I recently saw a WaPo article claiming that, based on the statistical free fall of membership in Mainline churches, we only have 23 Easters left before we cease to exist. On one hand, I would put this in the category of "the sky is falling" news reports we read about every few months, which are inevitably followed by a series of articles on signs of growth in "organized religion". This seasonal yin-yang of religion news fuels the constant back and forth of "told you so" posts on social media, as those for and against religion make competing claims. Yet on the other hand, there is something to listen to here. While I think we have many more than 23 Easters left, I do think things will change, and need to change, a great deal. By the year 2117 I would imagine that all American Mainline Protestants will have merged into 2-3 fairly small denominations. If I had to guess, probably one that styles itself a multi-faith fusion Religion, along the lines of Unitarian Universalism; One that is a Liberal Trinitarian Sacramental tradition, including many Lutherans, the Episcopal Church, and some Methodists; And one that is Liberal Trinitarian non-sacramental, and includes folks like Liberal Baptists and those who currently identify as Progressive Evangelicals.
But if we are going to somehow arrest our free-fall, we need to take an accurate self assessment of our Church culture and realize what we can, and cannot, change. I think that, at this point in history, many of our stances on theology and culture are on the ultimate side of justice and truth (but sometimes with an elitist sense of "good taste"), yet they are not on the immediate side of cultural power or social utility. For instance:
"Go to be" versus "Go to get": Most growing or sustaining religious groups have a theology and sociology that you go to Church to "get" something: Go for salvation, go for healing, go for prosperity, etc. In these Churches, the congregation is the primary or only place to get God's blessings. If you don't go, you can't get. This is a consumer version of "no salvation outside the church".
But Mainline Churches do not tend to do that. We tend to be Universalists about God's Love, ultimate salvation, and divine blessing. You don't have to be in OUR church, much less ANY church to experience God's grace. Rather, we come to Church to "be" the Church and to share in community together. You don't have to come to Mass on Sunday in order to continue in salvation, you only come because you want to, motivated by the desire for community and communion. God won't love you any less if you don't show up.
But this doesn't effectively motivate people to come very regularly. Especially if it has been a long week with a short turnaround before Monday morning. And double especially if we live in a culture which is designed to separate us from communities, and turn us into atomized individual consumers, by filling our lives with 60-80 hour work weeks and endless "pay-to-play" activities for our kids. The only thing we have time for is a drive thru value meal, a quick stop at the Megamart, and falling asleep watching Netflix before we do it all again. And so Church gets relegated to occasional and optional status by parents, and later to irrelevant status by their children (unless of course they experience conversion in a "go to get" Church).
Anti-Consumerism: Implicit in the above spirituality is the general Mainline discomfort with living in a Consumerist society where the main value is money and the main activity is competition of a hyper-masculine type. We tend to question all of those values, and drift leftward toward more pro-social (or even socialist) understandings of human nature and human society. In general we eschew hyper-masculine competition in favor of the gentle and compassionate; We eschew certainty and mission-driven identity in favor of introspection and self-critique. If we do have bold and loud leaders in the traditional style, we usually criticize them until they go silent or leave.
This makes our Churches culturally unfriendly places for those comfortable in Consumer culture, which is most people. We need to be aware of this, and also aware of the massive propaganda machine that is Consumerism. People are conditioned to accept its values thousands of times per day in every aspect of media and the assumptions of business culture. Every moral value or way of organizing society that does not fit lock-step with endless consumption, market value, and unfettered competition is shouted down, ridiculed, and dismissed in the public square. So if we are going to present a way of being that is at odds with this, we need to realize what we are up against and how uncomfortable it will make most people (especially those who benefit most from the current social order).
Pro-Marginalized: In addition, we tend to stress the dignity and inclusion of the most vulnerable in society, from the poor and needy, to people of color, to LGBT persons. At least this is the case in our rhetoric. In practice we tend to be fairly homogenous, especially in terms of education and wealth, while the truly diverse charismatic megachurch down the street is filled with people of all colors and social levels, all "going to get" God's blessings at Church. The social problem we really run into here is that by normalizing the marginal, we make many who are in the statistical "norm" for our demographic feel marginalized.
For instance, if we are a congregation in a white suburb filled with educated and affluent people, but all of our messaging is about the vulnerable who are not like us (and maybe we should be a bit ashamed and self-questioning of our privilege), then it won't be long before our "target demographic" doesn't feel welcome at our Church. And because of our location, we won't draw the poor or actually marginalized in either. We may draw in more affluent and "progressive" folks, but these do not tend to be numerically plentiful, nor do they tend to reproduce quickly. All while those in the target demographic for our locale find their way to a megachurch that will give them Jesus without challenging them to be so introspective and self-critical. Admittedly, this is not on the side of Justice. But it is how social commitment works in a voluntary environment where we don't make claims about needing to be part of THIS church to be "saved".
Elitist cultural values: Let's be honest. From our decor, to our architecture, to our music, to the prose we read from in our Book of Common Prayer: We scream elitist culture. We typically despise, on an aesthetic level, the buildings and music and worship styles of growing megachurches. Megachurches are not afraid to play to the aesthetic tastes of their target demographics. But we see it as part of our mission to raise the aesthetic sensibilities of our members to some high-culture European standard. Don't get me wrong. I think certain cultural standards are of higher value than others, and I want my own children to be able to appreciate them. But we also have to admit that the aesthetics of our worship can be alien to outsiders, uncomfortable for many, but downright snobbish and unwelcoming at times.
At the end of the day, we will have to realize that some of our ideas and practices rest on "Gospel values", which will continue to make us unpopular in culture. And we have to be OK with that. And we also need to be able to sacrifice ideas and practices that are less than Gospel truth, to welcome a wider swath of God's children. But above all, we need to find a reason for people to come to Church that avoids the crass consumerism of "go to get" models, while also providing a greater motive than "go to be" models.
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