The Eccentricities of Evangelicalism: Conferences

Enough blathering about romance, romantic systems, and all that sort of thing. It's time to change gears, and instead blather about evangelicals and their weirdnesses. This series has been brewing for a while, and I think you'll enjoy it. It's all done in good humor and fun and isn't intended to be any sort of harsh critique.

Of all the sociopolitical and socioreligiousethnic groups out there, evangelicals have to stand as one of the more fascinating to study. I don't think many realize this, but it's true. Many Christians grow up in the church and know only its ways, considering them the standard for all people (minus the whole faith thing, that is). But when you take a step back and look closely at evangelicalism, you realize it's a strange animal. Kind of like when you first saw a monkey up close. It looks normal enough from a distance, but then you get up near its face, and discover that its a strange animal indeed.

One of the primary ways we evangelicals show our kookiness is in our staging of and attendance at conferences. We are a conferencing people. Don't believe me? Pick up World or Christianity Today, two of the most-read evangelical magazines. Count the number of conferences advertised. It's got to be in the high teens per each copy. You don't find this in Time. There's something about evangelicals--presumably their passion and hunger to learn--that motivates them to stage roughly seven million conferences a year. It just isn't quite the same with any other group. Well, maybe literary societies. But they're their own strange animal. Besides lit geeks, who? Retirees? Nope. They'd all fall asleep. Computer geeks? They do a few, but not nearly as many as evangelicals, though they are passionate about pixels. Atheists? Yeah, there's the occasional high-brow event, but their conference planners have a great deal more vacation time than do evangelicals. No, we are a conferencing people--better still, the conferencing people.

We go to conferences about everything, too. If the outside world knew of this, it would think we are even stranger than it already thinks we are. We conference about babies and movies and worldviews and dietary habits and C.S. Lewis and John Calvin and reformation and revival and tongues and spirits and warfare and the tribulation and tv filters and anything else we can possibly think of to conference about. Honestly, if you could find a benefactor, you could make a living just going to evangelical conferences. Southern Baptists own their own conference center! Glorieta! Doesn't the name just make you want to conference?! And you wonder why we conference so much.

Tomorrow--the consumed staff looks at the younger generation and their conference attendance. Also, information on the first ever consumed conference, to be staged with a live band and free mint-flavored toothpicks.