumption and religion—and, moreover, between what has been “sacralized” and what hasn’t—frankly seems so porous as to be nonexistent.
The following interview is by Joe McKnight, an MA candidate at Union Theological Seminary. James Cone is the founder of black liberation theology and the Charles A. Briggs Distinguished Professor of Systematic Theology at Union.
The interview appeared in The Revealer:
This should not be my first interview. That’s what I’m thinking during my haircut, a feeble attempt to look more professional. I hear a classmate’s voice in the chair next to me; he asks what I’m doing and I tell him.Really? Yes, really. I hand him the fifth draft of my questions, and after he looks them over, I ask if he has any advice. “Practice deference,” he answers. Good lord, yes! Being from the South, if I’ve been trained to be anything, it’s deferential.
“Do you think I should tuck my shirt in?” I ask my classmate.
“Doesn’t hurt,” he replies.
When I knock on the door, no one answers. Maybe he forgot! Hallelujah! I ring the door-bell; there is rustling. I thought I’d left behind the notion of divine intervention after my first year of seminary, but the hope that it exists comes roaring back. I’m that scared. It will have to be God, James Cone, and me.
He stands in the doorway, grinning. Despite his 73 years, I’m certain his face has changed little since his youth. His once soaring afro, however, has. He is wearing black slacks and house slippers; he wears his button down oxford lightly. Its pattern can only be described as Africa-meets-hounds-tooth, a look befitting Dr. Cone’s legacy. He asks me to sit in a deep-seated chair in his spotless apartment. I do not lean back. Both of our shirts are tucked in. I am sitting alone in this living room with the father of black liberation theology.
