Could I be more stupid?
And you would be right to ask me that. You see, my friends, I was under the delusion that evangelicals, discovering the emergent church movement (a.k.a. what mainline Christianity has been preaching for a century) would all of a sudden come running to the United Church of Christ. They would see an awesome "God is still speaking" video I post on my Facebook and say, "Hey! I want to come to your church! I never knew there was such a progressive denomination out there!"
And I thought it would be more or less that easy. Build it and they will come! Send out the message! Spread the Good News! I thought it would be that easy because I don't know anything about Evangelical Christianity.
But the depth of my ignorance hit me this week:
- I read The New Yorker's review of T. M. Luhrmann's new book on American Evangelical's relationship with God. This was an eye-opener. Not only did I know nothing of what she wrote - but I also realized that it's pretty damning that I need an anthropologist to explain all this to me. Is there any greater proof needed that our country has an extreme cultural divide?
- Christian Century just published an article, Crunching the Numbers, that surprised me - while 18% of Americans identify as mainline or old-line Protestant, a full 26% identify with evangelical Protestant denominations. I used to giggle when an evangelical friend didn't know something basic about Protestant churches. What folly! It's not their job to know about us - it's our job to know about them.
- Rachel Held Evans posted about why she isn't running towards a mainline church, where almost all her "new ideas" would be old hat, and instead remains unchurched like hundreds of thousands of other emergent ex-Evangelicals. It was a wake-up call to all of us.
- And finally, Rachel's post included a quote from a recent Frank Schaeffer article in the HuffPo about the huge boat that mainline churches are missing. He writes, "I don’t get it. Where is everyone? Why is the “emergent” evangelical church reinventing a wheel that’s been around for centuries? And why aren’t the mainline churches letting us know they are there? If the mainline churches would work for the next few years in a concerted effort to gather in the spiritual refugees wandering our country they’d be bursting at the seams.”
Mr. Schaeffer, thanks for laying it so bare.
Because the truth is we are here. But I have a hunch that we aren't letting people know we are here, because we do not speak the same language.
Of course, I'll only know that for sure if I take it upon myself to learn a thing or two about Evangelical Christianity. And so the journey begins...
=) A different language indeed!
ReplyDeleteHaving been raised as an evangelical who met his wife at a evangelical Christian college, I can tell you there is a lot of allure to the faith. It offers certainty, and a process of spiritual growth through a process of getting to know God. Once we are saved, the idea is to grow in the Lord through things like scripture reading, scripture meditation ("quiet time"), and prayer. This can provide a sense of deep contentment, and even taps into mysticism. Mainlines do not really offer this processional take, at least not to the same degree. From what I gather, the biggest divide is between those who accept a strong belief in an anthropomorphic, personal God and those who do not. The number of people who believe in God as an impersonal force has been growing exponentially according to surveys. Outside evangelical-based churches (including Mormonism), the religious groups that are growing are those that do not preach a belief in a personal God (Buddhism, UU, and the unaffiliated). The middle ground is shrinking. And so those who do not believe in a personal God will find Mainline churches offering little, since these churches still hold to a personal God but do not, for the most part, offer a process of spiritual growth or practicality. The biggest competition for Mainline churches is the overwhelming growth of participation in mind/body practices like Yoga, Tai Ch'i, and meditation. People are finding spiritual meaning and peace in these things and are leaving behind church. That's my two cents, anyway.
ReplyDeleteDon, I'm glad I know who you are so I have a bit more context to follow up your thoughts.
DeleteEaster Sunday I attended a little mega-Methodist Church in Cincinnati. It is growing fast and offering an excellent blend of old and new worship, and lots of ways to plug in and join small groups. Still, definitely mainline.
Yesterday I attended a Reformed church slowly transitioning from old to new and showing some signs of the strain in doing so. Gathering in some refugees. And the largest Reformed Church in town is bursting at the seams.
I have heard about or witnessed many mainline churches that are successfully gathering in spiritual refugees, but I know that most are not - probably because they don't want to.
UUism is hardly growing, and the most active ferment is taking place among the Jesus-loving UUs.
Belief in a personal anthropomorphic God seems to be core stuff for the fast-growing mainline congregations as well as the stultified and/or dying ones. Location, pastoral leadership, and congregational demography seem to be the most impactful factors in growth and appeal to the refugees.
Leaders in the emergent church movement would do well to note and honor their many precursors and the ebb and flow of evangelicalism down through the years. But I do think we are in a radically new situation here, primarily because most young adults come to the scene truly open to whatever.
Thanks, Rich, Good to hear from you again. And thanks for your reply. You are right that UU definitely has not grown in the past three years. Yet measuring it from a 10 year period, they are. And even their decline in the past three years is much more limited compared to the Mainline churches. I think Peter Morales gets it right, “The culture is moving [UU's] way theologically, but not institutionally.” The significant growth in Yoga, T'ai Chi, and Mindfulness involvement is taking up the slack and more. I am certainly not applauding UU; I think its jack of all trades/master of none approach is the reason for its losses. And yes there are pockets of churches, including UU churches, doing great work in attracting those looking for a spiritual community. I will say, however, a lot of the growth in one church comes at the expense of another. I guess my big point is our culture is increasingly seeing "God" in a much more nuanced, non-dualistic way, and rejecting the anthropomorphic premise, and thus are leaving the market of any kind of theistic religious community altogether. The religious surveys bear this out rather clearly. There are very few spiritual communities offering a space for a holistic (and singular) faith and practice (and not merely focused on diversity and intellectualism like UU). And so the unaffiliated are growing more than any group almost combined. Some UU congregations are offer this kind of space (see www.uuwellspring.org) and are growing, and there are Buddhist communities that are lay friendly and family friendly that are growing (see www.buddhistfamiliesofdurham.com). The point is our culture is changing theologically in ways that i don't think most of our churches are ready for. It is more than mere aesthetics and emergent stylistics, but a huge ground swell of a shift away from a belief in God as Big Man Upstairs and Jesus as singular way-shower to an experiencing of God as all around us and a diversity of way-showers in history and in the present. The latter are looking for a space and a practice that matches their holistic approach. It has not arrived yet, and I don't think any church espousing anything resembling traditional theism will do the trick.
DeleteGreat post Anna,
ReplyDeleteA lot of my ministerial training ended up taking place within the evangelical leadership context. One key dynamic that is anti-intuitive for many liberal churches, UU's included, and difficult to understand is how boldly inclusive they are. The cultural bubble of the UU church, and many liberal churches, have a hard time seeing how excluding their practices are, because in their "head" they are being inclusive. In promoting the idea of diverse beliefs that so many take to be what inclusive means, there exists a blindness to the exclusiveness of what is created.
Evangelicals understand that inclusiveness is about including real people. The liberal church has a real hard time understanding that, and I believe our churches, our people, and our world suffer for that. I hope we can figure it out.