Check out the Reconquista idea of Redeemed Zoomer. He's a 20-something PCUSA guy who sees their dying demography as a opening to join and retake the lost ground (including the beautiful old church buildings).
He also does interesting theological discussions...while playing video games.
Aaron, you mention your time at the PCUSA was eye-opening, but don't really say in what ways. As someone who is barely holding on at a PCUSA church which is the only large congregation in this presbytery who stayed with the denomination*, I'd love to hear more.
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*The other two churches in our presbytery of comparable size departed to the EPC and ECO.
This may be glib, but it's also serious. Christian nationalism is the only potential I see for anything "mainline" and orthodox. Almost by definition, if orthodox Christianity begins to set the tone for the country or even any individual state or region, it's going to be *called* CN. But beyond that, the level compromise mainstream society demands from Christians doesn't suggest to me that it's possible to be mainstream acceptable unless you've already decided to drop your Christian faith. People can be very inconsistent but I'm not sure many can be "trans women are women and also Christ is lord" level inconsistent.
So, is the question of whether mainline Protestantism can be rebuilt another way of asking if we can maintain a non-Catholic church in the Relevance/Christ of Culture/Christendom mode?
I think it is going to be tough to rebuild any version of a Mainline if it is at all tied to denominations. Ryan Burge's studies suggest that the two trends are Nones and Nons. Within Christianity the trend is going to continue to move towards non-denominational churches due to all institutions being discredited--and non-denominationalism sort of prevents a new Mainline from emerging because it would necessitate some kind of shared values and centralized structures.
I think this ultimately misses the point because it doesn't understand what "Mainline" means. It's not a marker of theological centrism, nor of a "higher" Protestantism. Mainline is a social class marker. Mainline churches are those which are populated by the bourgeoisie and the "respectable" classes of society. There is almost no real theological content to "Mainline" identity. In the book, Vanishing Boundaries: The Religion of Mainline Protestant Baby Boomers, Hoge, Johnson, and Luidens survey the characteristics of the decaying Mainline denominations in the latter half of the 20th Century, the authors find that being Mainline was primarily an identity grounded in social and class factors, but that nearly none of their subjects identified with their denomination on the basis of theology. Episcopalians, Methodists, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, ELCA, Northern Baptists, various CoC denominations, all repeated the same results on their surveys: they did not consider theological differences to be salient between Mainline groups and scored extremely high on measures of Universalism. They identified themselves as distinct from Catholics and Evangelicals, but considered all Mainline churches essentially interchangeable. Hoge, Johnson, and Luidens find that the main causes for conversion between the various denominations are personal convenience issues like marriage to a different Mainline Protestant or driving distance to a nearer church. Mainliners who moved away from their hometown were among the most likely to convert to another Mainline denomination.
Revival of Mainline Protestantism in any form is destined to fail because being Mainline is about being the default beliefs of the respectable class of upper-middle class folks. Where did the converts come from who constituted the Mainline boom in the 1950's? As Robert Putnam and David Campbell tells us, it came from the rising income of working-class Evangelicals and Catholics. They use a clever analogy: just like these rising middle-class folks traded in their Chevy for an Oldsmobile, they also traded in their Evangelical or Catholic faith for Mainline Protestantism. It was the class, not the theology, that defined the religious identity marker of "Mainline."
Today, what is the default religion of the respectable upper-middle class? It's not going to be any kind of Reformed Christianity, for sure. Theologically serious Christianity is the most absolutely low-class thing you can espouse among our Managerial Upper-Middle Class. As I've said quite a few times, I'm of the opinion that Mainline Protestantism is alive and well in America today as the current religion of respectable Upper-Middle class folks. It's dropped its pretensions at being a theological faith, and dropped the unnecessary elements of Sunday worship and maintaining a sanctuary. But the social theology of respectable, upper-middle class religion is alive and well in the secularized jargon of mainstream center-left culture. It's no coincidence at all that the most prominent political theorist of the UMC, John Rawls, started his career studying theology.
The existence of the Mainline was a product itself of the Positive World. It was a result of the fact that those denominations were Respectable, in contrast to the working-class reputation of Evangelicism and Catholicism. There really is no such thing as a distinctive Mainline theology waiting to be restored, as well-groomed professionals with Ivy diplomas crowd the doors waiting to return to their grandparents' churches. My suspicion is that people who bemoan the collapse of Mainline denominations are doing so less because they miss the distinctive Episcopal doctrine of the Three-Legged Stool or the modernized liturgy of the 1979 Book of Common Prayer, and more because they don't want to be associated with dirty, white-trash, pickup-driving, ignorant fundies like me.
I was surprised to see Meador describe this new mainline as "center-right" because from what I know of him, possibly outside of abortion and some of the gender insanity, he isn't on the right in any meaningful way. In the Gospel Coalition Good Faith Debate he was in, he got stomped while repeating glib progressive environmental rhetoric. The biggest denominations he mentions are already having major struggles with trying to stop members from dragging them to the left on core doctrinal issues. Hard to believe advice and leadership from someone like Meador would keep them from chasing the latest secular progressive fads just the like previously mainline churches did and continue to do.
In his conclusion which you quote, he talks about building strong local communities. What does he think these communities are going to be built around? These groups have major theological differences and he staunchly opposes any kind of immigration restriction to allow communities to keep any kind of homogeneous nature. As Stephen Wolfe points out in this review of his book, Meador blames whites for every problem he identifies in the West. Does he seriously think he can persuade the people he needs to be the backbone of a rebuilt Mainline with this kind rhetoric?
Thanks, love this discussion, hope to see it continue to evolve.
The "liminal" framing strikes me as about right. We're seeing a lot of institutions break down, to lose everyone's trust and confidence, but not many that are managing to build any new trust or confidence.
When that dynamic starts to flip, we'll know we're passing into something new, and it will be easier to see what that thing is.
Well the hopeful part of me says that this is possible. The SBC reversed course from going liberal haywire back in early 80s I think, yet here we are again and I think the SBC is in for a drastic culling as they move in a liberal / progressive direction.
Is rebuilding or tunneling underground the correct thinking though? I see more a Benedict Option future for all true churches until the persecution of end times becomes more direct and intense.
Aaron perhaps is more hopeful than I, though I know that God's church is unstoppable.
Recommend spelling out the denominational acronyms at some point in these posts. I realize this is largely insider stuff, but some of us outsiders would like to at least pretend we’re part of the conversation!
Check out the Reconquista idea of Redeemed Zoomer. He's a 20-something PCUSA guy who sees their dying demography as a opening to join and retake the lost ground (including the beautiful old church buildings).
He also does interesting theological discussions...while playing video games.
Aaron, you mention your time at the PCUSA was eye-opening, but don't really say in what ways. As someone who is barely holding on at a PCUSA church which is the only large congregation in this presbytery who stayed with the denomination*, I'd love to hear more.
--------
*The other two churches in our presbytery of comparable size departed to the EPC and ECO.
This may be glib, but it's also serious. Christian nationalism is the only potential I see for anything "mainline" and orthodox. Almost by definition, if orthodox Christianity begins to set the tone for the country or even any individual state or region, it's going to be *called* CN. But beyond that, the level compromise mainstream society demands from Christians doesn't suggest to me that it's possible to be mainstream acceptable unless you've already decided to drop your Christian faith. People can be very inconsistent but I'm not sure many can be "trans women are women and also Christ is lord" level inconsistent.
So, is the question of whether mainline Protestantism can be rebuilt another way of asking if we can maintain a non-Catholic church in the Relevance/Christ of Culture/Christendom mode?
I think it is going to be tough to rebuild any version of a Mainline if it is at all tied to denominations. Ryan Burge's studies suggest that the two trends are Nones and Nons. Within Christianity the trend is going to continue to move towards non-denominational churches due to all institutions being discredited--and non-denominationalism sort of prevents a new Mainline from emerging because it would necessitate some kind of shared values and centralized structures.
I think this ultimately misses the point because it doesn't understand what "Mainline" means. It's not a marker of theological centrism, nor of a "higher" Protestantism. Mainline is a social class marker. Mainline churches are those which are populated by the bourgeoisie and the "respectable" classes of society. There is almost no real theological content to "Mainline" identity. In the book, Vanishing Boundaries: The Religion of Mainline Protestant Baby Boomers, Hoge, Johnson, and Luidens survey the characteristics of the decaying Mainline denominations in the latter half of the 20th Century, the authors find that being Mainline was primarily an identity grounded in social and class factors, but that nearly none of their subjects identified with their denomination on the basis of theology. Episcopalians, Methodists, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, ELCA, Northern Baptists, various CoC denominations, all repeated the same results on their surveys: they did not consider theological differences to be salient between Mainline groups and scored extremely high on measures of Universalism. They identified themselves as distinct from Catholics and Evangelicals, but considered all Mainline churches essentially interchangeable. Hoge, Johnson, and Luidens find that the main causes for conversion between the various denominations are personal convenience issues like marriage to a different Mainline Protestant or driving distance to a nearer church. Mainliners who moved away from their hometown were among the most likely to convert to another Mainline denomination.
Revival of Mainline Protestantism in any form is destined to fail because being Mainline is about being the default beliefs of the respectable class of upper-middle class folks. Where did the converts come from who constituted the Mainline boom in the 1950's? As Robert Putnam and David Campbell tells us, it came from the rising income of working-class Evangelicals and Catholics. They use a clever analogy: just like these rising middle-class folks traded in their Chevy for an Oldsmobile, they also traded in their Evangelical or Catholic faith for Mainline Protestantism. It was the class, not the theology, that defined the religious identity marker of "Mainline."
Today, what is the default religion of the respectable upper-middle class? It's not going to be any kind of Reformed Christianity, for sure. Theologically serious Christianity is the most absolutely low-class thing you can espouse among our Managerial Upper-Middle Class. As I've said quite a few times, I'm of the opinion that Mainline Protestantism is alive and well in America today as the current religion of respectable Upper-Middle class folks. It's dropped its pretensions at being a theological faith, and dropped the unnecessary elements of Sunday worship and maintaining a sanctuary. But the social theology of respectable, upper-middle class religion is alive and well in the secularized jargon of mainstream center-left culture. It's no coincidence at all that the most prominent political theorist of the UMC, John Rawls, started his career studying theology.
The existence of the Mainline was a product itself of the Positive World. It was a result of the fact that those denominations were Respectable, in contrast to the working-class reputation of Evangelicism and Catholicism. There really is no such thing as a distinctive Mainline theology waiting to be restored, as well-groomed professionals with Ivy diplomas crowd the doors waiting to return to their grandparents' churches. My suspicion is that people who bemoan the collapse of Mainline denominations are doing so less because they miss the distinctive Episcopal doctrine of the Three-Legged Stool or the modernized liturgy of the 1979 Book of Common Prayer, and more because they don't want to be associated with dirty, white-trash, pickup-driving, ignorant fundies like me.
I was surprised to see Meador describe this new mainline as "center-right" because from what I know of him, possibly outside of abortion and some of the gender insanity, he isn't on the right in any meaningful way. In the Gospel Coalition Good Faith Debate he was in, he got stomped while repeating glib progressive environmental rhetoric. The biggest denominations he mentions are already having major struggles with trying to stop members from dragging them to the left on core doctrinal issues. Hard to believe advice and leadership from someone like Meador would keep them from chasing the latest secular progressive fads just the like previously mainline churches did and continue to do.
In his conclusion which you quote, he talks about building strong local communities. What does he think these communities are going to be built around? These groups have major theological differences and he staunchly opposes any kind of immigration restriction to allow communities to keep any kind of homogeneous nature. As Stephen Wolfe points out in this review of his book, Meador blames whites for every problem he identifies in the West. Does he seriously think he can persuade the people he needs to be the backbone of a rebuilt Mainline with this kind rhetoric?
https://sovereignnations.com/2022/03/02/unhelpful-review-what-are-christians-for/
Thanks, love this discussion, hope to see it continue to evolve.
The "liminal" framing strikes me as about right. We're seeing a lot of institutions break down, to lose everyone's trust and confidence, but not many that are managing to build any new trust or confidence.
When that dynamic starts to flip, we'll know we're passing into something new, and it will be easier to see what that thing is.
Well the hopeful part of me says that this is possible. The SBC reversed course from going liberal haywire back in early 80s I think, yet here we are again and I think the SBC is in for a drastic culling as they move in a liberal / progressive direction.
Is rebuilding or tunneling underground the correct thinking though? I see more a Benedict Option future for all true churches until the persecution of end times becomes more direct and intense.
Aaron perhaps is more hopeful than I, though I know that God's church is unstoppable.
Off-topic: This tribute to Tim Keller / critique of the "Three Worlds" seems quite misguided in a number of ways (but still worth reading)
https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2023/tim-keller-issue/tim-keller-church-pastor-media-suffering.html
Recommend spelling out the denominational acronyms at some point in these posts. I realize this is largely insider stuff, but some of us outsiders would like to at least pretend we’re part of the conversation!