Let Us Abolish All Party Names and Call Ourselves Christian

Two important articles for you to read this day. First, I am grateful to Diana Butler Bass who sent this article to the attention of friends over FB yesterday afternoon. This is important information for all of us who call the Church our spiritual home. I hope you will share this material with the leaders of your congregation and ask them and yourself: What are we going to do about this? How will we stem the tide? How can our local congregation regain the confidence of the neighboring community?

Second, my colleague in ministry, the Reverend Randy Ferebee who serves as a priest in the Diocese of Western North Carolina, sent the second article, by David Lose, via FB. There is much to glean from David's wisdom.

Love One Another – Brian

U.S. Confidence in Organized Religion at Low Point

Catholics' confidence remains significantly lower than Protestants'

by Lydia Saad

PRINCETON, NJ -- Forty-four percent of Americans have a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in "the church or organized religion" today, just below the low points Gallup has found in recent years, including 45% in 2002 and 46% in 2007. This follows a long-term decline in Americans' confidence in religion since the 1970s.

In 1973, "the church or organized religion" was the most highly rated institution in Gallup's confidence in institutions measure, and it continued to rank first in most years through 1985, outranking the military and the U.S. Supreme Court, among others. That began to change in the mid- to late 1980s as confidence in organized religion first fell below 60%, possibly resulting from scandals during that time involving famed televangelist preachers Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart. Confidence in religion returned to 60% in 2001, only to be rocked the following year by charges of child molestation by Catholic priests and cover-up by some in the church.

The latest results are from Gallup's June 7-10 update of its annual "Confidence in Institutions" question. The same poll found Americans' confidence in public schools, banks, and television news at their all-time lowest, perhaps reflecting a broader souring of Americans' confidence in societal institutions in 2012. Still, the church/organized religion ranks fourth this year among the 16 institutions tested, on par with the medical system.

Protestants More Confident Than Catholics
Currently, 56% of Protestants express a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in the church/organized religion, compared with 46% of Catholics. This is in line with an average 12-percentage-point difference in the two groups' confidence, according Gallup polling from 2002 through 2012, with Protestants consistently expressing higher confidence. There are too few respondents of other specific religions to analyze separately; however, confidence among all other Americans combined is 29%, far less than either Protestants' or Catholics'.

Catholics' confidence dipped to a record low in 2002 and again in 2007. The 2002 result most likely reflected a high-profile child sex abuse case against a Massachusetts priest at the time, as well as charges of a cover-up by Boston Cardinal Bernard Law, who ultimately resigned over the matter. The drop in 2007 may have been part of a broader trend that saw confidence in most US institutions drop that year.

Gallup did not record respondents' religious preference in its Confidence in Institutions polls for most of the 1990s. However, religion was routinely asked on surveys prior to that, and the earlier trends show that Protestants' and Catholics' confidence in religion was fairly similar from 1973 through 1979. Then, from 1981 through 1991, Catholics consistently expressed less confidence in religion than Protestants did, by an average of six points.

Bottom Line

Two major findings apparent in Gallup's confidence in the church and organized religion trend are, first, the long-term decline in Americans' confidence in this societal institution since 1973, and second, the suppressed confidence among Catholics relative to Protestants starting in 1981, and becoming more pronounced by 2002.

While various sex abuse scandals involving U.S. clerics have likely played a role in Americans' growing skepticism about the church and organized religion, the decline in confidence does not necessarily indicate a decline in Americans' personal attachment to religion. The percentage of Americans saying religion is very important in their lives has held fairly steady since the mid-1970s, after dropping sharply from 1952 levels.

Do Christian Denominations Have a Future? By David Lose

A quick, but important caveat: I teach at a denominational seminary, was ordained into and serve in a denomination -- and therefore have much of my retirement savings tied to a denominational pension plan -- and not only take seriously, but take pride in, my Lutheran identity and heritage. (Whether that makes you want to take more seriously or dismiss altogether my feelings about denominations is, of course, for you to decide.) Despite my obvious denominational loyalty, however, I'm not sure Christian denominations have a future -- or whether they even should.

In fact, here are five reasons that I not only suspect the day of denominations has passed but also can't seem to find it in me to shed many tears about it.

1) Denominations are incredibly confusing in a post-Christian world. When the larger culture was nominally Christian, believers had the luxury of squaring off behind denominational identities. No longer. Ask the typical person with little or no familiarity with the Christian faith the difference between Methodists, Lutherans, and Presbyterians and she'll likely give you a blank stare that indicates she's wondering whether you're still talking about Christianity. The facts of the matter are pretty straightforward, if not that encouraging: most people in the various denominations have little sense what they mean and absolutely no one outside them really cares.

2) The theological differences between the major denominations are relatively minor. As much as I love a good real-presence vs. memorial-feast slugfest or round of justification/sanctification truth-or-dare, the truth is that most of the theological differences between denominations not only are unintelligible to their own members but are, in the larger scheme of things, relatively minor. Across the board, the major Protestant denominations, for instance, share a biblical canon, confess the major ecumenical creeds, and observe the same two sacraments. I therefore can -- and regularly do -- worship at churches of any of the major denominations and feel not the slightest tremor in my theological conscience.

3) Inordinate amounts of funding are spent on maintaining denominational structures and bureaucracies, money that could be spent on mission. Even though every denomination I know has in recent years cut way back on spending, eliminated various divisions or boards, or extended the times between major assemblies or conventions, denominations are still expending vast sums of money to prop up dated denominational bureaucracies. Would it not make sense to conserve resources by efficiently combining structures? Are seven or eight struggling denominational publishing houses better than one robust one? Where there are three beleaguered denominational seminaries in a single region, might not one healthy pan-denominational school suffice? (And we haven't even started on congregations!) Think of what might happen if the savings were channeled to funding creative media campaigns that didn't extol the virtues of one denomination but taught the Christian faith.

4) Political differences outstripped theological ones decades ago. Let's face it: progressive Lutheran, Presbyterian, and Episcopalian congregations have a lot more in common than do progressive and conservative congregations in the same tradition. Differences over how to read the Bible, the nature of the atonement, and the character of God are far more important today than nuanced differences in polity or regarding the sacraments.

5) Denominational affiliation often represents the triumph of ethnic and cultural loyalties over theological convictions. While denominations may have initially arisen over theological differences, they were soon co-opted by the political realities of their sponsoring state. Little wonder, then, that ethnic and cultural identity is closely tied to denominational affiliation. Those in the club, after all, talk not simply of Presbyterians and Lutherans but Scotch Presbyterians and Swedish or German Lutherans. This has always made it difficult to reach beyond one's ethnic enclave because interested seekers, even if they were attracted to, for instance, Lutheran theology, had to accept it in the form of German chorales or Swedish traditions. Moreover, as ethnic culture has declined as an important identity-maker, so also has religious affiliation -- after all, for many folks, if Lutheranism isn't about Santa Lucia, what is it about? And if they've stopped going to the Santa Lucia festival, why bother with church?

The bottom line is this: while I love my denominational heritage and am all for a robust theological identity and spirited theological conversation, I'd give up denominational identity and structure in a heartbeat if it meant a more unified, comprehensible, and compelling witness to the Gospel.

This makes some of my tribe, I know, rather nervous. But lest we imagine that denominations are, like the Holy Trinity, one of those things that, "always have been, are, and forever will be," perhaps a few words from one of the original Reformers will ease our fears. Just a few years into what would eventually be called the Protestant reformation, some of the followers of Martin Luther began to take his name for their cause. Luther, however, was neither amused nor pleased. In 1522 he wrote the following in a public treatise:

“I ask that people make no reference to my name; let them call themselves Christians, not Lutherans. What is Luther? After all, the teaching is not mine. Neither was I crucified for anyone.... How then should I -- poor stinking maggot-fodder than I am -- come to have people call the children of Christ by my wretched name? Not so, my dear friends; let us abolish all party names and call ourselves Christian.”

Not a bad idea, if you ask me. In fact, if denominations have a future, perhaps it rests precisely in taking the counsel of their founders to heart.