The decline ....

[wayseer]

... is not about Liberal versus Evangelical - it's about money.

Scott Stephens is probably unknown to many of you but has this to say ....

Likewise, Christian "exceptionalists" seem to have so tenuous a grasp on Christian theology and the nature of Christian witness that they assume that the staggering decline in church attendance, and therefore the diminishment of its capacity for charity and beneficence, is best mitigated by softening its message, by adapting its mode of worship to accommodate religious "consumers" and by appealing to government funding and tax-break, as if from the hand of God, to make up the shortfall.

... and you can read the rest here.

See, since 325 the Church has been safe. It has been protected by Governments. Perhaps it's about time to pick up our cross and follow Jesus and live the more vulnerable life of faith which we proclaim.

 

[Tim Myers]

Excellent post, wayseer......

However, I would say that it is not so much a matter of "decline" as it is "cooling"..........

(From hot to lukewarm, ya might say.......)

 

[brightmorningstar]

On the contrary, it is about liberal versus orthodox historic apostolic Christianity, thats exactly what its is about for the orthodox historic apostolic Christians. The growing churches in general in the UK have no state assistance and are self funded.
Its the truth that sets people free, Jesus Christ is the truth, the way and the life; thats the alternative to the relativism of the post modern world.

 

[ebia]

Who is he? What's his background expertise in eduction and chaplency? what is his experience of living in a country where persecution means something more substantial than name-calling?

Claims about how everything would be so much better without the Constantine have been around as long as I can remember. But I dont see much of it coming from the parts of the world where it isn't a reality or hasn't been a reality in living memory.

Has he got anything fresh to add?

If we are protected, so be it. If not, so be it. I don't see how you can live as though the government was a persecuting one when it's not.

 

[wayseer]

Ebia - I appreciate your concern and the issues you raise but the writing is on the wall. Others are noticing that writing and are commenting. The whispered conversations in certain ecclesiastical places confirm the reality. The head in the sand approach and the tactic of shooting the messenger may work for a while and buy a bit of time.

The Church will either have to let go of the hand and allow its congregations to spiritual grown themselves while acting as guide and counsellor or throw on more padlocks and raise the prison walls yet higher. I fear the latter as it is apparent that people enjoy the certainty of their prison rather than face the freedom offered by Jesus.

 

[brightmorningstar]

Christianity is in fact growing worldwide. It isn't growing in the west, but there are new shoots of growth all over the west. The new shoots of growth have the same basis of faith as the worldwide growth. The problem for the west is a falling away into consumerism, cultural hedonism and relativism.

 

[Tim Myers]

"Christianity is in fact growing worldwide. It isn't growing in the west...."

Others must increase as we decrease........

 

[ebia]

Ebia - I appreciate your concern and the issues you raise but the writing is on the wall. Others are noticing that writing and are commenting. The whispered conversations in certain ecclesiastical places confirm the reality. The head in the sand approach and the tactic of shooting the messenger may work for a while and buy a bit of time.

The Church will either have to let go of the hand and allow its congregations to spiritual grown themselves while acting as guide and counsellor or throw on more padlocks and raise the prison walls yet higher. I fear the latter as it is apparent that people enjoy the certainty of their prison rather than face the freedom offered by Jesus.

That's nothing but a string of cliches. You can do better.

 

[Shropshire Anglican]

On the contrary, it is about liberal versus orthodox historic apostolic Christianity, thats exactly what its is about for the orthodox historic apostolic Christians. The growing churches in general in the UK have no state assistance and are self funded.
Its the truth that sets people free, Jesus Christ is the truth, the way and the life; thats the alternative to the relativism of the post modern world.

The Anglican church isn't state funded. It is the established church and as such the Bishops sit in the House of Lords, and The Queen is head of the church, but it has to raise its own money and look after its own churches.

At my church, the money we need to repair the roof has come from fund raising and grants from English heritage, not the state.

 

[brightmorningstar]

Shropshire Anglican,
You are correct, I stand corrected.. many thanks for pointing it out.

 

[Shropshire Anglican]

Shropshire Anglican,
You are correct, I stand corrected.. many thanks for pointing it out.

You're welcome!

 

[wayseer]

The Anglican church isn't state funded. It is the established church and as such the Bishops sit in the House of Lords, and The Queen is head of the church, but it has to raise its own money and look after its own churches.

At my church, the money we need to repair the roof has come from fund raising and grants from English heritage, not the state.

Where do you think Heritage Societies get their money?

In some form of other, churches enjoy a whole series of benefits flowing from Government taxation by some means. While governments also enjoy the free labour supplied by those churches there are a couple of problems staring us in the face.

The first is there is a growing tendency by the electorate to criticize the government's use of money - their money. These voice will rise to a crescendo when the real cost of carbon emmissions is factored into the economy.

Second, once the present generation of volunteer workers die out there is a dearth of supply. Following generations are not willing to work for free. The obvious question will then arise - if there are fewer and fewer volunteers on which to draw will these volunteers organizations become corporate entities run for the motive of 'profit'?

 

[ebia]

Where do you think Heritage Societies get their money?

In some form of other, churches enjoy a whole series of benefits flowing from Government taxation by some means.

E.g. Gift Aid in the UK. Churches count as charities there and get all the benefits that go with that, including being able to claim the tax that was paid by donors on the money that was donated. So if you're paying tax at 25%, and you donate GBP75 to the church, the church can claim GBP25 from the government.

 

[wayseer]

That's nothing but a string of cliches. You can do better.

Paternalism is not my real interest. If you want to pretend there is no problem that is your call.

 

[ebia]

Paternalism is not my real interest. If you want to pretend there is no problem that is your call.

A string of cliches is not going to help anyone see whether there's a substantial problem or not.

 

[wayseer]

Ebia - you have offered nothing in return.

I have argued that the problem of decline is basically economics. I have provided some evidence for my view.

As far as I understand your position, on this and other threads, you claim any decline can be sheeted home to 'liberal' theology - which is probably more a of a cliché than what I have proposed.

 

[ebia]

As you've noted, the state-church relationship has been there for 16 centuries. It's a bit much to claim the current decline is even correlated with that, let alone that the first explains the latter.

The decline over the last century is most easily explained by the fact that our church and others havent actually done any mission over that period. Only in the last decade have we started to grapple with that.

I haven't blamed anything on liberal theology. I have noted that many liberal-catholic parishes are very poor at being genuinely welcoming and inclusive in practice and do very little mission. Why that should be is an open question, but i therefore don't see any evidence that liberal theology will solve anything.

 

[wayseer]

The decline over the last century is most easily explained by the fact that our church and others havent actually done any mission over that period. Only in the last decade have we started to grapple with that.

Thank you for your post but I take this point of mission.

I have made an economic argument. But there is also something else which has yet to be acknowledged - and that is the role of education.

We, at least in the West, are better educated than our fathers and miles ahead of what was acceptable at the beginning of the 20th century. On the other hand, many countries are struggling stay afloat let alone think about a universal education system.

So it is interesting that the decline is felt in the West but not in the more marginalized countries. Is there some correlation between education and church membership? I would suggest there is. It may well be that the better educated are less influenced by the 'mission' of the Church.

So I see a tripartite problem, economics, a loss of a communal ethic, and education. Therefore any attempt to deal with the problem by engaging with a liberal/evangelical/conservative approach will do nothing for underlying causes.

 

[ebia]

Thank you for your post but I take this point of mission.

I have made an economic argument. But there is also something else which has yet to be acknowledged - and that is the role of education.

We, at least in the West, are better educated than our fathers and miles ahead of what was acceptable at the beginning of the 20th century. On the other hand, many countries are struggling stay afloat let alone think about a universal education system.

So it is interesting that the decline is felt in the West but not in the more marginalized countries. Is there some correlation between education and church membership? I would suggest there is. It may well be that the better educated are less influenced by the 'mission' of the Church.

So I see a tripartite problem, economics, a loss of a communal ethic, and education. Therefore any attempt to deal with the problem by engaging with a liberal/evangelical/conservative approach will do nothing for underlying causes.

Economics
By economic argument you seemed to mean that the economy of the church is tied to the economy of state. If, however, what you mean is that Christianity does better in times and places where life is tough, and struggles when life is comfortable then I'd agree 100%. I'm not sure how identifying that helps much though.. "lets sabotage the Australian economy so more people turn to Christ".

Community
Not so sure on this one. Christianity changes shape in highly individualised societies (and presumably highly communial ones), but I'm not sure it grows and shrinks because of it.

Education
Firstly this is hard to separate from economics and political power, and Christianity definitely appeals more to the poor and the downtrodden. Secondly, as Brian McLaren has identified, its much easier to evangelise in culture as it modernises than as it post-modernises, and again education correlates strongly with where a society is along that graph. I'm not sure that education is a factor except that a highly educated society is going to expect to do more of the thinking for itself and be spoon-fed the answers less. The Church in pre-reformation England could almost get away with ill-educated clergy and reserving direct access to Scripture to the handful of well-educated clergy. Now even Rome recognises the vital importance of getting the scriptures into the hands of everyone and teaching them how to read them. You can't just give people question-answer catechisms to learn by rote any more; you have to engage them in real learning just as educators do in every other topic, but I image in Sudan where the only schooling in anything is rote learning I imagine one can get away with the same in catechisis.


But given some or all of those underlying causes, where does that get us? We can't change them even if we wanted to.
Surely we have to find ways of speaking the gospel afresh in whatever world we are given, not sit there and complain because that world doesn't suit spreading the gospel.

 

[wayseer]

Economics
By economic argument you seemed to mean that the economy of the church is tied to the economy of state. If, however, what you mean is that Christianity does better in times and places where life is tough, and struggles when life is comfortable then I'd agree 100%. I'm not sure how identifying that helps much though.. "lets sabotage the Australian economy so more people turn to Christ".

I have made no suggestion of 'sabotaging' anything.

The economic argument is that the Australian public will demand that religious organization do not benefit from their hard paid taxes.

Community
Not so sure on this one. Christianity changes shape in highly individualised societies (and presumably highly communial ones), but I'm not sure it grows and shrinks because of it.

You miss the point. The dearth of volunteers from the younger generations will translate into a dearth of volunteers to carry out all the services now provided by charities. Quite simply, in the future there will be no pool of volunteers on which to call.

Education
Firstly this is hard to separate from economics and political power, and Christianity definitely appeals more to the poor and the downtrodden. Secondly, as Brian McLaren has identified, its much easier to evangelise in culture as it modernises than as it post-modernises, and again education correlates strongly with where a society is along that graph. I'm not sure that education is a factor except that a highly educated society is going to expect to do more of the thinking for itself and be spoon-fed the answers less. The Church in pre-reformation England could almost get away with ill-educated clergy and reserving direct access to Scripture to the handful of well-educated clergy. Now even Rome recognises the vital importance of getting the scriptures into the hands of everyone and teaching them how to read them. You can't just give people question-answer catechisms to learn by rote any more; you have to engage them in real learning just as educators do in every other topic, but I image in Sudan where the only schooling in anything is rote learning I imagine one can get away with the same in catechisis.

I am not talking about clergy. I am talking about the general public.

But given some or all of those underlying causes, where does that get us?

It get's us to the starting gate at least. If we are aware of these problems then at least we can think through some strategies. More of the same won't work in the future. We need innovation.

Let me give you some bald stats. There are some 25 parishes within the Brisbane diocese without a priest. There are some 15 students in formation spread over three years. You do the math.

Surely we have to find ways of speaking the gospel afresh in whatever world we are given, not sit there and complain because that world doesn't suit spreading the gospel.

It is not a matter of tinsel wrapping the gospel. The world knows about God. What the world demands is that the Church start acting like the gospel it preaches instead of orchestrating damnation and hellfire on everyone but themselves. And we could do something about Koran burning Christians - but we don't. When we start acting like Christians others will follow.