ABSTRACT
The epithet ‘lay’ can convey different nuances. Charismatic spirituality and worship easily seem exotic, extravagant, unearthly – the religion of the hothouse. As such they may be the very reverse of lay in character, if ‘lay’ has reference to the common life of Christians in human society. Religion may be popular, or populist, without being genuinely lay. Some critics reckon that charismatic Christianity shares the high-octane escapism manifest in contemporary culture in so many different ways. But much evangelicalism nurtures an in-house, church-centred piety that at times appears to aspire, unspokenly of course, for a quasi-monastic existence of separation from the world and of unceasing prayer.
