4 thoughts on “The Extinction of the C of E: Two Issues”
Ian seems sure that doctrinal consolidation can help church growth, just as Linda Woodhead seems sure that this would stifle it. If we shift away from the hazy aggregate picture and toward the Stark picture that I have been sketching, then it is easier to synthesize the stronger points of each.
In the Stark picture, conversion drives growth, but it has historically assumed the timely, local forms that historians study. Fulcrum evangelicals have epistemic ground for their scepticism about the idea that, just by standing for popular causes as a public institution, the Church of England can reverse its decline. However, conversion begins where people are, and this is truly a matter of popular culture. Because the Manicheans are not common in contemporary society, neither are conversions from their cult like St Augustine’s, and so there is little point in consolidating a Church of England view of Mani. What Woodhead actually shows– it’s not quite what she argues– is that there is a need to understand the possible starting points of conversion phenomenologically rather than just posit that they are there in a certain form because our favourite systematic theology so assumes them. Rather, there is a pastoral task of finding those starting points and articulating the faith-bridges that carry one to life in Christ. For those of us who believe that God is active in the world drawing souls to himself, a bit of serious field work before theological reflection (cf Sarah Coakley) should not be hard to accept. That reflection could uncover implicit truths helpful to conversion. If it does, the Doctrinal Commission might usefully make them explicit, common knowledge.
In search of education, career advancement, and love, Americans move often among a dozen regions of varying religious cultures. Upper middle class Episcopalians are among the most mobile Americans.
For better and for worse, Americans who move a lot change their minds about things as they adapt to new regions. Recall the admittedly wealthy Bush family– Episcopalians in New England, they followed George H. W’s interest in the oil business to Texas, and there adapted to the local cultures of the Gulf of Mexico, the younger Bushes joining the major churches of the region.
So, if two churches– one of nomads and one of rooted folk– were to believe and do the same things with otherwise similar people, then ceteris paribus the more nomadic church would necessarily lose more members. Whatever other problems it may have, much of TEC is flying into a brisk demographic headwind. Make inferences from TEC aggregate data with extreme caution.
So, on the OP, Byron is directly on point: a church’s attractiveness to converting converts in the rising generation is the salient factor for most of these discussions, and conversion has different emphases in different generations (in the US, different regions as well). The conversions that lead to growth today may not look like the most recent ‘classic’ conversions because time runs forward not backward. So the wise will pay attention to which fresh approaches are at parish level bearing fruit and multiplying. What works? How do they work? What works for whom? There is no reason to ignore what works and fails in other churches. (Byron’s notion that the evangelical conversion has a natural ceiling is probably the leading explanation for the slowing growth of the SBC in the US.) Neither Hayward’s frightening aggregate numbers nor John’s comforting encomium can tell us much about these things. Mixed methods research with finer resolution would tell us more.
Five other sorts of measure matter as much as those dreary measures of participation (attendance, membership, etc), and they too have important stories to tell.
(1) How likely are Anglican adults to belong to the church of their parents,? The trajectory of the Bush family, New England Episcopalians for generations, reveals the true story of TEC. George H. W. is an Episcopalian. But George W. found his way out of substance abuse through the evangelical faith of the Baptist church he now attends in Texas. Jeb married a Latina wife in Florida, and through her came to the Roman Catholic Church. If only ‘cradle Episcopalians’ are counted, TEC closed about a generation ago.
(2) How likely are children to belong to the denomination of Anglican parents? Since TEC is so largely a denomination of newcomers, this is to ask, about it– how likely is it that the children of adults who left some other church for TEC will resist that example and stay in their parents’ new denomination? Answer: not very. TEC is a welcome respite from more demanding churches, but in its very laxity inspires little deep commitment to itself. It appears that TEC, like the United Methodist Church (UMC), is a waystation for families in transit from intense religion through burnout to Anglican solace to secularized escape.
(3) When people change faiths, do Anglicans net greater gains or greater losses? The Pew Charitable Trusts have published recent data that suggest that evangelicals in America continue to gain more than they lose in exchange with every other religious affiliation. The Southern Baptist Convention’s rate of growth is slowing for the first time in decades, but is hardly in the decline we see in TEC. And the SBC is both experiencing a modest revival of Reformed theology and retaining its rising generation. TEC? Consider again the Bush family.
(4) How likely are new adherents to a faith to recruit still more new adherents to it? Obviously, exponential growth must eventually be faster than linear growth, but the radical difference between conversion- led growth and genial hospitality is easily missed. Conversion- led growth starts with just a few that become a multitude over a few generations. It also enjoys a distinct advantage in keeping children in the church of their converted parents. In the mid-1950s, as TEC was peppering America with tasteful little signs reading “The Episcopal Church Welcomes You,” SBC was beginning its present conversion-led growth with slogans like “A Million More in ’54!” In retrospect, the two dissimilar churches were unconsciously colluding in a natural experiment. Which results in a greater rate of growth– neighbourly openness to all, or an expectation that joining changes one’s life? Sociologist of religion Rodney Stark has shown that the latter, despite its comparatively slow start, must eventually overtake the former. And of course it has, putting it mildly. Anglicans should be thinking and praying across our liberal/ conservative and catholic/ evangelical differences about how God wants to transform C21 lives into Luther’s ‘little christs’ touching other lives and drawing them in. This need not ignore all aspirations that, say, Linda Woodhead finds in the unchurched, but Ian is surely right that only discipleship will lead to solid growth over the next few generations. Perhaps few have the patience for the persistent, prayerful experimentation of John Wesley’s Methodists, but those few are all the sail it takes to catch a mighty wind.
(5) In how many locales are such lives- in- transformation fully supported by peer communities of others being transformed in Christ? Remember the parable of the sower. A credible social correlate to inner renewal seems essential.
Nothing will stop the chatter about those gloomy graphs of declining participation. And nothing should. But other sorts of numbers point to other important discussions.
Ian seems sure that doctrinal consolidation can help church growth, just as Linda Woodhead seems sure that this would stifle it. If we shift away from the hazy aggregate picture and toward the Stark picture that I have been sketching, then it is easier to synthesize the stronger points of each.
In the Stark picture, conversion drives growth, but it has historically assumed the timely, local forms that historians study. Fulcrum evangelicals have epistemic ground for their scepticism about the idea that, just by standing for popular causes as a public institution, the Church of England can reverse its decline. However, conversion begins where people are, and this is truly a matter of popular culture. Because the Manicheans are not common in contemporary society, neither are conversions from their cult like St Augustine’s, and so there is little point in consolidating a Church of England view of Mani. What Woodhead actually shows– it’s not quite what she argues– is that there is a need to understand the possible starting points of conversion phenomenologically rather than just posit that they are there in a certain form because our favourite systematic theology so assumes them. Rather, there is a pastoral task of finding those starting points and articulating the faith-bridges that carry one to life in Christ. For those of us who believe that God is active in the world drawing souls to himself, a bit of serious field work before theological reflection (cf Sarah Coakley) should not be hard to accept. That reflection could uncover implicit truths helpful to conversion. If it does, the Doctrinal Commission might usefully make them explicit, common knowledge.
In search of education, career advancement, and love, Americans move often among a dozen regions of varying religious cultures. Upper middle class Episcopalians are among the most mobile Americans.
For better and for worse, Americans who move a lot change their minds about things as they adapt to new regions. Recall the admittedly wealthy Bush family– Episcopalians in New England, they followed George H. W’s interest in the oil business to Texas, and there adapted to the local cultures of the Gulf of Mexico, the younger Bushes joining the major churches of the region.
So, if two churches– one of nomads and one of rooted folk– were to believe and do the same things with otherwise similar people, then ceteris paribus the more nomadic church would necessarily lose more members. Whatever other problems it may have, much of TEC is flying into a brisk demographic headwind. Make inferences from TEC aggregate data with extreme caution.
So, on the OP, Byron is directly on point: a church’s attractiveness to converting converts in the rising generation is the salient factor for most of these discussions, and conversion has different emphases in different generations (in the US, different regions as well). The conversions that lead to growth today may not look like the most recent ‘classic’ conversions because time runs forward not backward. So the wise will pay attention to which fresh approaches are at parish level bearing fruit and multiplying. What works? How do they work? What works for whom? There is no reason to ignore what works and fails in other churches. (Byron’s notion that the evangelical conversion has a natural ceiling is probably the leading explanation for the slowing growth of the SBC in the US.) Neither Hayward’s frightening aggregate numbers nor John’s comforting encomium can tell us much about these things. Mixed methods research with finer resolution would tell us more.
Five other sorts of measure matter as much as those dreary measures of participation (attendance, membership, etc), and they too have important stories to tell.
(1) How likely are Anglican adults to belong to the church of their parents,? The trajectory of the Bush family, New England Episcopalians for generations, reveals the true story of TEC. George H. W. is an Episcopalian. But George W. found his way out of substance abuse through the evangelical faith of the Baptist church he now attends in Texas. Jeb married a Latina wife in Florida, and through her came to the Roman Catholic Church. If only ‘cradle Episcopalians’ are counted, TEC closed about a generation ago.
(2) How likely are children to belong to the denomination of Anglican parents? Since TEC is so largely a denomination of newcomers, this is to ask, about it– how likely is it that the children of adults who left some other church for TEC will resist that example and stay in their parents’ new denomination? Answer: not very. TEC is a welcome respite from more demanding churches, but in its very laxity inspires little deep commitment to itself. It appears that TEC, like the United Methodist Church (UMC), is a waystation for families in transit from intense religion through burnout to Anglican solace to secularized escape.
(3) When people change faiths, do Anglicans net greater gains or greater losses? The Pew Charitable Trusts have published recent data that suggest that evangelicals in America continue to gain more than they lose in exchange with every other religious affiliation. The Southern Baptist Convention’s rate of growth is slowing for the first time in decades, but is hardly in the decline we see in TEC. And the SBC is both experiencing a modest revival of Reformed theology and retaining its rising generation. TEC? Consider again the Bush family.
(4) How likely are new adherents to a faith to recruit still more new adherents to it? Obviously, exponential growth must eventually be faster than linear growth, but the radical difference between conversion- led growth and genial hospitality is easily missed. Conversion- led growth starts with just a few that become a multitude over a few generations. It also enjoys a distinct advantage in keeping children in the church of their converted parents. In the mid-1950s, as TEC was peppering America with tasteful little signs reading “The Episcopal Church Welcomes You,” SBC was beginning its present conversion-led growth with slogans like “A Million More in ’54!” In retrospect, the two dissimilar churches were unconsciously colluding in a natural experiment. Which results in a greater rate of growth– neighbourly openness to all, or an expectation that joining changes one’s life? Sociologist of religion Rodney Stark has shown that the latter, despite its comparatively slow start, must eventually overtake the former. And of course it has, putting it mildly. Anglicans should be thinking and praying across our liberal/ conservative and catholic/ evangelical differences about how God wants to transform C21 lives into Luther’s ‘little christs’ touching other lives and drawing them in. This need not ignore all aspirations that, say, Linda Woodhead finds in the unchurched, but Ian is surely right that only discipleship will lead to solid growth over the next few generations. Perhaps few have the patience for the persistent, prayerful experimentation of John Wesley’s Methodists, but those few are all the sail it takes to catch a mighty wind.
(5) In how many locales are such lives- in- transformation fully supported by peer communities of others being transformed in Christ? Remember the parable of the sower. A credible social correlate to inner renewal seems essential.
Nothing will stop the chatter about those gloomy graphs of declining participation. And nothing should. But other sorts of numbers point to other important discussions.