Introduction : The Starting
Line
Peering into the past is more comfortable than speculating on things to come. Predicting the future may, in fact, be a fool's errand.
Still, in light of the evidence now available, a look toward the 21st century isn't as scary as it first appears. At the very least, the fuzzy outlines of megatrend landmarks are already heaving into sight, no longer remote abstractions on the distant horizon. The third millennium is, after all, scarcely 100 months away as I write this. If there's a problem, it may be that even now we're too close to fully understand what we're experiencing — rather like the blind men and the elephant.
Expectations about the year 2000 grow more intense with every rip of the calendar. The big two-triple-0 "bears the cumulative emotional weight of thousands of deferred hopes and unfulfilled predictions," declares Hillel Schwartz, author of the psychohistory Century's End.1
As we move up to the starting line, let's set the record straight on just when the 21st century actually begins: The 20th century ends on December 31, 2000; and the turn of the millennium happens on the stroke of midnight between December 31, 2000, and January 1, 2001!
Never mind that the hearty party will be on New Year's Eve, 1999,
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rather than the following December 31. Those of us precisionists who now know the mathematical and chronological truth can smugly wait to celebrate the real millennium.
Meanwhile, I invite you to join me right now as we start a journey to 2001 and beyond.
Go with the Flow
As a religion writer for the nation's largest metropolitan daily newspaper, I have sensed that there is not only curiosity about, but great personal interest in, what religious belief and practice will be like in the 21st century. But I think it's also important to examine how the impending turn of the century and America's vision for the future are molding our spiritual perceptions and faith communities right now, during the 1990s.
So as you read this book, keep in mind this three-way flow: (1) how America's future will be affected by the religious beliefs and practices of today; (2) how future trends will affect religion then; and (3) how the pull of the future and its anticipated trends are shaping religious beliefs and practices now and through the rest of the decade.
Racing Toward 2001 takes a look through the lens of religion at the major forces shaping our future, whereby you can glimpse both the perils and the opportunities. It is a sampling, not an exhaustive treatment, that presents firsthand case studies and models — windows toward the coming millennium. As you become acquainted with some of these innovative churches and ministries, it is my hope that their influence will, in turn, inspire other works for good and for God.
In journalistic style, this book draws broadly from some of the best information, resources, and authorities available. I have sought out leaders and organizations that are creatively assessing and addressing what is happening, while keeping an eye toward the future. In all, I have personally interviewed more than seventy-five "experts," including futurists, sociologists, historians, artists, educators, journalists, theologians, ethicists, pastors, rabbis, priests, church growth specialists, and other assorted religion watchers and doers.
But I'm especially interested in the impact of coming megatrends
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on the ordinary person — "pew people," I call them — and I have consulted them, as well.
We humans are "incurably religious." For the vast majority of Americans, religion — and in particular, Christianity — is one of life's most powerful, pervasive, and persuasive forces. In a 1990 survey asking 113,000 American adults to identify their religion, 86 percent claimed to be Christian, and just 7.5 percent said they had no religion at all.2
The survey — perhaps the most detailed religious study of twentieth century Americans — revealed that, for many, religious identification is at least as important as racial and ethnic affiliation. So we will look at our common future from the angle of the diversity and pervasiveness of religion.
What It's Got and What It's Not
Racing Toward 2001 begins with an analysis of the powerful demographic forces that are reconfiguring America. These changes will affect virtually every aspect of our lives by 2001. You'll see the sweeping impact of technology and ecology, along with major shifts in education, media, the arts, politics, and economic policy. Along the way, you'll pick up information about upheavals in family and lifestyle patterns — and learn an alphabet of socio-acronyms that started with YUPPIES (young urban professionals) and escalated to BUPPIES (black urban professionals), DINKS (dual income, no kids), and SITCOMS (single income, two children, outrageous mortgages).3
Part 2 analyzes the shifts, dislocations, and soul-searching reappraisals that have occurred in American religion during the past several decades. It projects who the major players in the religious stadium will be after 2001 and what they'll be doing. "Alternative Altars" considers the expanding "God shelf" and the growing presence of non-traditional faiths; and you'll meet some of those many "believers but not belongers" out there. "Clashing Cosmologies" details what I see as the "Mother of battles" shaping up between the worldview of New Age / Eastern mysticism versus the Judeo-Christian view of creation, humanity, and redemption.
In Part 3, we'll visit a variety of churches and ministries — promising
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models for the millennium that may be playing soon in your neighborhood.
And in Part 4, I weave together the multiple strands of our country's religious future to provide help to harness those forces for the journey into the Next Age. Finally, there's a list of books, organizations, and other resources.
Rather than heaping on answers or hounding you with prescriptions, I'll let you draw your own conclusions from credible choices.
Now, here are several things Racing Toward 2001 is not:
It's not a book about church growth, per se, or about methods of evangelism. I do give many examples of successful and growing ministries, and I do cite the leading church-growth experts. But specialty "how-to" books are already available in that category. (I list some in the Bibliography of Resources.)
This is not a book about leadership roles and management-building. I do include a chapter on shifts in pastoral styles (20), and I give examples of effective ministry management. But, again, a number of good books are available, written specifically for professionals and those in church leadership echelons.
Nor is this book a roundup of the latest surveys of religious trends. I do include some charts and key statistics; I quote researchers, sociologists, and pollsters. But George Gallup, Jr., George Barna, Andrew Greeley, Wade Clark Roof, and William McKinney — among others — have skillfully compiled and analyzed such data in their own writings.
Finally, this book is not a darkly tinted look at biblical prophecy. I do acknowledge a distinct apocalyptic edge to the turning of a millennium that can't be ignored. But I leave it to others with deeper scriptural insights — and more nerve — to delineate Armageddon and the end times.
Remember, there's no magic about a number. When the saints go marching in, whether it's 2000 or 2001 or whenever, we all want to be in that number.
Till then, please join me in the human race.
