All oxymorons. Ross Douthat asks whether “liberal Christianity” be saved. The more appropriate question is What about liberal Christianity is worth saving?
I say stick a pitchfork in it. Hose it down with a flamethrower. Good riddance.
IN 1998, John Shelby Spong, then the reliably controversial Episcopal bishop of Newark, published a book entitled “Why Christianity Must Change or Die.” Spong was a uniquely radical figure — during his career, he dismissed almost every element of traditional Christian faith as so much superstition — but most recent leaders of the Episcopal Church have shared his premise. Thus their church has spent the last several decades changing and then changing some more, from a sedate pillar of the WASP establishment into one of the most self-consciously progressive Christian bodies in the United States.
As a result, today the Episcopal Church looks roughly how Roman Catholicism would look if Pope Benedict XVI suddenly adopted every reform ever urged on the Vatican by liberal pundits and theologians. It still has priests and bishops, altars and stained-glass windows. But it is flexible to the point of indifference on dogma, friendly to sexual liberation in almost every form, willing to blend Christianity with other faiths, and eager to downplay theology entirely in favor of secular political causes.
Yet instead of attracting a younger, more open-minded demographic with these changes, the Episcopal Church’s dying has proceeded apace. Last week, while the church’s House of Bishops was approving a rite to bless same-sex unions, Episcopalian church attendance figures for 2000-10 circulated in the religion blogosphere. They showed something between a decline and a collapse: In the last decade, average Sunday attendance dropped 23 percent, and not a single Episcopal diocese in the country saw churchgoing increase.
This decline is the latest chapter in a story dating to the 1960s. The trends unleashed in that era — not only the sexual revolution, but also consumerism and materialism, multiculturalism and relativism — threw all of American Christianity into crisis, and ushered in decades of debate over how to keep the nation’s churches relevant and vital.
Sadly, they blew it on what constitutes relevance.
In the Early Church, Paul exhorted the Churches in Asia Minor–Romans, Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Thessalonians–regarding issues of relevance. He admonished them to eschew sexual immorality (including homosexuality), idolatry, deceit, and malice. He exhorted them to exercise discretion in the eating of food that had been sacrificed to idols. Peter admonished believers about false teachers. James admonished believers who insisted that faith and works had no connection. You get the picture: there is no Biblical precedent for God permitting the acceptance of evil in the name of relevance. In fact, relevance was about admonishing people about the cultural trends, calling on them to flee evil. In Proverbs, wisdom presents a personified “howling reproach” against the backdrop of the world.
But mainline Protestants–Episcopals in particular–didn’t bother to heed that memo. So here we are, with the ECUSA heading for the dunghill.
Having said that, Southern Baptists can’t afford to get particularly comfortable in their holy huddle. Recently, MrsLarijani and I went to the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary campus–that was when Lisa Anderson and Martha Krienke of Boundless were there for a conference, and we were dropping in to meet them–and noticed something very peculiar.
While we were at the cafe, enjoying a coffee and reading the campus newspaper, we noticed a stunning announcement: professors were going to be ensuring that they incorporated Biblical spirituality in their presentation of their courses.
That announcement carries the tacit admission that they hadn’t been doing that before. I almost had coffee coming out of my nose.
Oh, and you can’t blame the liberals for that one: the housecleaning that led to the ousters of Molly Marshall and Frank Tupper–among others–is long over.
It’s long past time for Southern Baptists to clean the inside of the cup. Otherwise, they are kidding themselves if they think an Episcopalian (or Presbyterian)-style demise can’t happen to them.
Douthat goes on:
Traditional believers, both Protestant and Catholic, have not necessarily thrived in this environment. The most successful Christian bodies have often been politically conservative but theologically shallow, preaching a gospel of health and wealth rather than the full New Testament message.
Sadly, Douthat is suggesting that liberal Christianity was theologically deep. He’s right, but the question is “deep in what?”
In reality, he’s missing it: both sides tend to be quite shallow. Evangelicals are a Heinz 57 mixture of perspectives, ranging from hardcore Reform Theology to the nether regions of Open Theism and everything in between.
That said, bodies that preach a Biblically-conservative theology–and the practice thereof–are hardly experiencing decline let alone collapse.
But if conservative Christianity has often been compromised, liberal Christianity has simply collapsed. Practically every denomination — Methodist, Lutheran, Presbyterian — that has tried to adapt itself to contemporary liberal values has seen an Episcopal-style plunge in church attendance. Within the Catholic Church, too, the most progressive-minded religious orders have often failed to generate the vocations necessary to sustain themselves.
The Catholic world is still reeling from the fallout of the sexual abuse scandals. Hopefully, this will lead to some larger changes, but the discussion of those is beyond the scope of this thread.
As for the collapse of mainline Protestantism, the surprise is that the falloff didn’t happen sooner. The “contemporary liberal values” are not compatible with Scripture.
At the end of the day, why should I be a part of a church that stands for nothing that the Bible affirms? To say, “We oppose greed and lying”, but insist on affirming gay “marriage”, requires that one lie about God. To say you oppose war on the grounds that it involves killing innocent people–even if they aren’t targeted–and then support abortion, which involves targeting innocent people, then you’re a liar.
If you say you’re for more compassion, and then use that as a canard to insist–from the pulpit–that the government steal more money from people under the pretense of compassion, then you are a liar: you’re not compassionate; you are simply using the government to mask your greed, all under the pretense of Christianity. (In fact, religious conservatives are more theologically deep–not only in theory but in practice–as they give overwhelmingly more to charity than liberals.)
So even in the conservative world–where the Gospel gets clouded with prosperity peddlers and easy-believism–the footing is more solid than the Mainline Protestant world, which has chosen to jump off the cliff.
people generally do not like groups whose values and ideals and foundations blend in … they want groups to stand a part – to be who/what they say they are. that doesn’t mean they’ll like or love them, it means they want groups to be what/who they proclaim to be.
when we say one thing and do another and blend it all into some created horizon so nothing stands out, we loose.
i’ve been thinking about this some on a personal level. i have a friend who has been deeply involved in church who has chosen to become homosexual. i have strong foundation to believe my mom has also chosen that path (though she has not admitted it, and i have not directly asked her, and i don’t even know if i want to have this conversation with her).
i’ve been pondering what one’s relationship should be with people who consciously and defiantly make choices that are clearly against scripture. all through the bible God tells His people to stay away from groups of people so those groups do not draw His people away from Him. it’s not that their sin is worse than mine (because all sin is equal in the eyes of God; however not all consequences are equal), but it’s that God doesn’t want me to stray to their ways of thinking … because He knows it will draw me away from Him. it’s not a hate/anger issue, it’s a love issue. God loves me so much He wants the best for me, and the best for me is to be close to Him and not swayed away from Him.
God hates sin because it destroys us. God does not want anyone to perish and gives every person every opportunity to choose Him. but not all people will choose Him.
does this mean we should live in a bubble of only christian everything? no, i don’t think so. but it does mean we should be wise and prudent when making choices in life. we need to be careful the people we allow into our minds and thoughts.
i do believe God gives some the gift to work with those in certain areas of sin, and He has protected them. God certainly gave Paul the gift to go into dark places and preach His Word, but God does not give that to everyone. we need to make sure we’re being led by God and being held up in prayer by others and being held accountable.
so when God wants us to be in the world but not of the world, He wants us to be distinct, not to blend into the horizon of the world and culture. and He does this because of His great love for us, not because of hate for other peoples. God hates sin because of the destruction it pours on us. He doesn’t want that for us. He wants the very best for us.
so i have pulled away from my friend. she knows the choices she made – she made them with her eyes wide open. this sin has been conceived in her, and it will grow until it is completely birthed. i cannot stop the process she has chosen. if God ever wants me to step in and say or do something, i will be glad to. in the mean time, praying for her and staying away from her is what i need to do. she was the kind of friend i could call 24/7 to pray for me. i can’t do that anymore.
and my mom … i don’t hear from her or talk to her or see her much anyway.
it can seem like a paradox that God is the God of restoration, restoring people to Him and each other. but He also knows that choosing Him often divides from those who do not choose Him. i cannot answer all the questions surrounding these truths, but i know that they are true.
As a former Episcopalian, I am far from surprised at the actions of their recently concluded General Convention. Not only did they approve a liturgy for same-sex blessings; shortly before the convention nine conservative bishops and at least one conservative priest were brought up on charges apparently intended to intimidate them into silence.
I would challenge those who’ve been charged to consider how much longer they wish to be affiliated with a denomination that not only rejects their beliefs but sues dioceses and congregations which choose to disaffiliate with TEC and affiliate elsewhere.
As a former Episcopalian, I am far from surprised at the actions of their recently concluded General Convention. Not only did they approve a liturgy for same-sex blessings; shortly before the convention nine conservative bishops and at least one conservative priest were brought up on charges apparently intended to intimidate them into silence.
This disheartens me. Still being a member of the Episcopal church, even though my immediate family has left the communion and gone on to the Anglican church, this is difficult to read from other people of other disciplines. Especially Southern Baptist – no offense, but you couldn’t be any further from liturgical discipline and its alien to me.
My diocese is striving so hard not to let this secularism of the ECUSA from affecting our doctrine. So far, we have been successful – but only time will tell if we can survive our recent bishop-change.
I agree that the “relevance” word seems to be lacking something with how the churches have been handling it. I remember being a teenager in the Episcopal church, lamenting how bored everyone seemed to be, how stodgy the music was, and how tedious the sermons were. And that’s when this whole “relevance” thing started. They altered the services to include more up-beat music. Some churches ditched liturgy all-together, creating just a second “youth group” to attend. Theology was taken from “Velvet like Elvis” and other questionable “God” books. Mega-churches seemed to be the way to go, as they were booming while liturgical and poor non-liturgical churches lay dying. And still, nothing really CHANGED.
Now, all I want is a good hymn. I just want to hear the word of God. Though I still hate how stodgy some congregants can be (I mean, really, Crown Him with Many Crowns deserves some feeeeeeling in it, you know what I mean???)
I realize now, it was my age. Young people want feeling, they want meaning, they want upbeat. They are young and immature, not in a bad way – but often in a naive way. And the church’s REAL “relevance” is being thrown into the hands of the government. Our relevance is supposed to be community outreach. Being honest about the truth. Being welcoming to the downtrodden, and taking risks with the world around us. Not clean and plastic like the church was becoming. Young people WANT the utopian society, and nothing is wrong with such idealism. Its just where you put your trust.
The church has allowed the government to carry the banner of community outreach and has sought social policies to be their point of relevance. Maybe, we should all just realize that our job isn’t to be popular, but to speak truth and be the hands & feet of Christ. We may not grow to big mega-church standards like we seem to want, but we’d be a hell of a lot more relevant.
As a side-note, you ever notice how liberals read the Bible is a lot like how they read the Constitution?