The Episcopal Church is in the news again for the usual reasons. First, a few days ago it was reported that the Episcopal Church suffered a 23 percent decline in attendance from 2000 to 2010. Second, on Tuesday the Episcopal Church approved rites for blessing same-sex unions. Many commentators made what seems to be an obvious connection supposedly supported by sociology: liberalism in religion leads to the decline and death of denominations. “Conservative churches are growing,” we heard yet again.
I bring up these recent developments not to pick on Episcopalians or Anglicans, especially as I used to worship in a wonderful Anglican congregation, but rather to raise questions about assumptions concerning theological ideology and denominational decline. It may be true, roughly speaking, that more conservative churches do better holding on to members and attenders than more liberal churches, but what does “liberal” and “conservative” mean? Does it have to do only with doctrine (or even simple politics) or also with other matters? We need to go deeper.
Again and again one finds the claim that the Church must acculturate or die, whether in Benjamin Jowett in the nineteenth century, John Shelby Spong in the twentieth, or Hans Küng in the twenty-first. In the Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown has one of his liberal characters say, “Third-century laws cannot be applied to the modern followers of Christ. The rules are not workable in today’s society.” Recently, blogger Rachel Held Evans issued a post lamenting how Christian engagement in fighting for traditional marriage is supposedly driving the young away that went viral. But as Rod Dreher pointed out in a thoughtful and faithful response, the young aren’t flocking to liberal flocks; they’re becoming “nones,” who are spiritual but not religious:
But—and here’s the thing—[Robert Putnam and David Campbell in American Grace] also found that liberal churches are not benefiting from the culture shift. Bob Putnam has said . . . if the Christian church wants to hold on to its young, it will have to liberalize on homosexuality. But his own research shows that liberalization on homosexuality has not benefited the churches that have done so. They continue to decline as well. Something else is going on with young Americans and institutional religion.
Here is where the idea that “conservative churches are growing” breaks down. It’s true to an extent, because “conservative” churches make demands on members in terms of practice and belief, whereas “liberal” churches nowadays often provide members with little more than a question mark. People don’t get out of bed for that. Indeed, on John Paul’s watch, the world’s nominal Catholic population grew from about 750 million to 1.25 billion. Part of that is due to population growth, but certainly not all. But what do “conservative” and “liberal” mean?
Most employ these terms with reference to doctrine—so, for instance, churches that teach Jesus’ body was literally raised from the dead have healthier numbers than those who have effectively if not officially surrendered the idea. But there’s more to religion than doctrine; there’s also worship. And, perhaps ironically, churches conservative in doctrine are often liberal in liturgy while churches liberal in doctrine are often conservative in liturgy. “Conservative” congregations have forms of worship so far removed from traditional Christian liturgy that those forms would be either unrecognizable by prior generations of Christians or reckoned as pagan, while “liberal” denominations—the ELCA, TEC—maintain the fundamental forms of traditional liturgy.
Accommodating to culture in hopes of holding on to numbers simply doesn’t work. As William Inge once observed, “If you marry the spirit of your own generation, you will be a widow in the next.” But ultimately we Christians must also confess that it’s not about numbers, but about fidelity, and letting the numbers fall where they may. We should keep the end of John 6 in mind:
Many of his disciples, when they heard it [Jesus’ teaching on eating his body and blood], said, “This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?” […] After this many of his disciples drew back and no longer went about with him. Jesus said to the twelve, “Do you also wish to go away?” Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life; and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.
To hold on to those tempted to become Gnostic “nones,” we must attend not only to doctrine but to liturgy, so that our faith becomes neither an acrid intellectual system nor an empty form but rather an all-encompassing culture embracing the whole person, body, mind, soul, and spirit, in a community of love. This, I think, is why Catholics have been much more successful in retaining our people than Protestant bodies in the face of the cultural pressures we’re all facing, as a recent CARA study revealed. For all our obvious problems, traditional doctrine and liturgy work together to give people a transcendent sense of home in a robust culture, the Church.
Leroy Huizenga is Director of the Christian Leadership Center at the University of Mary in Bismarck, North Dakota.
RESOURCES
Episcopal Church Approves Same-Sex Blessing Rites
Episcopal Church attendance 2000-2010 (PDF)
American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us Hans Küng, “Welche Papst Braucht die Kirche?”
Rachel Held Evans, “How to Win a Culture War and Lose a Generation”
Rod Dreher, “What if Rachel Held Evans is Wrong?”
CARA, The Reverts: Catholics Who Left and Came Back
Become a fan of First Things on Facebook, subscribe to First Things via RSS, and follow First Things on Twitter.
Comments:
I would also further distinguish between liturgy and sacrament. The sacraments are the covenant, grace giving signs that, birth, enrich and feed the church. Tthe liturgy is the poetic expression of the sacraments and worship. Sacrament is essential to church life, liturgy is not, as seen in many thriving “non-denominational” churches – OK, they have “weak liturgy,” song, sermon, altar call. “High” or traditional liturgy can be a camouflage for apostasy, as in the present Episcopal Church.
The original Wesleyan revival, 1740-1830’s, perhaps the most effective revival in Church history, was a splendid example of the presence of Pentecostal elements (there was much revival phenomenon is in "holy rolling"). But it was also sacramentally rich in its devotion to the Eucharist, and its recovery of the "love feast." At the same time the Wesleyan revival was liturgically "lite." That is, the sacraments were celebrated with less attention to set forms, and in fact the love feasts were presided over by laymen.
While various Christian sects over the centuries congregate for a while and then forever disperse, while civilizations rise and fall, one church, an anvil that has worn out many hammers, consistent in the essentials of its belief and practice for twenty centuries, remains and continues to thrive and grow. This has not always been attributable to the virtue of its members or its human leadership, and sometimes, it seems, it has been in spite of the lack of virtue in its members and leadership, who, like the rest of humanity, are still afflicted with a fallen nature. Its durability and progress has, for the most part, been due to the indestructible Spirit within it Who “attends not only to its doctrine but to its liturgy,” Who will, according to the promise of Christ, be with it forever, teaching its members and reminding them of all that He said to them. (John 14:16,26)
The truth about God and human nature doesn't change, so nor does the official teaching of His Church change regarding God's plan for human sexuality or about the fact that same-sex unions, contraception and abortion violate human nature. I think solid, unchanging teaching, regardless of what depraved notions of human sexuality arise in a given age (consider the distorted view of human sexuality that arose with the Albigensian heresy), is sometimes what has drawn people thirsting for Truth to the Chair of Peter, the rock, which is founded upon the True Rock: “... they drank of the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ.” (1 Cor 10:4). Their having felt “drawn” to it was actually due to the "spiritual rock that followed them," the “Hound of Heaven” in relentless pursuit of them. ( http://www.ewtn.com/library/HUMANITY/HNDHVN.HTM )
The dilemma of young (Christian) people who buy into this view of Christians as bigots because they do not affirm homosexual sex or the redefinition of marriage, is that there is no neutral ground. Either we embrace the awesomeness of the homosexual lifestyle, or we are akin to racists. The homosexual rights lobby and our secular leftists cultural elites leave us no other option, like do whatever you want, dude, but don't force me to give it my stamp of approval.
How long before the liberal congregations vote to put the use of the building to a more socially justifiable cause and stop running services altogether? My guess is very soon.
Messrs. Willems and Burford: As St. Thomas said, lust blinds the reason. With all due respect, the young are at a disadvantage in this regard, insofar as their "drives" are at peak. If the reason is not blind, there are myriad readily evident reasons, many of which fall cleanly into what I'd call the natural law (or objective logic, if you prefer) for adhering strictly to traditional values.
Unfortunately, young people have been raised largely by Hollywood, that friend of the enemy. (Consider the ratio of hours you spend in front of the TV vs attending liturgy, and studying philosophy and theology.) If one is raised to accept something, one will often accept it and may even grow to like it (in the extreme, consider how you would view food if you had been raised by cannibals). Bathe in mental manure long enough, and you'll start thinking funny. †
"Jesus dined with tax collectors and prostitutes"
Sorry about that.
When Mr. Huizenga states that Protestant bodies are less successful than the Catholic Church at retaining their members, he makes a glaring omission, as Fr. De Arteaga points out. Pentacostal churches aren't just retaining their members, they are growing explosively, and particularly in the global South, at a rate exceeding that of the Catholic Church.
(I am starting to ramble, so you may stop reading here.) I would try a different approach than habitat for humanity, in which everyone becomes a carpenter. I would find a way for basketball players to play for the church, for fashionistas to design/model for the church, for janitors, mothers, baker, CFOs, to do their things for the church -- together. The social support, social acceptance, social pressure, social benefits will reinforce their faith for when the going gets tough.
