Mainline Churches: The Real Reason for Decline

[Lotar]

http://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft9303/johnson.html

An interesting article.

 

[Knight]

Wow, a long article. I'll have to read it entirely when I have more time... (Not sure when that'll be.)

It looks like they're kind of on track talking about the cultural shift away from absolute truth. (If I've read that correctly.)

 

[BarbB]

Can we say "lukewarm"? Now I know for positively sure why I'm NOT a Presbyterian anymore!

 

[Serapha]

Hi there!



It would be interesting to see the corelation between the loss of church membership and the family structure, i.e. since women entered the work force and since fifty percent of marriages fail.

"The hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world."


Any time that the moral decay of a civilization reaches the mothers of the civilization, then there is a follow-up of decay in the government and in the religious beliefs.

"lukewarm" would not be the appropriate comment, for it appears that mainstream Christian churches haven't been hot enough for decades to deteriorate to "lukewarm".


~malaka~

 

[Bruce S]

A third intra-religious theory was advanced by Dean M. Kelley in his controversial book, Why Conservative Churches Are Growing, published in 1972.

Kelly argued that the mainline denominations have lost members because they have become weak as religious bodies. Strong religions provide clear-cut, compelling answers to questions concerning the meaning of life, mobilize their members' energies for shared purposes, require a distinctive code of conduct, and discipline their members for failure to live up to it.

Weak religions allow a diversity of theological viewpoints, do not and can not command much of their members' time or effort, promote few if any distinctive rules of conduct, and discipline no one for violating them. In short, strong religions foster a level of commitment that binds members to the group; weak religions have low levels of commitment and are unable to resist influences that lower it even further.

Bingo. That is it.

 

[Gamecock]

Can we say "lukewarm"? Now I know for positively sure why I'm NOT a Presbyterian anymore!

Don't give up on all Presbies! The Presbyterian Church in America is evangelical and well grounded Scripture

 

[Knight]

Can we say "lukewarm"? Now I know for positively sure why I'm NOT a Presbyterian anymore!

Perhaps it was the PCUSA that you have had troubles with. I have neighbors who are members of the PCA and they're just as conservative as I. (And that's saying something! )

The PCUSA is typically liberal.

 

[Karl - Liberal Backslider]

The article seems to divide Christendom up into Evangelicals and "lay liberals". It does not therefore recognise the existence of either "lay evangelicalism" - of which there is much IME, and of clerical and intelligent liberalism.

Moreover, it paints all liberals as being in the same boat - perhaps an extension of dividing everyone into these two groups. But there is in reality a spectrum of belief. I do not, for example, believe in relative truth, or in the idea that all religions equally lead to God. I believe in the distinctiveness of Christ. But I do not believe that everyone who is not explicitly a Christian is ******. So which am I, according to this delineation?

In short, the central thesis is "liberalism makes people not go to church so liberalism is bad". Whatever the merits of that (and at best it's a terrific over-simplification) I for one am grateful for the existence of liberalism because it has allowed me to stay within the church as a non-evangelical.

 

[Gamecock]

Perhaps it was the PCUSA that you have had troubles with. I have neighbors who are members of the PCA and they're just as conservative as I. (And that's saying something! )

The PCUSA is typically liberal.

The PCA: we're the intolerant ones!

 

[being_there]

Interesting article. From many historians points of view, the Great Awakenings were caused by society's disentigration and peoples anxiety amidst great changes (they wanted to reconnect with something that made sense to them--in this case their traditional religious ideas). Tillich in his Systematic Theology vol I Pg. 3-8 says that fundamentalist ideas prosper in times of personal or communal disentigration, while liberalism flourishes during times of personal or communal integration. I dont know who is right but I do think that the liberal-conservative cycle will continue. The post WWII church seems to have embraced liberal ideas (World Council of Churches, Vatican II), but now the church has moved in a conservative direction (mostly). I think that it is too early to blame lay liberalism for the decline in the church and not look to changes in our contemporary world. The question must be asked: are we optimistic about the future or pesimistic ? --these questions are really at the heart of liberalism/conservativism anyway and may influence peoples decisions on which church they go to. Most likely it seems that this trend will eventually reverse itself someday and eventually move back again--but these cycles take generations and it is easy to make conclusions from a narrow historical analysis.
Of course there is another possibility that nobody wants to talk about. Freud (and the theologian Bonhoeffer) said that man is becoming less religious because we do not need God to solve our problems anymore--Freud believed that Christianity would continue for about 200 more years and would eventually be rejected because its assumptions are ridiculous, and Bonhoeffer said that man had come of age and must learn to live without God (religionless Christianity). If this is true, Christianity may eventually die as a religious system (as most religions eventually do), but i feel the verdict is not in because things will change and the makeup of the church will change also --just like it always has.

 

[Crazy Liz]

Of course there is another possibility that nobody wants to talk about. Freud (and the theologian Bonhoeffer) said that man is becoming less religious because we do not need God to solve our problems anymore--Freud believed that Christianity would continue for about 200 more years and would eventually be rejected because its assumptions are ridiculous, and Bonhoeffer said that man had come of age and must learn to live without God (religionless Christianity). If this is true, Christianity may eventually die as a religious system (as most religions eventually do), but i feel the verdict is not in because things will change and the makeup of the church will change also --just like it always has.

When Bonhoeffer's phrase "religionless Christianity" most certainly did not mean religion without God - quite the opposite. He saw the church institutions as so corrupt that Christianity could only continue without them. Keep in mind that the church institution he had most in mind was the German Reichskirche.

 

[pmarquette]

Pick up " the book " go to
Revelation chapters 2 & 3,
find your church # 1 - 7 ,
make adjustments , seek reward ,
start again ....

 

[Reader Nilus]

I think Kelly's book Why Conservative Churches Are Growing is pretty close to what is going on. When I was a kid the LCA (Lutheran Church in America) one of the Lutheran bodies that make up what is now the ELCA, practiced closed communion. Meaning a person had to be a confirmed Lutheran to receive the sacrament. But that has long disappeared. It also has to do with what H Richard Niebeur pointed out, that first followers are on fire and by the third generation that fire is gone. Most of the so-called mainline churches were immigrant churches, and when the first immigrants's established the parishes they were on fire. Now by the third generation they have lost their steam. It is interesting to me that when a folk member of a mainline church becomes on fire, it seems they go to a different church.
But a big question mark remains as well. The mainline church is still where folks in need turn to, and they are the ones running the food banks and so forth. IMHO Kelly is right on the money.
Jeff the Finn