Stephen Shoemaker: The Stampede Out of the Church and the People of Christ and God Outside its Walls
"The reason young people are leaving the church is not because they don't believe what the church teaches, but because the church does not believe what the church teaches." Dr. Russell Moore, Editor of Christianity Today
Christian faith and practice has endured in spite of a long history of being diverted from its foundational doctrine and theology found in the New Testament. No doubt the "church" as it exists today, housed in its own buildings and property for the most part, and often operating as a commercial enterprise, especially in this country, would not be recognizable to the Apostles who authored most of the Gospel accounts and the New Testament. But the church is also becoming unrecognizable to many of those who have been part of it in its recent history. I include myself in that.
After being raised in a small, Southern Baptist church, by the time I graduated from high school, I found it difficult to take much of what I had been taught in church with any degree of seriousness. Only one of the five or six Sunday School teachers I'd had over the years even graduated from high school, and only one of the three or four pastors I remember, who were all bi-vocational, had any formal theological training. There wasn't a lot of consistency about what we believed, even with regard to what the church considered "essentials." Faith practice was a matter of opinion, and some people had different opinions. The pastor who was there when I left for college did a fine job of dismantling the theology and doctrine of his predecessor.
So when I went to college, to a university that was affiliated with Southern Baptists, it was an eye-opening experience. I'd heard people in church label any formal study of theology and doctrine at the college level, or in theological seminaries, even those operated by the denomination, as "liberal." Compared to what I'd learned in church, the university's Biblical studies courses, of which 12 hours were required to earn any degree, were eye-openers, and I learned pretty quickly not to repeat things I'd learned in class there when I went back home for visits.
Had it not been for the experience I had at the university I attended, I am almost certain I would have dropped out of church altogether. But at that time, within the Southern Baptist Convention, existed a group of churches that could trace their origins to what is known as the "Charleston tradition," churches which were tied closely to British Baptists, with a set order of service, an educated clergy with specific study in theology to combine learning and piety. During my freshman year, during a mid-semester time called Spiritual Emphasis Week, the guest speaker for chapel, and for dialogue sessions with students, was Dr. Kenneth Chafin, a pastor from Houston who became closely associated with the "moderate" movement in the Southern Baptist Convention during the shift that occurred starting in 1979.
Dr. Chafin opened a door to understanding of my faith that I'd never experienced before, an emphasis on its values and principles being practiced in life as the expression of faith, for the purpose of uplifting and inspiring others, oriented toward fulfilling a life's purpose of service to humanity as a means of worship, rather than the inward focus on spirituality and the list of "do's and don'ts" offered by the alternative. In that kind of Christian expression, faith is not a "crutch," but is a motivator to serve others as a means of bringing glory to God. The Christian gospel makes it very clear that spiritual eternity cannot be earned and that living out life enhancing values in the present time is the focus. Redemption is not dependent on a rigid doctrinal conformity that is unattainable, but is a matter of pure grace.
The problem with finding a local church that expresses this kind of faith practice, especially among conservative Evangelicals, including Southern Baptists, is that they are few and far between. Most of them are scattered around in cities in the deep South. In spite of the core principles of the Christian gospel, clearly outlined by Christ and the Apostles, conservative American Christianity continues to base belief and practice on superstition and with the more recent intrusion of far right wing politics, has incorporated conspiracy theory into its practice, while labelling some of the teachings of Jesus as being "woke and liberal."
"The Church does not Believe What the Church Teaches"
Russell Moore, currently editor of Christianity Today, which is still one of the most influential publications among American Christians in general, if its popularity among conservatives is fading, made the statement, cited by Stephen Shoemaker in the article that is linked from Baptist News Global, that young people are leaving the church because "the church does not believe what the church teaches." Moore has recently referenced incidents in which conservative Christians have complained about the content of their own pastor's preaching, citing references to words recorded as having been spoken by Jesus, as sounding "woke and liberal."
Ignorance of theology and doctrine among those who belong to churches that identify with various branches of American Evangelical Christianity, specifically those in churches that consider themselves conservatives, specifically fundamentalists, Pentecostals and Charismatics, is commonplace. Whether it's a throwback to the culture out of which many of their denominations and churches were born, including frontier revivalism and the Second Great Awakening, or its the result of an anti-education bias because of the lack of trained and educated ministers and pastors during their formative years that has continued up to the present time, what most people accept as Christian Doctrine is a blend of superstition, their own biases and pre-suppositions, and a dependence on a literalist, "verse by verse" interpretation of a limited number of specific passages from the Bible, sans their historical and cultural context. I can testify to having been taught that way in the church where I grew up, and from discernment of my own experience in the church.
What's happened to bring most conservative, Evangelical doctrine and theology to its current point, which contains as much superstition and anti-biblical rhetoric as they claim Catholicism does, is the mix of revivalism, lack of an educated clergy, conflicting reformation theology at both ends of the spectrum, including Calvinism, which helps provide a nice dose of heresy, and the infiltration of right wing politics which is taken as a means of practicing faith by using its influence from its adherents. It has, in some aspects, upgraded its outreach through social media and changed its worship to reflect more contemporary music choices and instrumentation, but in doing all of that, it has also brought in too much that isn't biblical or consistent with the Christian gospel, and so there's a lack of clarity about exactly what it is to which people are "converting." Are they converting to the Christian gospel, or to the blended version of right wing doctrine and politics, neither of which lead to redemption and restoration to God.
So why bother? That's the response that they're getting.
Shoemaker makes note of the fact that a majority of Americans are still considered "Christians" in a general sense of the term, but at the current rate of decline, that will fall below 50% sometime around 2070. That's based on taking the membership figures provided by churches and denominations at face value. Most Evangelicals, when discerning what they consider to be the "Christian" population of America, would leave out Catholics, most Mainline Protestants, Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, Quakers and other expressions of the broader definition of Christianity. But there's also a huge discrepancy between how many people actually are involved in churches, compared to what they report for membership.
The best example of number inflation in membership is the Evangelical, conservative denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention. Their total membership peaked at 16.2 million in 2006, and has since fallen to 13.2 million, anticipated to drop below 13 million by next June. But the actual number of people who can be found in worship or engaged in church ministries slipped under the 4 million mark during COVID, and hasn't recovered. And even that figure went down by a million between its peak in 2006, and just before the pandemic in 2019. So it is that two thirds of those who are on the membership rolls of Southern Baptist churches are non-participants in the local church expression of their faith.
The biggest inflation of church membership is among the denominations and independent churches of the Pentecostal-Charismatic movement. Some churches don't track actual membership, but report what they think is their average attendance, inflated by a factor of times three. That's not an exaggeration. Several years ago, I attended services at a new, non-denominational Charismatic church in Ft. Worth that claimed 13,000 people "to whom ministry is being given through the church." Their auditorium held about 1,500, and the Sunday I was there, for the later of its two services, it was way less than half full. The 13,000 figure was a monthly head count of everyone who came through the door, so the majority of those were people who had been counted three or four times. But the church reported that as its "membership."
So generously estimating attendance and participation in all segments of Christianity in America at 40%, that easily drops the percentage of the population claiming to be Christian, of every conceivable definition of the term, to somewhere around 35%. So Christianity is already a minority religion in the United States, though still by far the largest.
Falling Away from Institutional Christianity
I count myself as one of those who, while intellectually and spiritually separating from the institutional church, still practice the full Christian gospel in a way that I believe follows its principles and values. I still worship in church with my wife, who still considers that her primary means of faith practice, but I don't see that form of Christian expression as being either traditional in terms of what Christ determined to establish, or necessary to being Christian or redeemed, or vested with eternity, or whatever one calls that. My faith follows those things that I believe the Christian gospel considers to be values and that's what I want it to look like outwardly, as well as to experience inwardly.
It wasn't the political intrusion that pushed me away, though it did, in my own mind, provide evidence of the lack of spiritual connection between groups calling themselves "Christian" and considering themselves the church, and the Christian gospel as defined by Jesus and the apostles in scripture. Being part of a like-minded group is important for support, for growth and including the commentary of those who are educated and knowledgeable of things like interpreting literature in context, looking at original language and drawing conclusions is as well. That is a church as it is defined by the apostles in the New Testament.
I often think how much different American culture and society would be if the Christian church within our nation were a real one. Would we be hearing talk of Civil War, aimed at those who don't share the same values or beliefs? Would we be so politically divided that we have people among us, fellow Americans, who are willing to set the house on fire and let it burn down because they are dissatisfied with their own miserable life? Would we see an automatic reaction of taking the opposite side when someone who has been labelled as "liberal" or progressive comes up with an idea that would be good for everyone? Would we see continued support for a politician who attempted to overturn the Constitution and set up a dictatorship?
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