Evangelical Christians in Ireland are seen as right-wing bible bashers, but they insist it's not the full picture, writes Fionola Meredith
Evangelicals have a bad reputation. They are often portrayed as latterday flat-earthers, clinging desperately to an outmoded spiritual worldview. Their critics argue that behind the evangelical "cuddly charismatic" exterior - all woolly jumpers, guitars and uplifting renditions of Shine, Jesus, Shine - lies a rigid social conservatism.
For instance, although women make up the majority of the congregation in most churches, many evangelicals still subscribe to the notion of "headship", the divinely decreed authority of men over women. And the ultra-emotional style of worship common to many evangelical churches, with its appeal to the heart rather than the head, has led to accusations of dumbing down. American historian Mark Noll once rather cattily observed that "the scandal of the evangelical mind is that there is not much of an evangelical mind".
It's a negative image that Sean Mullan, national director of the Evangelical Alliance Ireland (EAI), is keen to dispel. "When evangelicals hit the press, it's always either George Bush or Ian Paisley," he admits. "Yet 95 per cent of evangelicals in Ireland are not like that."
But it seems that the bad press isn't deterring prospective worshippers. At a time when traditional church attendance is in sharp decline, new research from the EAI shows a dramatic 500 per cent increase in the number of evangelical Christians in Ireland since 1980. The EAI estimates that about one in three attendees at evangelical churches were raised outside Ireland. Yet 65 per cent of those who attend an evangelical church are Irish-born, and of these, about two-thirds come from a Catholic background.
Just what are evangelical churches offering that makes giving up a Sunday morning lie-in worthwhile? Although Jim Foley was brought up as a Catholic, as an adult he moved away completely from the church and became a confirmed agnostic, teaching his own two children to question the idea of God. But for the last five years, Foley and his family have been enthusiastic members of Dublin West Community Church, a small evangelical congregation in Blanchardstown.
"I just realised there was something missing. I was ignoring the spiritual dimension, trying to fill it with cars or holidays." But wasn't he tempted to return to Catholicism? Foley's answer is emphatic: "No - I needed to have a relationship with God, rather than the formality of the Mass."
While Foley's youngest daughter, then aged five, reacted with relative equanimity to the family's spiritual volte-face (remarking, "I always knew that God loves us"), his older daughter, then aged eight, took longer to adapt to the new situation. "I apologised to her for denying her a relationship with God," says Foley.
THE INFORMALITY OF many evangelical churches - no robed priests or staid hymns - forms a large part of their appeal. "Many [ traditional] churches are seen to be in maintenance mode," says Pastor Robert Dunlop, editor of Evangelicals in Ireland. "But evangelicalism is characterised by spiritual enthusiasm. The majority of these people have a Pentecostal streak, a style of worship involving the bodily expression of faith, with loud music, singing and dancing. They're not satisfied with primly sitting in a pew."
Dunlop believes that this more vibrant and expressive approach is particularly attractive to young people. "Evangelical churches by and large offer participation rather than spectatorship. It's about getting stuck in."
A direct, intensely personal encounter with God, unmediated by priestly intervention of any kind, is another key characteristic of evangelical faith. "Many evangelicals are light liturgically and strong experientially," says Dunlop. "They believe in what George Whitefield [ one of Methodism's founding fathers] called 'a felt Christ'."
But religious affairs commentator Malachi O'Doherty isn't impressed. "That combination of jeans, guitars and giddiness is just a kind of hyper-emotionalism. It's really shallow. When you consider the range of emotional expression that religious music and art is capable of, the 'happy-clappy' stuff is pretty thin gruel."
Robbie, now in his early 30s, joined a Pentecostal fellowship in his teens. In the parlance of the movement, he's a "backslider", a sinner fallen by the wayside. "It's taken me a long time to deal with the emotional and psychological legacy of my evangelical adolescence," he says. "Evangelical faith is achieved through fear as much as love. Rather than allowing you to trust yourself to reason, reflect and make choices, it leads you to see yourself as fundamentally untrustworthy. Your life is a continual fight between ceding control to the spirit or following your own wicked and selfish impulses."
But these days it seems that many evangelicals take a more relaxed approach to the traditional moral strictures. As evangelical writer Glenn Jordan says, "Just avoid the big sins, read the Bible regularly and pray, and you'll be fine."
The Evangelicals: Who are they?
Evangelicals believe in the sole authority of the Bible and in a spiritually transformed personal life - being "born again". The evangelical church community incorporates churches from a variety of Christian traditions, including groupings such as Baptist, Assemblies of God and other Pentecostal or Charismatic churches, and independent fellowships. It also includes churches with a mix of evangelical and non-evangelical congregations such as the Church of Ireland, and the Methodist and Presbyterian churches. FM