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Popular evangelicalism risks allowing the fashionable themes of our times to invade the center of religious life. Thus, managerial techniques and therapeutic concerns sometimes seem to occupy the citadel of faith, while theology appears to be in exile.

Critics such as David Wells and Os Guinness have rightly called for a restoration of theology's place in the church. However, in this essay, Reformed theologian Richard Mouw suggest that theologians can only do their part as they charitably examine the sometimes-tacky religion of the laity. By so doing they may discern what agenda the Spirit is suggesting for their work—and they can better address the common difficulties of human living.

At a meeting of theologians, one scholar reported: "I met this young manager type. He was as s recent convert to 'born again' Christianity, and he was eager to tell me about his newfound faith. He said he had come to think of God as his CEO, and that God was working to see that his special employees made a profit."

Then the theologian gave his assessment of the man's testimony (and typified many theologians' view of lay religion): "How tacky!"

I found this disturbing. When theologians dismiss as "tacky" the religious experiences, thoughts, and longings of the untutored, they risk missing their main target: serving God's people.

Even though this is a minor example, it illustrates a larger trend: many theologians today are suspicious of, and perhaps even hostile to, more popular expressions of the faith. Many evangelical scholars these days are publicly worrying about, for example, the popularity of recovery groups, Christian therapy centers, church-growth workshops, seminars in managerial methods for ministers, "signs and wonders" movements, and "power evangelism'' strategies. Their worries, of course, go beyond tackiness. Aren't evangelicals obsessed with "success" and "technique" at the expense of careful theological reflection? they ask.

Take, for example the critique found in theologian David Wells's recent book "No Place for Truth, or, whatever Happened to Evangelical Theology?" Wells is convinced that evangelicals have formed an unholy alliance with various non-Christian cultural forces: pragmatism, a democratized understanding of truth, a fondness for the therapeutic, and so on. All of this is grounded, Wells insists, in an unfortunate state of affairs where at the psychological center of much evangelical faith are two ideas that are also at the heart of the practice of democracy: (1) the audience is sovereign, and (2) ideas find legitimacy and value only within the marketplace. Ideas have no intrinsic or self-evident value; it is the people's right to give ideas their legitimacy. One implication of this belief is that the work of doing theology ought not to be left to an intellectual elite who...may consider the discovery of truth to be an end in itself. Rather it should be taken on by those who can persuade the masses of the usefulness of the ideas.

Christian leaders who endorse such a democratizing perspective have no choice but to "lead by holding aloft moist fingers to sense changes in the wind." In this, they differ markedly, says Wells, from the incarnate Son of God, "who never once tailored his teaching to what he judged the popular reception would be...."

Wells's main point is right: Jesus certainly wasn't a crowd-pleaser who had to test the winds of public opinion before he could say anything. But is it fair to say that Jesus never "tailored" his teaching to what he thought "the popular reception would be"? Certainly, in the teaching dimension of Jesus' ministry, he approached people in terms of their context. His ministry demonstrates the divine pedagogy that Calvin described: "As nurses commonly do with infants, God is wont in a measure to 'lisp' in speaking to us." The incarnation itself is a profound exercise in divine "tailoring."

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July 18 1994, Vol. 38, No. 8