Imagine jumping in a time machine and going back to 1908 - you find yourself in a revival almost a decade after the turn of the century. It’s a time of change, a time of questioning, and a time of theological challenges. This is what Tony Jones (The New Christians), Doug Pagitt (A Christianity Worth Believing), and Mark Scandrette (Soul Graffiti) attempt to do in The Church Basement Roadshow: A Rollin’ Gospel Revival. Taking on characters of the time period, they do an excellent job of acting the part of turn-of-the-century revivalists. What I want to talk about, however, is the parts where they break character and read and explain portions of their books.
The first one to break character is Doug Pagitt – he sits there and reads from his book, explaining his conversion experience. Not having grown up hearing about Jesus, he is introduced to Jesus through a recently converted friend. Shortly after accepting Christ, he is sat down by two men who are supposed to disciple him and they explain deep, complex methods of theology to this new Christian with no background in Christianity. They then gave him a train illustration about how there are three ‘cars’ to Christianity: facts (driving the train), faith (behind the facts), and feelings…separated from the rest of the train. They told him that no matter what he’s feeling, he needed to trust in facts and faith. Doug went onto say that he has never struggled when it was left up to his feelings and faith; the struggle begins when we are introduced to belief systems.
