In Appreciation for Bishop William Willimon.
UPDATE: C’mon people. I am not insulting mainline churches. If I say that, in GENERAL, mainlines are more liberal than many evangelicals are comfortable with, that isn’t discounting all the many, many good things I’ve always praised. If I’m offending you with this proposal, then forget about it and we just won’t bother each other.
Mainline churches….we’re having a moment here.
Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Methodists, Lutherans, Disciples of Christ…do you know what I mean? We’re having a moment, and it’s slipping right by.
What moment?
We’re having a moment when thousands of evangelicals are getting a bellyful of the shallow, traditionless, grown up youth group religion that’s taken over their pastor’s head and is eating up their churches.
It’s a moment when people are asking if they want to hear praise bands when they are 70…or if they will even be allowed in the building when they are 70. It’s a moment when the avalanche of contemporary worship choruses has turned into one long indistinquishable commercial buzz. It’s a moment when K-Love is determining what we sing in church and that’s not a good thing.
It’s a moment when some people are wondering if their children will ever know the hymns they knew or will ever actually hold a Bible in their hand at church again. It’s a moment when a lot of people are pretty certain if they hear the words “new,” “purpose” or “seeker” one more time, they may appear on the evening news for an episode of “church rage.”
It’s a moment when significant numbers of people have heard the same ten sermon series so many times they could fill in for the pastor on short notice. It’s a moment when many people would actually like to see a section of the congregation who are over 50 and not trying to look under 30.
It’s a moment that- believe it or not- some people actually want to go to something that looks like church as they remember it, see a recognizable pastor, hear a recognizable sermon, participate in the Lord’s Supper, experience some reverence and decorum, and leave feeling that, in some ways, it WAS a lot like their mom and dad’s church. It’s a moment when reinventing everything may not be as sweet an idea as we were told it was.
It’s a moment when the baby boomer domination of evangelicalism is showing signs of cracking. Some younger people actually want to hear theology. They aren’t judging everything by how seekers evaluate it or what Rick Warren would say about it.
Yes, my mainline friends, we’re having a moment here. You can see it all around the edges of evangelicalism. It’s there and it’s real. It isn’t easy or automatic, but it’s there. And it is sad to realize that at the very time so many are looking for what you have, you’re mostly squandering the moment entirely.
Your churches could be taking in thousands of evangelicals. That’s right. Those recognizably “churchy” churches of yours, with the Christian year, the Biblically rich liturgy, the choir robes, the still-occasionally used hymnals and the multi-generational, slightly blended worship services, could be taking in thousands of evangelicals.
Of course, you’d have to want them. You’d have to, in many ways, meet them halfway or more. You’d need to talk to them as younger evangelicals, not dangerous fundamentalists. You’d have to reconsider how important it is to you to keep homosexual grievances constantly on the front burner. You’d have to start acting like Biblical morality meant something. You’d have to stop acting as if being mainline is a game where you wait to see how fast the membership dies off.
It’s a moment when you need to speak the language of people who want to hear the Bible; a moment when preachers need to preach mature, Biblical evangelical messages.
Those younger evangelicals are ready for your appreciation of tradition, your more balanced theological method, your commitment to multi-generational churches and your more substantial appreciation of justice issues.
But they aren’t ready for the things that have emptied so many of your churches. They will never come if things remain the same. Much needs to change and should change.
You need to communicate, and you need to go back to your roots. It’s frustratingly ironic to know that when many of us are longing for a church that has the things we cannot find in evangelicalism, you have so many of those very things every Sunday. But what you don’t have is the willingness to come back to the center of evangelicalism where people who love the Bible and take it seriously can find a home with you.
You’ve made it clear that you want those on the left. And evangelicals have made it clear that they are not going to accommodate those who want tradition. We’re having a moment here, if you can stop and see it, who knows what could happen? Will your own churches divide in order to meet evangelicals on the road? Or will the moment go by, a “might have been,” that never was to be?
The moment will come and it will go. Right now, the moment is upon all of us.
The Internet Monk Archives 
Amen Ragamuffin,
As a UM who has heard everside of this topic and then some, it still boils down to this issue: is homosexual sex sinful or not whether in marriage(?) or out? The options are also clear: depart from the clear sexual ethics of the Holy Scriptures and 5000+ years of tradition and go on a culture ride with a group of people who espouse other unorthodox ideas and run dying churches or humbly accept the word of God and use the conversations and debates about homosexuality to better minister to those struggling with it.
I’m going with the latter.
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I don’t mean to sound uncharitable, but having also heard both sides of the debate presented numerous times, I can’t help but believe that the other side has missed the point about loving people and treating them with respect and human dignity while not reclassifying their behavior from sinful to something else. We wouldn’t knowingly ordain a man who is promiscuous or is actively cheating on his wife. We wouldn’t knowlingly marry a man to two different wives. The Bible is clear on such thing as it is also clear about those who engage in homosexual sex. So when those of us longing for tradition and history see the ECUSA and other denominations doing exegetical contortionist routines to make Scripture say something it doesn’t about the subject, it’s only logical to think that they probably do that with a lot of other Scriptures and that it’s simply not the place for us.
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Bookdragon,
There is no such thing as an “ex-Bishop.” He is no longer a Diocesan Bishop, but a Bishop he still is, i.e. he can still function as a Bishop and confer Holy Orders etc if requested by the Diocesan, and even if not requested he can do so in a manner that is “irregular” but not “invalid.”
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Incidentally, last I heard the Christian/Muslim lady had been suspended from ministerial duties for a year.
http://www.getreligion.org/?p=2531
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rr,
You’re right that Spong is an embarassment, but I wish people would quit talking about him as though he were still an acting bishop. He is retired, in fact long retired. An ex-bishop…(que riff on Monty Python’s dead parrot sketch). While a bishop he had not yet moved to the virtually post-Christian position he now seems to espouse. I know he has his fans in the church, but my experience is that the pastors who sound most like him are themselves close to retirement. The younger ones, even the liberals, tend to take the Creed far more seriously and the Incarnation and Resurrection very literally.
I’ve read a bout the woman in Oregon, and I pray for her. But 2 points: She was ordained before her ever started studying Islam and she is not pastoring a church (in fact, she is currently teaching at Jesuit college). The ECUSA has no office of the Inquisition, and lacking a pastorate there is little reason for anyone to complain about her until the news story, so why would anyone expect the church to start any investigation or proceedings against her?
Michael Adams: {{hugs}} I’m much where you are. We are in the midst of a search for a new priest and our interim, while a very nice guy, tends to preach sermons that are often pretty uninspiring. But I hang in because this too shall pass and because I see every Sunday this little fellowship of family communing together – and that, not the sermon, is the point where I see God.
Ragamuffin: I understand your pov, but ask a little charity. I have heard both sides of the debate presented, sometimes well and often poorly. Both base arguments on the bible, tradition and reason. You may well diagree with how the other side is interpreting and balancing all three, but please recognize that they are making their case based the text and context (and esp. the injunction to ‘Do justice’). They, rightly or wrongly, see themselves in the same tradition as those who ‘re-interepreted’ the bible to oppose slavery, racism and sexism. The biggest problem imo is the tendency of both sides to demonize and dismiss the other.
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I agree with you that it is nice to be your own editor! Blessings…
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And K Love, etc has undue influence, taking away the place of leadership in using music as a way of teaching.
K-Love? Isn’t that the CCM radio chain who’s slogan is “Safe for the Whole Family” and whose target demographic is a Christian version of Harlequin’s “Bored Housewife”?
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Both leads to people getting sick in different ways, which is kind of my point.
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“Which is better, smallpox or cholera?”
Why is taking the Bible as seriously as Richard Hooker did (“in the first place, what Scripture doth plainly deliver”) taken to be exclusive of social justice? Why can we not feed the hungry and clothe the naked unless we violate the principles of 5000 years of Jewish and Christian moral theology?
We see that exclusivism on both the right and the left.
And incidentally, as a former Episcopalian myself, for me the issue was twofold: in first place, the valorization of rank heresies in ECUSA; in the second place, the use of such heresies to declare that what has long been understood to be sin, is no sin.
Oh wait, did you think I was talking about homosexual practices? I meant serial divorce.
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I know you weren’t addressing me, but if I may comment, please allow me.
The debate over homosexuality, if it were merely confined to the deplorable fashion in which most churches have treated those struggling with such feelings in their midst and how we can help them honor God with chaste lives and affirm their courage for doing so, you would be a beacon of light to all evangelicals. However, this isn’t what’s happened, and thus, isn’t why those of us longing for the great aspects of your tradition and liturgy continue to stay away.
The debate you’re having is over things that have been settled among those who believe Scripture is true for centuries. It matters not that terms like “sexual orientation” weren’t known in Jesus’ day. The Bible is clear on the sinfulness of homosexual acts…yet it is this very thing you’re debating, even to the point of considering ordination and marrying of homosexuals. And this tells us that your churches aren’t the place for us. Not until you take those non-PC parts of the Bible as seriously as you do the calls to social justice.
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Chris — You “get it”. Thank you! I’ll seeing what we can do about putting the other two legs back on the stool.
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I agree with some of what you say but, overall, I see the problem not as an old vs. new problem but a problem of shallowness.
I still like the new ideas but they are being used in shallow, predictable ways. It has become a cookie cutter approach to church and that’s bad. But I’m not ready to chuck all that and head back to the type of church I grew up in, where tradition is king and ignorance reigns supreme. I’ll stick to churches trying to find new ways (while still incorporating some of the old) of communicating God’s story. For me, moving backwards is the wrong thing to do.
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I agree – to an extent – which might make what I say below sound contradictory, but let’s have a go at this.
In CS Lewis and Stott (as well as some of their contemporaries) you see people who very attractively and biblically blend all elements of the 3-legged stool (scripture, reason and tradition). However, it seems to me that they were educated particularly well in all three, which for social and religious reasons is now fairly unusual.
It’s all very well saying that their work and way of doing things can serve as a foundation from which we can build. However, such a tradition would still need to be able to sustain itself along those lines, and I’m not sure I necessarily see any signs of that being able to happen.
To be sure there some very vibrant evangelical churches who are reaching postmoderns – but their ‘tradition’ tends to be highly localised. In the UK at least the mass of evangelical Anglican churches tend to look a lot like Holy Trinity Brompton – evangelical but not particularly Anglican.
Historically, throughout the Communion there has been a lot of suspicion between the various wings of the church, which make some combinations effectively verboten (there aren’t many Charismatic Anglo-Catholic churches, for instance).
I think the evangelical wing of the Anglican church could make a huge contribution to the church as a whole – but I’m not sure how many of them value their entire tradition anymore, rather than just the evangelical bits of it.
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I have been waiting for this moment all my ministry. I am a minister serving the Presbyterian Church (USA). Just recently I heard this spoken…. “Getting new members is not the answer to our problems. We must stop fretting over the lack of numbers and focus on telling God’s story.
The people I serve know how to tell God’s story, but they stay too busy fretting over low numbers in our children’s Sunday School program. Concentrate on loving the children we have, celebrating their participation, being a community that loves being a community. Who knows people may just join us.
We have spent too much time reading statistics, listening to evangelicals as to how we are irrelevant and dead. We are focused on the wrong story…our problems rather than God’s story.
I do have one question. I know the “homosexual” debate has not and is not popular. I hear your call to take it off the headlines of the church. It certainly is not the fight I fight on a daily basis. Yet, if we had dropped racism and ordination of women when those topics were not pleasant where would we be? This remains our struggle.
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A few odds and ends:
Mark Anderson wrote: Seriously, the ECUSA has some serious problems. Much of this is due to their never having really decided if they’re protestant or catholic
And one needs to choose because….? 😉 Seriously, there are worthwhile elements of both traditions, why not combine the best of both? (which pretty much sums up my experience with Episcopalianism locally, keeping in mind our locality is waaaay outside the ECUSA norm)
Camassia — re: bishops — when bishops are godly men who truly care about being Christlike shepherds to God’s people, it’s not a matter of submission. It’s a pleasure to follow their leadership.
chrisstiles wrote: I’ve been to All Souls (Stott’s church) many times and don’t know that I would necessarily agree with your statement – in many ways it is just a big evangelical church (albeit an incredibly healthy one).
I was thinking in shorthand, allow me to elaborate. What I meant was, I believe the best — and most relevant to postmoderns — of the Episcopal/Anglican tradition can be found in the same stream of thought and practice that produced CS Lewis and John Stott. Not that we should do exactly what they did/do. Rather that our future can be built, at least in part, on the foundations they laid.
Jeremy — Much as I’d like to I won’t quote your entire post (beautifully described!). Just a couple thoughts. If I were to speak as a parishioner I’m exactly where the Falls Church folks are — committed to loyalty to Jesus, and the church as His people, and let the rest of the chips fall where they must.
The question I’m asking is more from the POV of a future teacher of theology and/or church leader. Blessings to Jody and the folks in TN, but here in PA the ECUSA doesn’t plan to stop till all Bible-believing parishioners are expelled from their churches. The Philadelphia diocese has already been “cleaned up” (my parents lost their church building in that fracas — their people are still a very healthy and growing Anglican church), and now they’re moving on to western PA. Real-estate-wise we’re toast. It’s just a matter of time.
So the past is fading, and it’s time to start making plans for the future. What we have to offer here in Western PA is a well-educated, Biblically sound yet broad-based clergy; worship practices of amazing variety (from Anglo-Catholic to charismatic and everything in between); and a diocese where about 90% of the parishes love Jesus enough to sacrifice their buildings. Sounds like the makings of something, no?
So how can we evangelical Episco-Anglicans best be of service in the 21st century? When the phoenix of orthodoxy rises from the ashes of heresy, what direction should it fly in? What might postmodern, Biblically orthodox Anglicanism look like?
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Here’s to hoping, even as a Catholic, that this moment doesn’t just pass right by! There is much of value in genuine reform theology that we are in danger of losing, like languages of disapprearing peoples.
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mega=good toomega=toomany small=good toosmall=notgoingmega church=forJesus=good worship=forJesus=good jobofchurch=worship=good worthyworship=Godhappy megamegaworship=joyjoyall lovepoor=worshipalso canprovideforeverywant=perfectchurch abortiondivorcesexualitywarimmigrationabuseconflict=messychurch=people=sinners worthyworship+messy people=megaornotgingmega=alltogether=Godlyprayer =church
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I was baptized, forty years and two weeks ago,in a Southern Baptist church in a small town in East Texas. In my early thirties, I was moving to the left, as my urban SB church was moving right, so I walked down the street, and became a Congregationalist. I raised one and a half kids there, but, about the time the one was half grown, and the half was being born, I realized that my intellectual problems with orthodox belief had gradually been resolved. I hung on, the token Christian, as my wife described me, for nearly ten more years. When son came back from college, he asked, “Why are you still going there?” Unable to give him a good answer, we went church hunting. He and his wife found a very hip Evangelical church, and I was confirmed in the ECUSA. I detest all that praise music, of which my parish has a surfeit. (Some of the words are not even grammatical. The “tunes” are so irregular, few can follow and sing along, so they are reduced to audience.) He dislikes the liturgy in my barely Anglican parish. So did I, at that age. As a recovering Baptist, I sit near the back. All the Baptists understand why, but, to clue in the rest of you, the minister shouted, really loud sometimes. It was easier, especially if you had children with you, who might awaken and cry, to sit at the back. So, there we are, Epistle side, rear or second, every Sunday. I can see all the rest of the people, know their struggles and stories, as they go to the altar for Communion, often in family groups, even extended families, twelve or more. It is so beautiful. We are near the last. I so wish my son and daughter in law were with me, just once in a while. I wish that there were an Episcopal church with something approaching Orthodox preaching, that also sang hymns. Now, my wife is with us, too, albeit reluctantly. When she was an atheist, she was a Presbyterian atheist. There´s a lovely PCA church, who sing hymns, have Communion every Sunday, even have an organ. However, my daughter does not want to be jerked around any more, to attend another church. As for myself, I have formed many of those relationships that make a church feel like church. Sigh. This was not what I expected.
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i don’t know…
we are definately mainline in theology and history, but more contemporary in practise, tho not in a mega-your best life now-kind of way.
i’m more interested in experiencing community with people who are seeking truth, wherever they may fall within that spectrum than with disgruntled evangelicals who are looking for a certain type of worship etc.
i don’t really care what worship looks like, as long as it’s honest and the people leading have integrity.
it’s mighty hard to find capable organists these days, however, and when my son decided he wanted to play we couldn’t find a teacher who would teach outside their congregation. it was wierd.
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Michael wrote: I’m the chief of sinners,
Don’t let the Dispensationlists catch you saying that — if my understanding of their take is correct, they’ve reserved that title for one person only. 😉
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Wonderful post,
As an ex-Southern Baptist cum 20-something Episcopal Priest, what you say really resonates with me.
I’m especially interested in your comment about ECUSA/TEC being one of the biggest tragedies. I certainly think we’ve been missing the boat big-time. I’ll give you an example. I started attending an Episcopal Church during my first year of college. The University I went to was a small liberal arts school, and I was somewhat involved with IV as well. The school was located in the city where the Diocese–at that time a moderate to liberal one, now pretty much all institutionalist and liberal–was centered, i.e. the Seat of the Diocese. But there was no campus ministry…sure, the Diocese claimed there was a campus ministry, but it was non-existent. During my time there, the Episcopal Diocese sponsored two events on campus. One was their leadership conference, the other was a lecture which they co-sponsored by John Spong. Ouch!
But, I had a wonderful and faithful parish, and I went on to Seminary. I’m now happily in ministry in the Diocese of Tennessee, which, while the clergy are pretty much evenly split, is solid, and things are going well. I pray we’re able to stay together as a Diocese and continue with the Anglican Communion–I didn’t leave one fairly sectarian group (my experience) to join another that just happened to be liberal.
All that is to say, there are those of us in ECUSA/TEC as well as in AMiA, CANA and the rest of the Anglican alphabet soup that are striving to make a place for other folks like the searching evangelicals you describe.
God bless…this was my first visit, but I’m book marking your blog.
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I’m about ready to go Catholic, I can’t take it anymore.
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Michael, after posting this I haven’t been able to get this subject off my mind. I even linked to it on my blog. But the more I think about it the more I realize, I’m not sure what I want. I pose some of those questions here.
What about the churches that manage to hold on to the old, the tried and tested but also incorporate the new and do it well? Because in the end, I think that is what I truly want.
But who knows? I’m debating back and forth now. I just know that what I get at the more contemporary services lacks something. I would be nice if the mainline denominations would fill that gap.
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Once again a well written and thought-provoking blog has prompted defensive posts about worship,the mainlines, or single-issue (homosexuality,abortion,etc.) theological debate.
For those of us who find the Bible as the centerpiece of worship (as guide and direction, not as an object of worship) and instructional on how to “be” the church and Christ-followers, this is a wearisome shouting match that seems to continually return to the all too tiring discussion on worship styles. Thank God there are churches (whether emerging, protruding, modern, post-modern, near modern, ancient-future, ancient-ancient, traditional, mainline, community,and contemporary—let’s cover them all to satisfy those who feel called to typecast all of us) that are seeking to bring God glory and enjoy Him forever with a missional DNA as guided by Scripture and influenced by the historic creeds,confessions,the solas, etc., of our faith.
Some do it with the eucharist each week, others call it the “Lord’s Supper” others with candles, some with a choir-organ combo, some even with(swallow) southern gospel, and still others with praise bands singing those “psalm-like” and other repetitive biblical lines or promises.
Perhaps our greatest need is NOT to point out the biblical failures and deficiencies of mainlines, or “praise band churches”, (how they have missed it with their theology, or losing a generation because of their songs), instead it may be to simply attempt to live out the Gospel in our cultural context as pilgrims on a spiritual journey whose DNA is trying to become more like Jesus while inviting others to join the journey. Then again, taking shots at other churches seems to be a lot easier than facing our own struggles and shortcomings as pastoral leaders. Regretably it has come to easily in the past for me as well.
Thank you God for the woman at a well known Episcopal church in our area who recently shared in a Christian networking organization luncheon how she and another woman from her church regularly practice prayer walks, pleading with God for the salvation (“through Jesus Christ”)of those in her neighborhood and beyond! I must say it was refreshing to hear and a personal challenge to someone whose previously stereotyped an Episcopalian as too liturgical to have such a practical biblical response. Shame on me, I knew better too! This church routinely offers Bible studies by Beth Moore and Henry Blackaby right alongside the lectures of the former Archbishop of Canterbury!
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One difference between high and low churches that I haven’t seen addressed here is political structure. In the U.S., it seems, we are all congregationalists now — most Episcopalians I know are in it for their local church and not for the denomination. In fact, that attitude is probably behind the whole Gene Robinson mess to begin with.
Some American evangelicals may yearn for smells and bells, but are they ready to submit to bishops?
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Michael, your blog has just been reviewed for this Friday’s blogachute over at Heaven’s Highway. You can read the comments at
http://www.glenkirk.blogspot.com
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Bookdragon,
You are right that while the Robinson ordination was a mess that other churches have problems as well. Clearly there is some misbehavior among Evangelicals with pastors divorcing and remarrying and the like.
But as an outsider looking in, the problems of the ECUSA look far graver than simply tolerating questionable moral behavior among some members of the clergy. The problem seems to me that heresy and even open apostacy are allowed or even encouraged in the ECUSA.
John Shelby Spong’s views on the resurrection and other central aspects of the christian faith aren’t even christian. At best Spong is a Deist (though he sounds like a positivistic atheist at times). Yet he was a bishop in good standing in the ECUSA, and probably is the most published figure from the ECUSA. There is also that lady pastor out on the West coast who is an ECUSA minister and a Muslim at the same time.
Many younger Evangelicals are looking for churches with a greater connection to history, a decent liturgy, and believe it or not more interests in social issues. But they aren’t interested in a church that looks like Unitarianism with a nice litury, which is how the ECUSA comes off now. I for one would love to consider the ECUSA. But not while they tolerate folks like Spong. Better not to go to church at all IMO than have someone like him for a bishop.
rr
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Great post! You have come close to describing some of my own feelings and so this post really resonates with me. It is a really exciting time when more and more people seem to be understanding what we hunger for: we hunger for worship in our gatherings that clearly belongs to the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church (to use the words of the Nicene Creed), and not only that of American Baby-boomers.
While it is certainly true that the so-called mainline churches have some great needs, your presence and efforts among us could influence things for the better.
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At The Falls Church in Northern Virginai, I saw first hand the tension you speak of. There was a real tension of being Episcopalian yet find ultimate identity in Jesus, of staying within the ECUSA as a remnant of faithfulness in the midst of the sheer lunacy of orthodox faith abandonment vs. leaving and maintaining institutional/biblical integrity. Though I did not grow up Episcopal and only stepped into that community for a year and a half, I saw good people grieving over and lamenting the state of their community, both broadly and locally. I must say I developed such respect not only for the vestry, but also for the everyday members for their leadership and commitment to Jesus in the midst of serious ecclesial times.
So what’s the answer? When does it come to a point where a community is so unequally yoked that it must break away? How much does God want his people to witness for His Truth among His own people? When does that witness to, in my estimation, false teachers jeopardize the community? I think it’s a tough, tough call. I know for that church, enough was enough and being faithful to Jesus and God’s rhythm of life was all that mattered. I think they realized deep down that it was Jesus and His people that were The Falls Church, not the building built in 1699 or the altar or the choir robes. And whether they loose the property through litigation, The Falls Church will still stand and church within the greater Washington DC area…
-jeremy
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Peg:
I can’t put into words how strongly I believe the evangelical wing of the Anglican tradition (read: CS Lewis, John Stott et al, with sacramental worship) is exactly what the post-evangelicals, emerging church folks, and so many others are looking for.
I’ve been to All Souls (Stott’s church) many times and don’t know that I would necessarily agree with your statement – in many ways it is just a big evangelical church (albeit an incredibly healthy one). I’ve been given to understand from people much older than me that it hasn’t changed overly over the years.
Seriously, the ECUSA has some serious problems. Much of this is due to their never having really decided if they’re protestant or catholic (which really goes all the way back to Cranmer)
I think it’s more down to subsequent history – and the way in which the established church in England went through several shifts (protestant->catholic->protestant) post Cranmer. Having said that, I’m not sure any more that this is the ultimate cause of the problem – it seems to me that there are a number of other denominations that hold similiar extremes in their midst. The anglican ones tend to be more visible because the stylistic indicators are so obvious.
Brian: I can understand you feeling that way, it was meant rhetorically and I honestly think that it’s one of those issues where the grass always looks greener on the other side.
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Michael,
You’ll get no argument from me on GR’s qualifications. As I said, from my perspective, a man who leaves his wife and takes up someone else (regardless of sexual orientation) should not be a bishop. (And, I could easily find any number of divorced and re-married pastors in evangelical churches couldn’t I?)
My point is that that doesn’t strike me as reason for leaving the church anymore than the bad character of various Congressmen would be reason for shopping for another country, or the existance of rather a lot of pastors on TBN would be reason for giving up on Christianity.
The via Media was born of trying to hold together people much more convinced that the other side was seriously in error and even quite possibly in league with Satan than what we face today. It does look like mayhem from the outside, and even often from the inside , but the trick is to recognize that no matter how much you disagree with someone else’s interpretation of the bible, you have to respect their freedom conscious and acknowledge that they are sincerely trying to follow according to the light given them.
Jeff: “the gay/lesbian/transgendered issue gets used as a smokescreen for hetero-vanilla promiscuity and irregularity” – AMEN Brother. And true in pretty much every corner of Christianity from what I can see and ironically, esp. in those most anti-gay.
btw, I grew up UMC and my mom and uncle worked in the church – boy could I tell you stories about UMC pastors with considerably UNorderly personal lives! (But that had little to do with my drifting away – I was drawn to weekly communion and communion rather than the sermon being the focus of the service.)
Marc: You’re right about the Methodists. Charles and John Wesley were both Anglican priests to the end of their days. The split came in large part due to the Revolution.
Yes, the ECUSA is mayhem sometimes. It’s a running joke to say ‘I don’t belong to an organized religion – I’m an Episcopalian!’. However, as long as the family can continue to love each other despite the disagreements, it’s a creative chaos and one I prefer to places where everyone is either totally red or totally blue as it were.
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Marc: Yes, I know, historically speaking, the Methodists are an offshoot of the Anglicans (IIRC, they still have some weird, communal-type relationship with the Anglican Communion). The statement that “Methodists are educated Baptists” is more of a joke ’round these parts that any sort of attempt at historical accuracy.
Side note: my mother’s father’s family has been Methodist for many generations, so my first thought when I left the Baptists was to check out Methodism. In the end, though, God had a different plan for me.
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Since my wife didn’t have much say in where we worshipped on Sundays for the past several years (when I was pastoring), I asked her to choose our church after our move. Now we’ve settled with a church that is “mainline” and I am impressed. I’ve said goodbye to the struggle to be innovative, keeping up or catching up with the latest trends. The preaching here is solid and rooted in scripture. The liturgy is new to me, I don’t know when to talk, but I love that we participate in more than just songs. If you look around, you notice that there are lots of older retirees and lots of relatively new parents… with a few boomers filling a large gap inbetween. And what’s most exciting is that the pastor is taking the moment and running with it. This church isn’t perfect, but she’s moving in the right direction.
I needed to hear that you’re praying for the mainlines. I can learn from you and start praying for the global body.
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Coder:
I believe that historically, Methodists are wayward Anglicans.
Bookdragon:
I’m living in Central Illinois and both of the ECUSA Bishops downstate are so upset with the national church, they’ve threatened to succeed (As if they really legally could) These two guys won’t even ordain women. Do you believe that? That’s why I left them for the PCUSA, they’re such wingnuts!
Seriously, the ECUSA has some serious problems. Much of this is due to their never having really decided if they’re protestant or catholic (which really goes all the way back to Cranmer), but I really can’t explain why it seems to be a church of such extremes. I was baptised and confirmed there, but I really don’t feel at home there at all. What a hugely dysfunctional family…
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Michael, I am SO glad to have stumbled onto your blog tonight! In your post you nailed something I’ve been thinking about exactly. Let me begin here:
“The real tragedy is the ECUSA. What a shame that there has to be an AMiA, and what a disaster that the church that should have really provided a via media can’t.
I’m a member of an ECUSA parish in the Diocese of Pittsburgh — you are familiar enough with the ECUSA to recognize ours is the diocese about to be litigated out of existence because of its stand for orthodoxy — and my parish is the one John Yates served (ref Jeremy Bouma’s post) before he went to Falls Church.
And I’m about to head off to the evangelical Episcopal (“are we Anglican yet?”) seminary in the fall for the very reasons you’re talking about.
I can’t put into words how strongly I believe the evangelical wing of the Anglican tradition (read: CS Lewis, John Stott et al, with sacramental worship) is exactly what the post-evangelicals, emerging church folks, and so many others are looking for. YES we still have it, yes there is still a faithful remnant. This via media is so badly needed right now, and it’s high time for a fresh expression of it. Move over, Spong and Robinson… the 1960’s are over. Here comes the next generation.
(BTW do you really find it surprising that one of the most-needed expressions of the faith in our post-modern culture is the one under the most heated attack?)
Michael, here are some questions I’d like to put to you and those folks here who agree with you. In your opinion, from what position can we best serve? Keeping in mind we want to be of service to the wider world and not just ourselves, should the “next generation” stay within the Episcopal Church proper and spend yet more resources fighting for Biblical orthodoxy? Or should we say “the heck with the real estate” and take our apostolic succession elsewhere? And if the latter, how might we “do church” without all the architecture and trappings that so clearly point to the Sacrament? Or, third alternative, should we go totally non-denominational and merely keep the Anglican prayer book form of worship? In short, how might you envision a “postmodern” Anglican denomination in America?
AND finally if you were going to tackle all these questions and answer them with your own life, what major would you choose at seminary? 🙂
Crisis and opportunity… very often the two combine to create many more options than one ever imagined…
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Another timely post, Michael.
It’s highly likely that this post-evangelical will dip a toe in the mainline waters soon. That’s a little scary because around here “mainline = Spong”. But we’re running out of options.
We’ve explored three evangelical churches since leaving our last church. One pastor relied on one of your favorite evangelical tricks, preaching a “godly woman” sermon from Proverbs that would have made Mussolini proud (and he didn’t even get to chapter 31). Another was a satellite fellowship of one of the 50 Most Influential churches where, after loud praise and worship, we settled in to watch a DVD sermon taped six months ago by one of the 50 Most Influential evangelicals who I suspect is too busy to meet me for lunch and hear my story. The third was conservative UMC, we thought, until the pastor opened his mouth and gave himself away as a Buddhist Unitarian Druid in drag. His explanation of the reliability of scripture gave my inner Baptist the hives.
Fr. Creson:Will young families groomed in contemporary services really return to the nave of the greyhairs? That depends on what this family finds at the local AMiA fellowship we visit next. The possibility is much greater than I ever thought possible.
Chris Stiles:Which is better? Fundamentalist legalism or liberalism? After a lifetime of the former, the latter, even with its flaws, almost wins by default.
Thanks again, Michael. You are really reading my mail on this.
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Hi Michael —
Perhaps I see things through a different prism, being in the UK the only mainline denomination that really exists are the CofE – and the 10% of CofE churches with 90% of the Anglicans *are* evangelical friendly. Admittedly falling prey to some of your other critiques.
In my city, the largest church by far is a charismatic church with an unabashedly prosperity gospel orientated message. Does that really lead less people astray than the many half empty mainlines around these parts? I wonder. Hasn’t Satan’s greatest triumph been to make us add things to Christ saving’s grace? I agree – the mainstreams have been diverted into liberalism. Which is better? Fundamentalist legalism or liberalism?
—
chris
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Michael,
I fully agree with your comment. Mainline denominations have a window of opportunity with disaffected Evangelicals. We need to ‘make hay while the sun shines’ so to speak. The LCMS ( the denomination that I’m in) has a rich theological treasure trove that many traditions could benefit from,and much to offer those seeking a more traditional and historical approach to the faith. One of our main stumbling blocks is a cultural insulation (a carry over from our German heritage?) that has really discouraged dialogue with other Christians. Many of us,especially adult converts to Lutheranism, and ex evangelicals are working overtime to open up lines of communication with other Christians and to make our theology known on a public level. A new generation of Pastors is coming up who are much more engaged in Evangelism and proclaiming the Lutheran doctrine and message to a wider audience.
Thanks for the insightful post.
P.S Also thanks for the reply on the other thread concerning the SBC confessions and history. Glad you guys have a solid footing to work from.
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Well, I have heard it said that “Methodists are educated Baptists,” so, depending on one’s views about education, calling you a ‘Methodist’ could have been either an insult or a compliment. I, for one, will prefer to consider it a compliment. (You Methodist.) 😉
More on the topic of the post, I agree with your statement about how Anglicanism should be the ‘via media,’ and it is sad how, at the very moment it seems to be most needed, the Anglican Church is being torn apart by internal strife. I wonder, if the Anglican Church were in better shape right now, whether we’d be seeing fewer Evangelicals converting to Roman or Eastern Churches.
From experience, as a former Evangelical SBCer who spent about a year wandering the Protestant mainline landscape, I felt like I was wandering through a desert looking for water.
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Bookdragon —
FWIW, the issue of taking sexual morality seriously is a fair point from where i’ve stood the last 25 years. We went from, while i was in college and seminary, a mainline culture of “shoot the wounded” when divorce entered the parsonage (and i was part of the process that worked to make changes in policy back then) to a culture of cohabiting clergy in parsonages w/o benefit of, um, well, not clergy. But marriage is now treated as an optional, ideal step, which may also be thrown over two, three, and four times — in my own Disciples of Christ, i’m speakin’, not throwing stones at ECUSA. Mainline/oldline Protestant denominations, especially in the neighborhood of their leadership, have become muddled in the extreme when it comes to sexual relationships, and the gay/lesbian/transgendered issue gets used as a smokescreen for hetero-vanilla promiscuity and irregularity.
At least, i saw Michael’s point more in that light than in the context of the homosexuality in ministry debate. But i’ve ended up happily supporting the work of the UMC, which has its oddities, but is still pretty solidly and consistently recognizable as asking clergy to have orderly personal lives.
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Michael,
as a mainline bi-vocational pastor, i think your post is right on. btw, Bishop Willimon is the Bishop over my conference. he is shaking things up and actually holding churches and pastors accountable.
i cannot see how anyone reading your blog for the last few years could ever call you a methodist, a methobaptist…or a calminian..but a methodist? well, i guess you have been called worst…continue to the good fight and my prayers are with you brother…
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I saw exactly what you are describing (the hopeful side!) in an Episcopal church I attending in DC, The Falls Church Episcopal pastored by John Yates. Now granted, they were one of several who left the Virginia diocese of the ECUSA for CANA…but what you describe about younger evangelicals longer for something more historically rooted, theological, and liturgical was more than provided for in this ancient-future church. Many youngers started leaving a megachurch in the area for this church for the exact reasons you outlined, but my guess is that was because the Falls Church is more conservative, evangelical, etc… than most typical mainlines.
Anyway, bravo on the post!
-jeremy
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Mr. Wilson, your comment- which I am not publishing- that I am a Methodist and not a Baptist because I’d be happy if an Orthodox UMC church exists was stupid and uncalled for. I’d rejoice if ANY church and ALL churches embraced the truth of the Gospel.
If we’re going to call names, try this one: You rejoice in being a sectarian. Don’t look now, but the big church on the other side of the Jordan has all kinds of non Baptists in it.
Your decision to talk about me instead of the issue is a poor one.
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Because God measures sin. Churches choose leaders as those who will be shepherds. I have no place to condemn because I’m not God. But he has no place to be a minister or a bishop, because he defies the scriptural qualifications.
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Michael,
I know you have written much good about liturgical churches, which is why this blindsided me.
I know the objections to Gene Robinson. But my point was that what you wrote sounded like homosexuality was the ONLY moral issue in the bible and the mainline churches neither read, preach, nor believe the bible. Not only is that wrong, but it is insulting. And it is unworthy of you.
There is error in the ECUSA (although there ones I’d put way ahead of Gene – and I personally have a bigger problem from a biblical perspective with him being divorced than gay). But there is error in every church – including evangelical churches, as you yourself have pointed out. Requiring agreement with every leader of a large, diverse, and largely decentralized denomination before joining, makes about as much sense as refusing to call yourself an American as long as there are people in the govt whose policies or beliefs you disagree with. I mean, really, if Gene Robinson is what’s keeping you out of the ECUSA, how can you possibly be in the SBC given some of the leaders there? Are all evangelical churches outside the pale because no one has defrocked Pat Robertson?
You see, that’s the thing about the Via Media. In order to walk it, you have to accept that some people on the road will walk further to the right or left of you. Some might even be trudging thru the ditch. And it’s okay to say ‘Hey you! you’re in a ditch – get back on the road.’ But what you can’t do is refuse to be on the road at all, or claim you’re only one walking on the perfect line, because the other travellers aren’t actively kicking the guys in the ditch.
-bookdragon
PS, In what sense is the statement
“I’m the chief of sinners, but I’m not an unrepentant homosexual claiming God called me to be a bishop and convert the church to my lifestyle.”
NOT saying Gene Robinson is a worse sinner then I am?
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Hey Michael,
In your last comment, you mentioned Gushee. Who and what book(or article,etc) are you talking about? Is it David P. Gushee? Did you know that he is moving from Union to Mercer? I came here so that I could study under him. Kinda sucks. Oh well, the quality of my other studies has more than made up for it.
God bless.
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Hey Michael, this post was a God send for me. I am in the process of ordination in the UMC and was really distressed as I looked over some of the local conference resolutions last night (why, I don’t know).
I was raised in the UMC, got into the drug scene in teens and early twenties, and was born again in a SB church. I got tired of the mega-church, ahistorical junk too. Through a series of events(that only God could engineer), my family and I found our way back into the UMC.
I can’t say how much I love it but the liberal side really grieves my heart. But the truth is that its dying off, literally. One doesn’t need a church anymore to be a social activist. If you don’t evangelize you die. If you have your own mission you won’t particapate in God’s (at least deliberately).
Thanks Michael for always being straight up in your writing. Your assessment is dead on. I go to college at a (the premier) SBC university and my fellow students want deep theology, social action and witness, and traditional practices that nurture. It’s a good generation of kids and they give me a lot of hope.
Your also dead on about the preaching in the mainline. It is very pretty but that’s about it. I attend a 1600 member UM church that has a pastor who originally was a General Baptist (whatever that is). A lot of our growth has come from other UM churches that want to hear the Word preached and not a lot of wishy-washyness. And truly, these are not the times to be wishy-washy. The Happy Days have come and gone. The church wants to hear from God.It gives me confidence to know that the expository and proclamatory preaching style that I have inherited from the Baptists will be like living water in my new context.
Again, thanks Michael. You don’t know how on time this post was. I am also grateful that you speak out of the front of your mouth and your commitment to Christ and his church. I will be moving up there to your home state soon to study at Asbury.
Note: If there are any UMCers out there, I would really like to hear your opinions about the future of the UM.
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Bookdragon:
If you are unaware of what I’ve been writing about the good stuff going on in liturgical churches for the past 7 years, you might want to spend some time in the archives.
Your church ordained Gene Robinson and is telling the rest of the Anglican world to leave them alone. YES there are great ECUSA churches, people and pastors. Thank God for all the good that remains. But your church ordained a practicing homosexual as a bishop. The AC said you were out of line. There’s not been an ounce of regret from the ECUSA leadership. In fact, African Bishops are now trying to save those who don’t want to be part of this.
If you don’t think that Gene Robinson stands in the way of evangelicals coming to the ECUSA you’re wrong.
I’ve heard hundreds of ECUSA sermons. I know the word is preached. I also know how the word is applied to abortion and homosexuality etc. As I said, if the attitude is going to be “We’re ordaining Gene Robinson, etc because we are Biblically mature and orthodox and you fundies are just too hayseed to get our sophistication” then there will be no open door.
I’m sorry I’ve disappointed you. Hundreds of other people have discovered that if they read me long enough, I make them mad too. I pray for your church. I would love to be a part of an ECUSA church, but as it is, Amia is as close as I can get because of Gene Robinson.
Conservative ECUSA chruches are calling for alternative oversight from liberal bishops. In Ky, the bishop of Lexington changed the locks and fired the vestry of a church that dared to criticise the Robinson deal. These problems are real, and they stand in the way of what I discribe.
By the way, the bit about me thinking homosexuals are worse sinners won’t wash with me. That’s not the point. Scripture is clear. Gushee has ended the exegetical discussion. I’m the chief of sinners, but I’m not an unrepentant homosexual claiming God called me to be a bishop and convert the church to my lifestyle.
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In related news, the Catholic Church is encouraging a return to the traditional Latin Mass in one of its latest policy papers (Motu Proprio). According to Catholic blogs, the biggest support for Tridentine Trad is among the under-35 set — similar demographics to what you mention.
Since the aftershocks of Vatican II, we Romish Papists have had our own problems with abandoning too much tradition in the process of changing. We, the original Mainline Western-Rite Liturgical Church, have had our own problems with Barney-level “praise songs”, contemporary/ugly sanctuaries, trendy-poor catechization, and “Clown Mass” over-experimentation.
And nothing gets stale faster than over-relevance. (Except maybe pretentious over-relevance.)
Now comes the backdraft after the shockwave has passed, and our equivalent of your boomer evangelicals “of the shallow, traditionless, grown up youth group religion that’s taken over their pastor’s head and is eating up their churches” are screaming and kicking.
And if your mainline Protestant churches won’t accept or appeal to these seekers exiled from Boomer Evangelicalism, there’s always the Original Mainline Church just across the Tiber.
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Just echoing Jeff — from what I understand, conservativbe UMC churches are doing great while the main-main-line ones are dying off. If the liberals that control the denominational resources will bow out gracefully, I think the UMC will be a rather evangelical denomination in a decade or two. But if they decide to stay and fight, they might tear the thing apart. In the Presb. Church USA, a similar thing has been happening in local congregations, but their libs have decided that if they can’t have the General Assembly, no one can, so they are (in my opinion) bent on denominational suicide. Look for the PCA to grow alot over the next few years.
But I like the general thrust of your post. I grew up in a rather conservative mainline congregation when such things were still not too hard to find. Though I came to hold that church in some disdain during my younger evangelical years, I have come to realize that church did much more for my spiritual development than any of the evangelical para-church stuff I used to be involved with.
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Michael,
I’m not sure how to respond to this. I usually like your essays, but in this one you are way off. I am trying to write this without anger, but I feel insulted and therefore angry. I am in a mainline church: an ECUSA church and a somewhat liberal one (although you find both Dems and Reps communing together here) and this community has been Christ to me for over a decade.
You say to attract evangelicals we’d “have to start acting like Biblical morality meant something.”
Excuse me?? That is either a gratuitous insult or a statement exhibiting an astounding ignorance of mainlines. The three big mainline churches in my area work together to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, house the homeless, care for the sick and in everyway we can care for ‘the least of these’. And having moved frequently in my life, I can say that that has been the case for most of the mainlines I’ve been in.
…or, wait, by ‘biblical morality’, did you mean treating homosexuals like they are worse sinners than anyone else?
You say: “It’s a moment when you need to speak the language of people who want to hear the Bible”
This implies that those of us in mainline pews do not want to hear the Bible. Guess what? My ECUSA church has at least 4 readings from the Bible every single service (and we stand in reverence and sign ‘may these words be in my mind, upon my lips and within my heart’ for the Gospel reading). The sermon following nearly always is based on one of those readings. You’ve read the BCP – every bit of the service is infused with biblical readings and references. We have Bible studies, on Sundays and during the week. We work through the entire NT and most of the OT every 4 years – how many evangelical churches hear that much of the Bible?
…oh, wait, did you mean we should change the way we talk about the the Bible and switch our theological language to the odd, specialized language peculiar to evangelicals and/or we should concentrate only those parts of the bible that evangelicals consider important?
You say: “you don’t have is the willingness to come back to the center of evangelicalism where people who love the Bible and take it seriously can find a home with you.”
Again, see above. We do in fact love the Bible and just because we are not literal inerrantists and read it and find the emphasis on doing justice and reaching out to the ‘least, last and lost’, does NOT mean that we do not take it seriously. (In fact, a lot of us would argue that it means we take it much more seriously than large segments of evangelicals).
Look, we are not going to abandon our theological distinctives or re-write our understanding of what the Bible says in order to be ‘seeker-sensitive’ to disillusioned evangelicals (I believe that’s the sort of thing that’s been part of the reason a lot of evangelical churches have become so shallow, no?). But that doesn’t mean evangelicals aren’t welcome or that we wouldn’t try to ‘meet them where they’re at’- just as we do with the opposite sort of folks (the ones a lot of conservative Christians would be scandalized to welcome).
In my church, anyone, fundamentalist to far left liberal, is welcome to join us as a brother/sister in Christ and will be loved no matter their politics or worldview. (But note: we rather like our female asst priest and anyone who is offended by a woman preaching would be wise to recognize that we are not going to fire her in order to gain your membership).
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Conservative UMC congregations are cleaning up, chief; mainline-lib refugees from the DoC (we close our eyes when they sprinkle infants), and lots of SBC megachurch-wannabe refugees who want some praise band music, but not praise band driven worship and polity. It’s happening in central Ohio — but the Wesleyans are doing even better on that demographic.
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Ah! Our entertainment-driven hyper culture! This post gives me hope that maybe, just maybe, people are seeing their way out of the tunnel and discovering that Christianity is more than just what feels good today.
There was a wonderful episode of “King of the Hill” tv series a few years ago in which Bobby Hill (the son) got very involved with a way way cool youth pastor and Christian teen group that was too “with it” for words (or something like that). His father, exasperated, finally takes a box of momentoes from the past out of the closet and has Bobby look through them and remember how important and cutting edge these things were at the time. Hank says to his son: “I know you think stuff you’re doing now is cool, but in a few years you’re going to think it’s lame. And I don’t want the Lord to end up in this box.”
As a 50 something friend of mine said recently, “I was into the happy-Jesus praise band stuff in my 20’s. And then I grew up.” Maybe the rest of the church is starting to follow.
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Preach like Tim Keller and Will Willimon.
Preaching in the mainlines can be good, but it suffers from a lot of softness at the application level. Good understanding of a text will quickly turn into “support efforts to stop global warming” or “don’t be too narrow.”
Every mainline church needs to preach through the Apostle’s Creed, the Ten C’s and the Lord’s Prayer with emphasis on application. Then, during ordinary time, take on some epistles. God knows I can’t complain about lectionary preaching from the Gospels, but the epistles were written to the church. Get some expositions of books going. See Mark Dever for details.
The vision of the church put forward by 9 Marks or the Cambridge Declaration needs to be articulated in the mainlines. They have much right.
And let me say this: the attitude that “we have better application than the fundies because we are liberal democrats” isn’t going to get us anywhere. Expound the word and make personal application and church application primary.
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Help me a bit, Michael, by fleshing out a bit more “mature, Biblical, evangelical messages.” Thanks
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quote: “The real tragedy is the ECUSA. What a shame that there has to be an AMiA, and what a disaster that the church that should have really provided a via media can’t.”
Michael,
Boy, can I relate to this! The Anglicans would be a good match for me in many respects. And I know I’m not alone. I’ve moved around quite a bit in the last several years, and the only Anglican churches I seem to run into are dying, John Shelby Spong wing of the ECUSA, which doesn’t interest me in the slightest.
What has happened to the ECUSA really is a shame, though I hope the AMiA expands like crazy. But we shouldn’t forget that the real disaster with the ECUSA isn’t that it is no longer palatable for tradition seeking evangelicals, but the fact that as a whole the ECUSA no longer preaches the Gospel.
rr
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The organ in ou church is about to be moved out because it is never played. My desire is that it would be played more. The problem is the person who knew how to play it left.
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Fr. Mike:
The evangelicals I am talking about are not the majority, but they are there. Anyone following this blog or any other post evangelical blog knows they are there. Ragamuffin is one of them, as I am. If there were a solid Methodist church near me that used the year, kept their liturgy and didn’t worship PDC/Church growth I’d be like a hog in mud.
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Just when you think you’re the only one thinking something…
I’ve spent the last 20+ years of my life in churches that were all about the “new style” of worship complete with contemporary choruses, informality and all the other typical stuff. And I loved it. It was the type of church I came to Christ in after growing up in a rather stale, dead Methodist church so I felt like I owed my sense of having a personal relationship with Christ and being excited about my faith to it.
Now I’m 37 and for some reason I can’t get rid of the gnawing feeling that I’ve lost all connection to history. Praise songs (at least many, many of them) seem rather trite and shallow while hymns have become inspiring. I struggle with what to do with what’s become of holy communion. There just doesn’t seem to be any reverance or mystery or awe.
Thanks for posting this. It’s nice to know I’m not turning into some old fart for thinking this stuff.
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Michael, Huh? I’m losing something here. Will young families groomed in contemporary services really return to the nave of the greyhairs? It would be wonderful to see a bold mix of rich, poor, young, old,with many cultures,and ethnic groups. Now if you can get liberals and conservatives to share a pew you are onto something. It seems we modern Christians prowl the suburbs looking for a church that doesn’t bother us and rarely challenges us. However, if the church is appealing to our children, many parents can last a ‘Sunday hour’ almost anywhere. If they can avoid the 10:30am post cheerios lament, ‘I don’t like our church. It is soooo boring’,they will find a way to find Jesus. But I wonder if we comprimse our core understanding of faith to get cozy, what do you have? Michael, even if young people return to the mainline churches ther is no room in the parking lot for American Buicks and hybrid minivan/suv/crossover Asian vehicles.
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I wrote: >It’s a moment when people are asking if they want to hear praise bands when they are 70…or if they will even be allowed in the building when they are 70. It’s a moment when the avalanche of contemporary worship choruses has turned into one long indistinquishable commercial buzz. It’s a moment when K-Love is determining what we sing in church and that’s not a good thing.
You’re going to have to help me with the “Praise Band = Jesus is my boyfriend music” statement. I don’t see it.
I said some people may are concerned that praise bands can’t carry the church musically forever. I would contend they simply can’t do the entire church heritage of music. They have a place and a part, but not all, and some people are tired of the praise band being all.
The music is stylistically difficult to distinguish unless you are a fan of the music. It fails to relate to all ages. It is a narrow type of musical style.
And K Love, etc has undue influence, taking away the place of leadership in using music as a way of teaching.
That’s my three statements and I stand by them all. I also use praise bands twice a week.
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Michael, I understand you don’t like praise bands – that’s fine. But “praise band” doesn’t automatically mean “Jesus is my boyfriend music.” I do wish you’d refine that particular critique a bit.
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Thanks for this. It resonates with a lot of things that I have observed and even experienced in the past few years. Of course, the whole thing could be turned around: you could offer a list about the ways in which evangelical churches could benefit from the attrition of the mainline, if only they would “meet them halfway or more.” Let’s pray that both sides become increasingly shaped by the moderating work of the Holy Spirit.
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I didn’t connect up “new” worship with “empty” churches. Quite the contrary. The mainlines are empty because of all the usual reasons, starting with theological liberalism, abandoning the authority of scripture and going right on through to selling out to political interests and so on.
Many of the changes in evangelicalism are not good. The Gospel is being lost.
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Some interesting thoughts Michael, but the Churches I’m familiar with were becoming “emptied” before the advent of what you are calling “new” worship came on the scene. Many in America seem to think that Jesus Christ was discovered here some time in the ’50’s (around the time of Billy Graham’s first crusade), and that nothing at all should be changed. Hasn’t the church of Jesus Christ been changing for over 2000 years. The church has done a lot of things wrong over that period . . . how far back do you think we ought to go. In the opinion of this 70-yr. old, we should embrace change and grow with it.
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Certainly the PCA and LCMS should benefit. The PCA is benefiting.
But there are reasons the mainlines COULD benefit.
1) not all younger evangelicals or post evangelicals are complementarians.
2) not all ” ” are Republicans.
3) not all are reformed. (I think conservtive UMC churches should be cleaning up.)
The LCMS is a puzzle to me. Impressive theology in many ways, but missionally……?????
The real tragedy is the ECUSA. What a shame that there has to be an AMiA, and what a disaster that the church that should have really provided a via media can’t.
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Michael,
I agree with the situation you write about here regarding younger evangelicals looking for more traditional churches. Heck, I’m one of these younger evangelicals!
But it seems to me that evangelicals looking for more traditional churches don’t necessarily have to deal with the mainlines. After all, there are always denominations like the PCA, LCMS and in some places conservative Anglicans. So why are these churches taking off? Or am I missing something?
rr
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The Mainlines are a mixed bag. In Ky, many of them are certainly conservative enough and healthy enough to hear what I am saying.
But let’s not misconstrue my point. I am not praising the mainlines. Far from it. They’ve screwed up badly and its a shame. But there are still people in those churches who can hear what I am saying.
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There are few (no make that one) main line churchs around here, were they actually act like they believe what is written in the bible, that it is not just an inconvenient fairytale. And that church is doing very well. The rest are dying and would rather die than chance there ways.
That is just my observation based on the words and actions of the main line church leaders, in this part of the country.
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