The Collapse of the Liberal Church
Margaret Wente
The Globe and Mail
Published Saturday, Jul. 28 2012, 2:00 AM EDT
Two weeks from now, the United Church of Canada will
assemble in Ottawa for its 41st General Council, where it will debate church
policy and elect a new moderator. The top item on its agenda is a resolution
calling for a boycott of products from Israeli settlements. Fortunately, nobody
cares what the United Church thinks about Israeli settlements, or anything else
for that matter, because the United Church doesn’t matter any more.
For many years, the United Church was a pillar of
Canadian society. Its leaders were respected public figures. It was – and
remains – the biggest Protestant denomination in a country that, outside
Quebec, has been largely shaped by centuries of Protestant tradition.
But today, the church is literally dying. The average
age of its members is 65. They believe in many things, but they do not
necessarily believe in God. Some congregations proudly describe themselves as
“post-theistic,” which is a good thing because, as one church elder said, it
shows the church is not “stuck in the past.” Besides, who needs God when you’ve
got Israel to kick around?
The United Church is not alone. All the secular
liberal churches are collapsing. The Episcopalians – the American equivalent of
the United Church – have lost a quarter of their membership in the past decade.
They’re at their lowest point since the 1930s. Not coincidentally, they spent
their recent general meeting affirming the right of the transgendered to become
priests. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. But it doesn’t top most
people’s lists of pressing spiritual or even social issues.
Back in the 1960s, the liberal churches bet their
future on becoming more open, more inclusive, more egalitarian and more progressive.
They figured that was the way to reach out to a new generation of worshippers.
It was a colossal flop.
“I’ve spent all my ministry in declining
congregations,” says David Ewart, a recently retired United Church minister who
lives in British Columbia. He is deeply discouraged about the future of his
faith. “In my experience, when you put your primary focus on the world, there
is a lessening of the importance of worship and turning to God.”
The United Church’s high-water mark was 1965, when
membership reached nearly 1.1 million. Since then it has shrunk nearly 60 per
cent. Congregations have shrunk too – but not the church’s infrastructure or
the money needed to maintain it. Today, the church has too many buildings and
too few people to pay for their upkeep. Yet its leadership seems remarkably
unperturbed. “It’s considered wrong to be concerned about the numbers – too
crass, materialistic and business-oriented,” says Mr. Ewart. The church’s
leaders are like the last of the Marxist-Leninists: still convinced they’re
right despite the fact that the rest of the world has moved on.
Clearly, changes in society have had an enormous
impact on church attendance. Volunteerism and other civic institutions are also
in decline. Busy two-career families have less discretionary time for
everything, including church. Sundays are for chores and shopping now. As for
Sunday school, parents would rather take the kids to sports.
But something else began changing in the 1960s, too.
The liberal churches decided that traditional notions of worship were out of
date, even embarrassing. They preferred to emphasize intellect, rationality and
understanding. “When I went to seminary, we never talked about prayer,” says
Mr. Ewart. “I had an intellectual relationship with Jesus. But love
Jesus? Not so much.”
As the United Church found common cause with auto
workers, it became widely known as the NDP at prayer. Social justice was its
gospel. Spiritual fulfilment would be achieved through boycotts and recycling.
Instead of Youth for Christ, it has a group called Youth for Eco-Justice. Mardi
Tindal, the current moderator, recently undertook a spiritual outreach tour
across Canada to urge “the healing of soul, community and creation” by reducing
our carbon footprint. Which raises the obvious question: If you really, really
care about the environment, why not just join Greenpeace?
According to opinion polls, people’s overall belief in
God hasn’t declined. What’s declined is people’s participation in religion.
With so little spiritual nourishment to offer, it’s no wonder the liberal
churches have collapsed.
It’s possible that organized religion in the developed
world has had its day. After all, even conservative evangelicals like the
Southern Baptists are in decline. Yet not all faiths have succumbed to Mammon.
Mosques are popping up all over, and in Canada there are probably more kids in
Islamic class than Sunday school. In the United States, Mormonism – which
requires obligatory missionary service and a hefty tithe – is going strong,
despite widespread ridicule from the mainstream press. Thanks to immigrants,
the U.S. Roman Catholic Church also remains vibrant. Most Jews I know still
belong to synagogues, send their kids to Hebrew school and have them bar
mitzvahed.
Should anybody miss the church? Yes, says Mr. Ewart.
The church gave families a way to participate together in a community larger
than themselves, for a purpose greater than themselves. Most of us don’t have a
way to do that any more. Our kids won’t even have it in their memory bank.
In the past few years, Mr. Ewart has spent time
hanging out with evangelicals – people who actually talk about loving Jesus. He
admires their personal, emotional connection to God. Lately, he has even
started praying. Perhaps he could pray for the church in which he spent his
life to stop its self-immolation. But it’s probably too late.
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