The Metagelical Moment Reframed
This post is inspired by a recent video by Paul VanderKlay, a C.R.C. pastor in California and a very productive YouTuber. On his channel he tries to do what I am doing here, making sense of our current cultural moment. I like what he does, but it is obviously from an American perspective, so let me reframe his latest video.
Link: As Frontier Theology Thins Metagelicalism Reconnects Post-Nones with Tradition
This video deals with part of the genealogy of the Metagelical Moment, a term coined by Paul himself. He describes American "evangelicalism" as the attempt of the post-fundamentalists to become the mainline, for example through the connection with the politics of the Bush-era and in Academia.
However, as his discussion partner Nathan Jacobs points out, the fundamentalist theology from which it sprang was a frontier theology, a thin biblicism with very little in terms of metaphysical underpinnings. It had no answers to intellectual challenges other than "because the Bible tells me so." This was a serious downgrade from the rather sophisticated scholastic theology of 17th and 18th Century American Protestantism.
The emerging movement of the early 2000-s shatters this completely, we are now solidly in the vibes-era (no pun intended.) Where do evangelicals go? Evangelicals of Generation Z go either cosy and liberal, or Traditional. They find Orthodoxy on YouTube, or The Latin Mass, or traditional Anglicanism. (Some end up going to the offline version as well...)
One of the interesting effects of this meta-gelical movement is that all sorts of traditional boundaries are also gone, among other things through the levelling effect of the internet. Everybody is talking with everybody else, Protestants of different stripes, Catholics, Orthodox. If modernity was liquid (Bauman), this is even more fluid or ethereal. But what they, Gen Z and all of us, are looking for is metaphysical depth and theological sophistication.
What do I think about this from a European perspective? I recognise this from what I see happening online. I also see interesting parallels with my personal journey from Dutch Reformed to Catholic Anglicanism. But here I am also interested in the differences because we don't have US evangelicalism as a quasi-civic religion in The Netherlands (or in any other European country.) Metagelical is the North American instantiation of the global phenomenon of the mondial, urban, meta-modern, part liquid/part vibes, internet class of "spiritual creatives." A lot of it looks American on the surface, but underneath something else is happening. Globalisation undoubtedly leads to homogenisation (Americanisation in this case) but in tension with that movement are the local, the particular, and the different.
Perhaps we need to think in terms of a two-layer model of culture in a global age. What we see is the superstructure of the Americanised, English-speaking, internet-connected global layer. What Paul describes in the video as an American phenomenon, is at the same time also flowing around globally and it trickles down into local cultures. However, what happens underneath? As a Dutchman who has also lived in England and Croatia and is a frequent visitor to Germany, I can tell you that these are rather different countries with both major and subtle cultural differences. Each country has a complicated history which means that we all treat religion differently, both at home and in the public space. For example: in the Dutch context, we have no equivalent of something like the recent event at which Tom Holland and Nick Cave spoke about religion to a packed crowd in London. But on the other hand, in The Netherlands, we have had good Christian education fully funded by the state for over 100 years. While secularisation was swift, there are now more churches in Amsterdam than ever. Etc.
It is tempting to see "Europe" only as one block, but we are legion. When we ask the Portuguese, the Swedes, and 40 others, to add their examples, we will see how all these cultural subsystems in the European area have deep differences. Once they were held together by a common Classical-Christian metaphysics. Now it remains to be seen which of the hegemonia will rule the day and the century. (This blog exists to keep you posted.)