The Church of Wells Invades Lakewood, Or Historicizing a Heckling Incident
Charity R. Carney
In a sense (wait for it...) Wells is right. Osteen does
motivate his followers and does not deliver the “traditional” evangelical
messages. Lakewood and many megachurches like it do steer clear of the
hell-fire-and-brimstone messages and focus instead of uplifting their audiences
and giving them hope instead of pointing out spiritual shortcomings. Based on
its fundamentalist doctrine, I could see where Wells would view Osteen as
deleterious to their definition of religiosity. Although especially unnerving because
it followed the tragedy in Charlestown, the confrontation at Lakewood does help
to reveal a conflict at the heart of the development of megachurches in the
South. As these large congregations have started to dominate the religious
landscape, smaller congregations have been marginalized in many places and
their traditional worship styles subsumed by contemporary praise-and-worship
rock bands. Country churches with their white steeples are still around but in
smaller numbers and, instead, many southerners are flocking to arenas and large
church facilities with youth complexes and coffee shops. Wells is an extremely
fundamentalist sect but their attitudes do highlight the ways in which
megachurches have challenged evangelical traditions and, in the process,
threatened smaller, more conservative congregations.
That being said, it’s not surprising that Wells invaded a
megachurch service. The six hecklers from Wells (a congregation of about 70
members in deep East Texas) have held a longstanding suspicion of megachurches
and have written about their views on the church website. In one testimonial about another megachurch
in Houston (Sagemont), a Wells member claimed
that “[m]ost members there would work hard at their vocations, raise their
children to adulthood, and then upgrade to bigger and better homes in more
expensive neighborhoods. Most would not treat the grace of God as a reason to
deny ungodly lusts and worldliness, but just the opposite, thinking it the way
of Christ to gain more instead of die to self more.” The call against
megachurches in this instance is ultimately a rejection of the prosperity
gospel and the kind of worship experience that it promotes.
The leadership of Wells represents the lingering
fundamentalism in southern evangelicalism and they claim an impressive (if
problematic) theological lineage. On their website, the congregation makes
reference to Wesley, Edwards, and Whitefield (among others) as the fathers of
the fundamentalist doctrine to which they ascribe. The connections are blurry
and contradictory (maybe they will offer more explanation on their relationship
to these figures once the website is finished) but their message certainly emphasizes
sinfulness and repentance and their rhetoric is reminiscent of 18th
and 19th century jeremiads. I’ve personally encountered Wells
street-preaching on the Stephen F. Austin State University campus and at
small-town events like the Nacogdoches Blueberry Festival. (Yes, there is a
Blueberry Festival. Yes, I ate something fried and drank too much blueberry
lemonade. And, yes, the Church of Wells showed up in full force to preach
against homosexuality in the middle of a large crowd of over-heated Texans.) When
they show up, Wells preachers, male and female, stand on soapboxes painted with
the word “Repent!” in large lettering and exhort passersby to give up their
sinful ways and join the holy cause. They are a small group but they are
determined. It would be easy to dismiss them as an anomaly—they are not part of
a movement like Lakewood is, with millions of followers all over the world—but
they are adopting certain stylistic characteristics that demonstrate a
knowledge of evangelical tactics that have been effective in the past. The
Methodist minsters that I studied took it upon themselves (or so they and their
hagiographers claimed) to interrupt duels and debate other minsters openly, to
visit taverns and stand on tables preaching against the sin of drink, and to
enter homes and implore residents to give up their vices. Wells is certainly
not Methodist despite their claims to Wesley, but they are borrowing from similar
revivalist and preaching traditions. Their antics at Lakewood offers an
interesting contrast of the old and the new in southern religion.
Although Wells and other fundamentalist churches make claims
to authenticity and historical tradition, megachurches like Lakewood also have
traditions or have engaged in retraditioning to reach a 21st century
audience. Megachurches have their own lineage in American religious history and
since last month’s heckling hijinks, I’ve been thinking about how both groups
can claim authenticity and evangelical heritage even though they are so
divergent in their doctrines and practices. Putting personal politics and
beliefs aside, I see these moments as opportunities to investigate the
foundations that lead to religious conflict within a faith group. When I
studied and wrote about 19th
century Methodism, I encountered schisms, debates, and outright personal
attacks that are not that dissimilar from the June 28 event. As a historical
moment, perhaps the Wells/Lakewood confrontation can tell us a bit more about
the divergent doctrines in southern religion and provide a little bit of
insight into the tensions between small/big religion in the region.
Lakewood borrows from the past but, unlike Wells, is actively
engaged with current trends and often influences those trends. Osteen preaches
against sin but adopts the neo-Pentecostal approach. He encourages believers to
walk the narrow path but to also pray for prosperity in this life (whether it
be prosperity in the form of wealth, health, relationships, personal
fulfillment, etc.). While Wells is adopting the rhetoric of impending damnation
and employs jeremiads to convict potential converts, Lakewood builds believers
up and encourages them to see the best in themselves—to look forward to their “Best
Life Now” and to seek God’s blessings. In fact, after the Wells
interruption, Osteen recovered by not engaging the insults, thanking the congregation for their patience and reminding them that they will "continue to receive what God has for us. It's a good day to be alive." Wells claims an authentic heritage and lays claim to some important spiritual
predecessors but Lakewood does not advertise how those who came before
influenced the church’s doctrine. Joel Osteen does discuss the impact of his
father, John, on the ministry, of course, but he rarely mentions past preachers
or movements. Lakewood’s theology is not without historical foundation,
however, as it borrows from the charismatic and Pentecostal traditions that
have been so expertly described by scholars like Kate Bowler
and Scott
Billingsley. Osteen’s church and ministry are clear indicators of the extensive
growth of neo-Pentecostalism in the late-twentieth century. The popularity or
prosperity-based megachurches in 2015 (Lakewood has about 47,000 in attendance
every weekend) signifies that the shift towards neo-Pentecostalism or at least
large, seeker-sensitive congregations is happening, especially in the South. (Justin Wilford—via Hartford
Institute—found that 50% of megas are in southern states as of 2012). These
numbers and the radical move away from traditional forms and fundamentalist
faith are significant—and that’s why Wells is so anxious.
Comments
I think you make a keen observation regarding how the Church of Wells leaders orient themselves to a particular historical-theological lineage; on the church’s web site their cloud of theological witnesses are all male and all white. This calls for a class, race, and gender analysis of the Church of Wells.
And your question about notions of religious authenticity and spiritual heritage (for both Wells, and Lakewood, along with other such congregations), seems to track with what Molly Worthen calls evangelicalism’s “crisis of authority.” Both congregations certainly draw from particular (perhaps even shared) traditions. From my perusal of their web site, testimonies, and videos, the Wells message appears to be that “true” faith must respond to a world and a Christian church in a constant state of crisis and decline. Lakewood’s message is that problems, difficulties, and crises will inevitably get better because of God’s providence, especially if one keeps “an attitude of faith” through positive thinking and positive confession.
In addition, I think you are correct to ask about the Wells-Lakewood episode in light of southern religion. I’m struck by the contrast between Osteen’s emphasis on second chances and the possibility of spiritual makeovers (something I attribute in part to Houston’s culture in Salvation with a Smile), while the Church of Wells seems to offer a second chance so long as one maintains adherence to their particular brand of faith. Perhaps we can connect this to Robert Wuthnow’s notion of Texas’s place as “rough country” in American religion.
While my comments here highlight the seeming contrasts between the Church of Wells and Lakewood, as your post suggests, we can ponder potential parallels between the two congregations by undertaking a deeper, broader historical, cultural, and even theological analysis that can tell us a great deal about this moment in American Christianity, southern religion, etc. In addition, as Mike McVicar and I have discussed recently, I wonder about framing analysis of the Church of Wells as a New Religious Movement?
For more on Whitefield and the resulting movements which participated in the 19th-century camp meetings, please visit the website for the book series on Francis Asbury. The Asbury Triptych Series details the early Methodist movement in England and America. The website for the trilogy is www.francisasburytriptych.com. Again, thank you for the article.
engaged in retraditioning to reach a 21st century audience
I learned a new word today, more interesting than the incident itself!