Liberal Leanings Chipping Away At Church Membership

[Webster]

OneNewsNow: Liberal leanings chipping away at church membership

An organization that aims to reaffirm the Church's biblical and historical teachings in the face of revisionist challenges is astounded to see the effect liberal interpretation of the Bible has had on membership at oldline Protestant denominations.

In the mid-1960s, the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) recorded having more than two million members. But in succeeding decades, the denomination has seen significant drops in membership, with the most recent data showing an 80 percent decline since that time, standing at 382,000 for 2018.

"This can be seen through their baptism number," explains Jeff Walton of The Institute on Religion & Democracy (IRD). "We know that just between 2017 and 2018 the number of baptisms recorded by the denomination declined by 13 percent. That's very significant. Part of that is a problem because it means that the denomination is figuratively eating the seed corn of its future."

There are faithful people within the denomination, the bulk are extremely liberal folks who tend to conform to the world rather than the Bible. "They do not necessarily have the same viewpoint as the Church has historically understood on many issues that currently the Church faces in conflict with the broader American culture," Walton laments. "These include differences on marriage and human sexuality, also on things like the sanctity of human life issues."

That impacts the ability of the Church to minister effectively.

Walton adds that no left-leaning denomination in the United States is experiencing sustained growth on a national level, and he writes that the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) is on track to claim the top spot for fastest declining major U.S.-based church last year.

 

[NewCreation435]

Could their left leaning ideas include a lack of an evangelistic emphasis? I didn't realize that group was so liberal

 

[Josiah]

I thought the most liberal denominations were generally the ones loosing the most members....

 

[JRT]

Christianity is in the process of reinventing itself. This has happened several times in the past.

 

[tango]

It's not always easy to identify a single cause of a drop in membership. In decades gone by people might go to church on a Sunday because it was socially expected - they'd go through the motions, have their children baptised (or be baptised themselves, or confirmed, or whatever that particular church did), while not believing any of the things they solemnly pronounced they believed. Of course they all counted as members of the church..

Now there's no social pressure to go to church and, if anything, the social pressure is not to go to church, all those people have a handy excuse not to bother any more. It's inevitable that shaking out the people who never really wanted to be there will result in a drop in membership. Identifying how many people have left a church because they were just going through the motions and how many have left the church because they dislike the newly found liberal leanings isn't necessarily a simple process. For good measure if a church doesn't become more liberal it may lose members too - look at the people who want to be "open and affirming" to gay people who leave churches because they consider the stance to be too conservative.

 

[hedrick]

Christianity is in the process of reinventing itself. This has happened several times in the past.

So far it doesn't look good. At least in the US, the only version of Christianity that's managing to survive is tied to traditional culture. It's largely disappearing in the more modernized parts of Europe.

 

[hedrick]

It's not always easy to identify a single cause of a drop in membership.

I've read all kinds of studies and analysis about it. Most of those don't seem consistent with long-term trends.

In my opinion the underlying problem is that the world simply doesn't look like a being such as God is in charge or even involved, when things are viewed from a modern perspective. In the US we have lots of people who reject a modern perspective, not just in religion but other areas of life (while using its technological results, of course). The result is that Christianity is increasingly limited to that portion of the population.

I'm not saying anything as simple as Christianity and science contradict. I don't think they do. Indeed I think Christianity was essential to the rise of science. But we haven't articulated a vision of God that works as humans increasingly understand and control the world. I think there is such a vision, but most people don't see it or don't accept it, and the most visible Christians are increasingly vocal in arguing that Christianity is inherently tied to pre-modern culture.