When I accompanied a group of Dartmouth students on a tour of civil rights sites in the
South a couple of weeks ago, we attended two churches on Sunday morning in Atlanta,
the venerable and historic Ebenezer Baptist Church and an evangelical megachurch.
The success of the megachurch suggests that young adults may be returning to
religion.
It’s called simply 2819 Church, a reference to the so-called Great Commission, the
mandate for evangelism in the New Testament book of Matthew. Founded by Philip
Anthony Mitchell, a native of Queens, New York, 2819 has been attracting a lot of
attention lately. The Associated Press published a feature, and CNN did a piece
recently on this phenomenon, reporting that some congregants traveled hundreds of
miles every Sunday to attend.
As we approached, traffic police directed us to the parking lot of a nearby shopping
mall, where we boarded a shuttle bus to the church. When we arrived at 6:30 for the
8:00 service (the first of three on any given Sunday), the line already snaked around the
parking lot.
Several “greeters” circulated, engaging first-time visitors. I asked one why the church
was so popular, and the greeter responded that 2819 offered a no-nonsense message
about sin. Mitchell, for example, calls out transgressions, including cohabitation and
premarital sex.
The website announces, “No Names. No Gimmicks. Just Jesus.”
Once inside, we heard a woman onstage declaiming loudly while the music and the
percussion reached a crescendo as the digital clock at the rear of the auditorium
counted down toward 8:00. Then the “worship team,” now ubiquitous in evangelical
settings, took over.
I find evangelical “praise music,” as they call it, both tedious and emotionally coercive,
engineered to elicit a particular response. It’s also formulaic, not to mention repetitive.
The initial song, loud and percussive with strobe lights and smoke machine, morphs into
a second with similar cadences.
At that point, as I had predicted to the student next to me, the tempo slowed, and the
music became meditative as the worship team closed its eyes, one hand raised to the ceiling and the other clutching a microphone. The congregation typically assumes the
same posture, absent the microphone.
It’s meant to be a synesthetic experience, and it is, with flashing lights and a sound
system capable of dislodging dental fillings. The music itself, a combination of rock and
hip-hop, was high quality, much better than most megachurches.
Following the music, a preacher appeared, in this case one of the associate pastors,
wearing denims and a hoodie. Formulaic, once again.
Mitchell was off writing a book. “The perversion of The Faith in the west, our growing
lack of reverence, and our overt mockery of Christ moves me to deep grief,” he says on
the 2819 website.
Mitchell, an African American like many in his congregation, served time on Rikers
Island in New York City, a fact he often mentions in his sermons. His past includes
dealing drugs, paying for abortions and attempted suicide. God, he says, “used failure
to transform my life.”
Apparently, that message resonates with his predominantly young adult followers.
Although the reasons are not clear, anecdotal evidence suggests that young adults are
flocking to religion, not only megachurches but Catholic parishes and even Orthodox
Christianity. I’m tempted to believe that what drives this phenomenon, at least in part, is
the search for a moral compass, something in short supply from political leaders.
“It is life or death for me,” Mitchell told the Associated Press about his preaching, which
he compared to warfare. “There are souls that are hanging in the balance.”
Mitchell stirred controversy a year ago when he exhorted his congregation to stop
blaming police officers for brutality and teach their children to “be obedient towards
authority.” The backlash in the Black community was so great that Mitchell apologized.
That controversy hasn’t diminished the ardor of his followers. Last October, the church
held a “prayer event” that drew approximately forty thousand people, filling State Farm
Arena and an overflow space in the nearby convention center. Thousands more, the
church said, were left outside.
While Catholicism draws on tradition and Orthodoxy too often on patriarchy, Mitchell’s
fiery sermons and the church’s no-nonsense teachings may have found a niche in a
society hungry for moral clarity.
Randall Balmer is the John Phillips Professor in Religion at Dartmouth.