Saving Christianity: Liberal or Conservative

Below is my piece for today's "By the Way," the local clergy column in The Medicine Hat News. As I read it again I'm thinking I should have made it clear that I am a Christian who is more on the conservative end of the spectrum than liberal. I agree with Douthat and Marks more than Butler Bass.

As a result of The Episcopal (United States Anglican, that is) Church’s recent General Convention, there’s been a flurry of activity in the press and blogosphere about the fate of “liberal” Christianity. 

For example, New York Times op-ed columnist, Ross Douthat, asks “Can Liberal Christianity be Saved?” He points out that in the last decade The Episcopal Church experienced “something between a decline and a collapse…average Sunday attendance dropped 23 percent, and not a single Episcopal diocese in the country saw churchgoing increase.” He suggests that by being “flexible to the point of indifference on dogma, friendly to sexual liberation in almost every form, willing to blend Christianity with other faiths, and eager to downplay theology entirely in favor of secular political causes…liberal Christianity has simply collapsed.”

In response, Jim John Marks, in his The Life of Meaning blog, asks, “Why Should Liberal Christianity be Saved?” “Getting hip to the culture,” he writes, “is not the way to reach people, and to save them. The culture around us is what people need saving from. The more you look like it, the less effective you can be.”

Then, on the Huff Post Blog, author Diane Butler Bass, reckons the real question is not so much about just liberal Christianity, but “Can Christianity be Saved?” “Decline is not exclusive to the Episcopal Church,” she writes, “nor to liberal denominations--it is a reality facing the whole of American Christianity.” Far from being the problem, “Can Liberal Churches Save Christianity?” she wonders. ‘The twenty-first century has yet to answer that, but I think we may be surprised.”

There are also liberal and conservative expressions of Christianity in Canada and Medicine Hat. We struggle with similar problems. Many of our churches are also in decline. Divisions can, and do, arise here, too. The challenging question for those of us who follow Jesus is how to treat the people with whom we disagree. Jesus is clear on the matter. We are to love, do good to, bless and pray for them; and not just those with whom we disagree; but even our enemies and those who hate, curse, and mistreat us (Luke 6:27-28). When we disagree, even sharply (Acts 15:39), there is always the commandment to love (Mark 12:29-31).

In any case, if there is any saving to be done, Jesus will do it. 

The Anglican Mess: Kiwis, Yanks, Comprehensiveness, Liberal Theology and the Bible

Both New Zealand's General Synod and The Episcopal Church's General Convention have just taken place. The Kiwis and Polynesians have decided to study the theology of marriage with a view to somehow "progressing" beyond the merely heterosexual. The Episcopalians have approved a rite for blessing same-sex couples and have decided that transgender issues may not inhibit a person from leadership in the church and ordination. There are plenty of Canadian Anglicans who want to go there, too—several dioceses already have.

There has, of course, been considerable commentary on it all. For example, Anglican Down Under (ADU) who works for Bishop Victoria Matthews and the Diocese of Christchurch, feels that these developments threaten the comprehensiveness he believes has been the Anglican advantage up to now:

Personally I would be deeply saddened to find that the comprehensiveness of the church to which I belong, through birth, baptism, conviction and license, is jettisoned. But worse, I see signs that it would be the beginning of the end of this church. As Anglicans used to being the largest and greatest church of the land, we can miss seeing the bigger picture of contemporary Christianity in these islands. In that bigger picture we are increasingly a smaller player. The growth areas in congregational life are in churches of other denominations and even of no denomination. Anglicanism could disappear tomorrow off the face of New Zealand's earth and Christianity would continue to thrive, grow, permutate and develop. In particular, Christianity of the non-Anglican variety is showing itself as particularly adept at winning young people to Christ. And, guess what, most are joining up to a discipleship programme which is not liberal/progressive. 

I see a huge temptation in the GS of 2014 to determine that when most of the rest of Christianity in Aotearoa New Zealand is conservative, traditional, biblical in its orthodoxy and orthopraxy, ACANZP can become the liberal/progressive alternative. My prayer, wish, agenda and campaign here (for what it is feebly worth) is that our church does not take that turn, but determines, whatever re-examinations take place in the next two years, that we will both remain a comprehensive church and be part of the mainstream future of Christianity in these islands.

In that same post (all here) ADU also refers to a New York Times piece on the subject: "Can Liberal Christianity Be Saved?" in which one, Ross Douthat, comments on the headlong Episcopal push to progressive-liberal theology:

Yet instead of attracting a younger, more open-minded demographic with these changes, the Episcopal Church’s dying has proceeded apace. Last week, while the church’s House of Bishops was approving a rite to bless same-sex unions, Episcopalian church attendance figures for 2000-10 circulated in the religion blogosphere. They showed something between a decline and a collapse: In the last decade, average Sunday attendance dropped 23 percent, and not a single Episcopal diocese in the country saw churchgoing increase. 

Traditional believers, both Protestant and Catholic, have not necessarily thrived in this environment. The most successful Christian bodies have often been politically conservative but theologically shallow, preaching a gospel of health and wealth rather than the full New Testament message. 

But if conservative Christianity has often been compromised, liberal Christianity has simply collapsed. Practically every denomination — Methodist, Lutheran, Presbyterian — that has tried to adapt itself to contemporary liberal values has seen an Episcopal-style plunge in church attendance.

All here.

There's more! ADU puts his finger the underlying and real issue behind and through it all in another post entitled "Let's change the Bible. No, let's silence it!"

It's a fine mess we've gotten ourselves into, Ollie, and that's a fact!

Posted with Blogsy