A Retrospective on Lost Innocence

As the tumultuous 60s reverberate into the 70s, with the certainties of previous generations becoming suspect and widely discarded, Drew is on a coast-to-coast journey through late adolescence losing his innocence and coming of age as the nation he passes through is doing pretty much the same.

MAPLEWOOD NJ, 1964 — the year the Sixties really began, a time when it seemed ‘The Times [really were] a-Changin’.

A childhood idyl in suburban utopia:

Dad prospering at work and mom making a home for her growing family: summer swims at the town pool; sailing in Rockaway Inlet on visits to Nana’s Breezy Point beach house; winter ski trips and a vacation to California’s Disneyland …

But always in the background, that nagging black-and-white TV war, slowly coming into focus before bursting into view, in full, living—deadly—color.

Personal crises converge to uproot the family, forcing an unexpected move to the Midwest. Frivolities and “fast times” atAndover High ensue in a privileged enclave of the American Heartland, as a presidency unravels and hopes fade for meaningful or lasting change. At Michigan State, an idealistic undergrad’s intellectual curiosity morphs into spiritual yearning and a quest westward, back to California, in search of an authentic ethos for a life at the precipice of adulthood, the point of no return.

This fast-faced, entertaining experiment in literary nonfiction — grounded in the personal experience of memoir and contextualized in vivid journalistic passages spotlighting key cultural moments of the era — follows the decade-long unraveling of one parochial schoolboy’s bonds to his “inherited” religion, at a time when the social mores and conventions of recent generations are passing away.

Note to Christian Readers and pre-order information

The “seeker-to-believer” arc of this story follows one boy’s journey through his school years, concluding with a late-in-book conversion moment. The experiences of late adolescence are described frankly to maintain credibility with the book’s primary target readership, while the writing avoids gratuitous descriptions of the kind of debauched behavior common to the youth culture of the period.

The Christian Publisher who made the first offer to publish this book stated in their editorial review of the manuscript — “The story’s final epiphany scene is compelling and cinematic, consistent with a memoir rather than a devotional … written from the perspective of someone who [has] just encountered faith for the first time.”

‘Losing Our Religion’ will make a great gift for teens, or any “seeker” curious about the path out from dead religion into faith, or anyone just curious about the cultural history of the 60s. Christians of any age will be helped to “grow in love” through its vicarious reminder of who they were, before they became who they are.

When Jesus told Simon the Pharisee in Luke 7 that “one who is forgiven little, loves little,” he was referring to those who have lost touch with how much they’ve been forgiven. But as the woman in that story demonstrated, the converse is also true. Staying mindful of how much we’ve been forgiven will help keep “the love [we] had at first” fresh and constantly renewing (Rev 2.4).

Look for the sequel coming soon — ‘Losing MY Religion’

The continuing story of one young man’s path into Christian ministry and his discovery that the religious corruption he first encountered in human institutions is has its roots in his own corrupted human nature. His struggle to find spiritual freedom has just begun.

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AMERICAN TELEVISION’S “GOLDEN A…

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“Men do not differ much about what things they will call evils; they differ enormously about what evils they will call excusable.” – Illustrated London News, Oct. 23, 1909

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THE PUBLIC LETTERS (i.e. epistles) which comprise much of the New Testament feature a common refrain from the apostle who wrote most of them — a personal greeting extended to a group of believers gathering regularly in private homes in the cities where those letters were sent.

1. To the church of God in Corinth — “Aquila and Priscilla greet you warmly in the Lord, and so does the church that meets at their house..” (1Co 16.19)

2. To God’s holy people in Colossae — “Give my greetings to … Nympha and the church in her house.” (Col 4.15)

3. To Philemon, a wealthy Christian slaveholder in Colossae — “[and] Apphia, our sister … and the church that meets in your home.” (Phm 1.2)

Many of the early believers were Jewish and first heard the gospel in their local synagogue. A visiting speaker would arrive, talking about Jesus, and recounting recent events which had transpired in Jerusalem. Initial curiosity often led to rejection of both message and messenger, and also local synagogue members who had responded favorably to the good news. “Put out” of synagogue, these new believers would continue meeting in whatever space remained open to them, often private homes.

In Corinth, they left the synagogue and “went next door into the house of Titius Justus.” (1Co 18.7). In Philipi, after their release from prison, Paul and Silas “went to Lydia’s house [to encourage] the brothers and sisters.” (Acts 16.40). In Troas, they met in the third-story room of a large house where Eutychus famously nodded off and fell from his perch near an open window, “as Paul kept on talking until midnight.” (Acts 20.8).

For nearly two hundred years following the dramatic outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, Christians met almost exclusively in private homes scattered throughout the Empire. The ruins of pagan temples abound from the pre-Constantinian Roman world, but little to no evidence had surfaced for buildings dedicated to Christian worship until 2005, when Israeli archaeologist Yotam Tepper discovered ruins of the ‘Megiddo’ Church (AD 230) near Legio, an ancient Roman town in northern Israel.

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For nearly two hundred years of vibrant Christian lived experience —arguably Christianity’s most fruitful period of expansion—the Church carried out its mission bereft of the kinds of large buildings which today are perceived by many Christians as vital for the ongoing work of effective ministry.

Like anyone, I love the stimulation which comes from hearing a skilled orator deliver a powerful, well-crafted, insightful biblical message. I particularly enjoy the emotional thrill of an anointed worship service led by a gifted musician with an affecting set list. And it doesn’t escape me that I have usually experienced one or the other in a large space with hundreds if not thousands in attendance.

Still, Paul’s words haunt me, the man whose letters were judged by his contemporaries to be “weighty and forceful” but whose person sometimes appeared “unimpressive” and whose speaking — some Corinthians were heard to say — amounted “to nothing.” (2Co 10.10).

Paul once boasted that he purposely did not speak “with wise and persuasive words” so that his hearer’s faith would not rest on “human wisdom,” but upon the Spirit’s power. (1Co 2.4-5). The impact of gifted speakers or musicians on a large congregation can be transformative, whether the Holy Spirit anoints those operating the gifts, or even just those on the receiving end, as on Pentecost when pilgrims from multiple cultures heard the apostles’ message in “their own language.” (Act 2.6).

But then, apart from the Holy Spirit’s anointing, such experiences—however temporarily thrilling for the soul—may provide little long term spiritual benefits. Sometimes the problem isn’t with the person at the mic, but — as in the case of Ezekiel — the hindrance has more to do with the audience gathering to hear:

“My people come to you, as they usually do, and sit before you to hear your words … [but] to them you are nothing more than one who sings love songs with a beautiful voice and plays an instrument well.” (Ez 33.32).

Even in the best case scenarios, when the performers are anointed and listeners are responding properly, the experience is still limited to one primary actor exercising his or her gifts before a necessarily passive audience. The participatory nature of church meetings presented as the ideal in New Testament teaching is limited.

“When you come together, each of you has a hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation. Everything must be done so that the church may be built up.” (1Co 14:26).

That something valuable has been lost in devaluing the importance of intimate church gatherings in private homes is never more awkwardly demonstrated than in the artificial distribution of “the elements” during the typical communion service of a contemporary church meeting.

Jesus initiated the rite during an intimate Passover gathering—the so-called Last Supper—using common table menu items included in the meal to increase the impact of the teaching moment. Likewise, in the early Church, sharing the Lord’s Supper became a natural part of a normal meal often shared at the beginning of a typical home gathering (1Co 11).

The atmosphere in such an intimate setting just can’t be duplicated in larger mass meetings. This is not a call to forego large church gatherings, but rather a plea not to belittle or neglect smaller, more intimate ones, and so miss the unique opportunities they represent for mutual edification.

In recent years, we’ve begun hosting semi-regular, weekend-long, gatherings in private homes around the country. The table fellowship and shared experience of receiving from the Holy Spirit, through diverse gifts operating through most if not all those in attendance, has reminded us what’s possible in such gatherings.

Jesus said in the gospels, “I will build my church” (Mt 16.18), but too often we read that to mean more and more christians meeting in larger and larger buildings. The context of that statement, however, was referring to the personal growth and transformation he was observing—and drawing attention to—in one specific individual — Peter.

In the epistles, Christ is described as having provided the Church with apostles, prophets, and other gift ministries for the purpose of “building up” individuals who comprise the body of Christ. Large buildings and large meetings are fine, but hardly necessary for this kind of building, and can sometimes obscure, or even distract, from the essential task of strengthening the spiritual vitality of the individual disciple.

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Note: While writing this post I stumbled upon the teachings of Jonathan Brenneman* who has been addressing these themes in his online writing. JB is new to me, so I’ll hold off on an endorsement, but his writing is provocative and well researched.

* Brenneman’s site is https://gotoheavennow.com

BOB DYLAN RETURNED TO FOREST HILLS STADIUM in Queens Tuesday night, his second appearance at the storied venue since the ruckus he stirred up at the same venue in August 1965. That show, Dylan’s first full electric set since the uproar at The Newport Folk Festival the previous month — memorably dramatized in the recent Timothée Chalamet-helmed biopic — featured plenty of its own drama.

After their perceived betrayal at Newport that July, the West Village “folkie” zealots turned up on the grounds of the West Side Tennis Club in Queens ready for battle. Booing loudly from the start of the electrified second set, fans began sprinting across the courts to bum-rush the stage. Levon Helm fended them off with drumsticks, but some of the hooligans managed to yank pianist Al Kooper’s stool out from under him.

“All of a sudden, a slew of stragglers start running up onstage. Big beefy guards are tackling them on the stage. It hadn’t happened before! Pretty surreal. I turned around and see Kooper go down — Kooper’s gone!” — Bassist Harvey Brooks

The crowd tried to drown out the band with chants demanding a return of “the Dylan” who had opened the first set, alone onstage, with just acoustic guitar and harmonica. “WE WANT DYLAN!,” they shouted, as the enigmatic, mop-haired iconoclast played on, seemingly unperturbed, with an attitude best expressed in lyrics he would scratch out, in real time, a few months later in a Nashville studio, while recording “Most Likely You Go Your Way (and I’ll Go Mine).”

The pattern would repeat in years to come. The artist going off in a different direction, inspired by a new muse or divine encounter — the audience free to follow, or not. The angry crowd in Queens that night demanded Dylan’s return, but he would not, to Forest Hills anyway, for another 51 years.

Last Tuesday in New York, there was plenty of electricity in the air again. Violent thunderstorms forced the Yankees, eight miles away in the Bronx, to reschedule their game with the Pirates. Twenty miles to the south and east, Dave Matthews canceled his concert at Jones Beach. But Dylan’s show went on.

Granted, there was less electricity on stage than in times past. But there was still something in the air: energized during the band’s funky rendition of Dylan’s lone classic offering from the 60s, “It Ain’t Me Babe,” building during the Latin-groove inspired transformation of “When I Paint My Masterpiece,” and especially present in a few nostalgic moments late in the program when Dylan’s harmonica came out. Where there’s breath, there’s life, after all.

I experienced “live” Dylan only once before—nearly 50 years ago and mainly by accident—on a road trip up the coast from L.A. to San Francisco after failing to return for classes that fall at MSU. It was mid-Nov ‘78, when I drove into the Bay Area and noticed signage outside the Oakland Arena advertising tickets still available for a concert that night. Pulling off Highway 880, I bought a ticket for the show.

Inside the arena later that night, it was as if all the lost souls of the 60s had gathered, swaying and twirling together, Deadhead-style, in the back of the cavernous hall, to Dylan’s best-selling single from the previous decade, “Like a Rolling Stone,” desperately clinging to the song, it seemed, trying to recapture an already vanished mystique from a former age of wonder.

Dylan looked and sounded exhausted, nearing the finish line of the grueling 114-show Street-Legal Tour which had kicked off the previous February in Japan. He started swapping “Forever Young” for “Changing of the Guards” to close out shows when the tour reached the West Coast. Change was in the air. Another verse from a staple of the tour, ‘Señor (Tales of Yankee Power,’ performed at nearly every show that fall, might have spoken for the moment Dylan had come to:

“Let’s overturn these tables - disconnect these cables / This place don’t make sense to me no more / Can you tell me what we’re waiting for Señor.”

The two Oakland shows wrapped that Tuesday night. In San Diego, during Dylan’s Friday night performance, someone threw a small silver cross onto the stage. He reached down and pocketed the Christian trinket, taking it with him to his weekend shows in Arizona where fans first noticed it hanging from his neck as he played. Somewhere between Tempe and Tucson after one of those shows, Dylan had his “knee-buckling” encounter with Jesus.

By that time, I was already back on the road heading east, trying to process my own encounter with Jesus, experienced a few weeks earlier atop Mullholland Drive as I leaned back against my parked motorcycle watching the sun rise over the Hollywood Hills. Almost a year would pass before news of Dylan’s changed “way of thinking” would reach me back in New York.

As early as the previous October, during sound checks before shows, Dylan had been toying with an early, unpolished version of “Slow Train,” the song that would provide the title for his next album — his first and best gospel album — Slow Train Coming. Pre-release copies reached the British press that summer and London-based New Musical Express broke the news to the world, “Dylan & God – It’s Official.”

The early zeal of Dylan’s “gospel period” — not to mention the audience rancor he stirred up in the first live performances of his new music — has long since passed, but a remnant remains (of the former), surfacing from time to time, as it did again this week in Forest Hills, and especially two nights earlier in Bridgeport, where the aging convert closed his set with “Every Grain of Sand,” the most achingly beautiful, poetic offering and culminating song of that period.

In Forest Hills, Queens, on Tuesday night, barely an hour into his first and only set of the evening, the 85-year-old troubadour was working his way through the final few numbers of his prepared set list, toward the song which has been closing most shows on the current tour — “I Shall be Released.”

Third from last was the gentle ballad, “I’ve Made Up My Mind to Give Myself to You,” from 2020’s Rough and Rowdy Ways, with its pledge of fidelity, plea for understanding, and hope that “the gods go easy with me.” And also something else, buried in the middle verses and easy to miss, a reference and nod to a particular God.

If I had the wings of a snow-white dove
I’d preach the gospel, the gospel of love
A love so real, a love so true
I’ve made up my mind to give myself to you

Has he done so? Perhaps not very well, certainly not perfectly. But then, who of us has? And who are we to judge another man’s servant, anyway? To his own master he will stand or fall, as must we all (Romans 14.4).

Just past 9:00 pm — “not [quite] dark yet, but … gettin’ there” — the old man in the white hoodie, looking like one of the old Jedi warrior priests from Star Wars, stood up from behind his electric piano. Briefly extending an arm toward the crowd in appreciation, he shuffled offstage into the shadows.

“Any day now, any day now,” he may be released. I doubt we’ll see his like again.

“PURE AND UNDEFILED RELIGION in the sight of our God and Father is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.” (James 1.27)

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‘TRUE RELIGION’ IS A JEAN BRAND, not a phrase found anywhere in the Bible. It can be surprising, actually, to discover how little the Bible has to say about “religion.” The Greek word most closely as…

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THE SIGNING OF THE ANGLO-IRISH TREATY in 1921 marked the first major step toward the end of British rule in the southern twenty-six, of Ireland’s thirty-two counties. Beginning in 1937, with the drafting of the Bunreacht na hÉireann — literally “Basic Law,” i.e. Constitution — Ireland’s first Taoiseach (a.k.a. Prime Minister), arch-conservative Catholic Eamon De ValeraDe Valera, began working hand-in-glove with the country’s powerful, soon-to-be Archbishop of Dublin, John Charles McQuaid, to inculcate Catholic teaching into every aspect of Irish society.

Fr. McQuaid was still just a priest when De Valera set to work on this founding document of the Irish nation, personally supervising the developing draft with significant input from McQuaid, then headmaster at Blackrock College, a secondary school run by the Holy Ghost Fathers in Williamstown just south of Dublin.

De Valera had attended the school in his youth and was living nearby when McQuaid hosted the Papal Legate and other dignitaries at a Blackrock garden party in June of 1932 to celebrate that year’s International Eucharistic Congress in Dublin. Fresh off his party’s victory in the February election, de Valera was present and noticed McQuaid’s diplomatic skills overseeing the event. Two years later, when de Valera formally initiated work on the new constitution, he turned to McQuaid for input, particularly on issues regarding religion and family.

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IT WAS LATE SUMMER 1975. LOREN CUNNINGHAM, founder of Youth With A Mission (YWAM), was on a personal retreat with his wife Darlene somewhere in the Colorado Rockies when he got word that Campus Crusade for Christ (now CRU) founder Bill Bright was looking for him . . .

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BACK IN ANCIENT TIMES — in the early 1980s — it seemed every pulpit message we heard would at some point return us to Ephesians 4:11, to emphasize, once again, the importance of the 5-fold ministry gifts, a reminder that “Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service.”1

We set up camp around this passage for years, convinced it was the key, in our day, to building “fully restored” New Testament churches. Lately, for me though, the more relevant question has become — Why did Paul distinguish and prioritize the 3-fold ministry gift offices of apostle, prophet and teacher (1Co 12.28) over the other two?

Traditional churches have long since replaced these biblical ministerial categories with their own hierarchal systems of priests and bishops. In modern times, most Bible-centric churches have placed their emphasis on pastors and evangelists.

Generally, pastors lead, accountable to boards made up of competent lay people, spiritually-qualified elders, or a mix of the two groups. Traveling evangelists preach by invitation — blowing in, blowing up, and blowing out,” as pastors often say.

Until fairly recently, apostles and prophets were mostly unheard of. When individuals did turn up claiming those lofty titles, there were often greeted with suspicion. But from the 1980s onward, the emerging emphasis on Ephesians 4 began to change … 2

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“PURE AND UNDEFILED RELIGION in the sight of our God and Father is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.” (James 1.27)

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