Whither, Liberal Christianity

As I sit here in my favorite coffee shop, I cannot help but pay attention to the conversation taking place at the table next to me. A group of pastors from one of the largest and most prominent progressive mainline churches in our community are meeting and talking about various issues. Among other things, they are talking in general terms about their evangelism plan but have made no mention of Jesus Christ or the Gospels.  One of them just remarked that she was reading Rob Bell’s recent book about Hell, and that she has really enjoyed it because “progressives already know all of this, but he (Bell) is addressing evangelicals.” That comment itself says a lot in that it reinforces the notion that conservatives and evangelicals read the Scriptures through a very different lens than do progressives.

(Note: Some may argue that conservative and evangelical are, or should be, synonymous terms. We will save this topic for later!)

This provides me a perfect segue to discuss an article in last week’s New York Times by writer Ross Douthat titled Can Liberal Christianity Be Saved? Douthat charts the increasing progressive theological trajectory which the historic Protestant mainline churches have pursued over the last 50 years. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/15/opinion/sunday/douthat-can-liberal-christianity-be-saved.html?_r=2&ref=religionandbelief

Many mainline church leaders over these past five decades have claimed that Christianity has needed an alternative reading of the Gospel, and that mainline denominations are responding to the need for social justice and an increasingly pluralistic society. Nothing captures this idea better than former Episcopal Bishop John Shelby Spong’s 1998 book, Why Christianity Must Change or Die. Douthat observes that Bishop Spong advocates for a complete rejection of traditional Christian teachings such as the Virgin Birth or a literal bodily Resurrection. These tales, according to the Rt. Rev. Spong, should be seen as no more than ancient myths which have no relevance in the modern world, and should be reinterpreted as such. In a multi-faith society, it is arrogant and intolerant to claim that any one religious system should be seen as the vessel for absolute truth, thus the Protestant mainline has embraced a Gospel that accommodates multiple pathways to salvation and rejects literal interpretations of the Biblical narrative.

These churches are also in a state of utter collapse, which, as anyone who is even a casual observer of church and society, will recognize as old news. What Douthat points out, though, is that mainline leaders seem to have turned a blind eye to their impending demise. Douthat writes that many voices blindly “hail these forms of Christianity as a model for the future without reckoning with their decline.” He concludes with a dire prediction for mainline leaders should they continue to ignore the reality of their evaporating memberships: “they will change, and change, and die.”

A piece which could be considered somewhat of a companion article to Douthat’s appeared this week on the The Christian Century’s online site. http://www.christiancentury.org/blogs/archive/2012-07/rename-mainline

Amy Frykholm, the Century’s associate editor, posted an entry titled Rename the Mainline? in which she offers remarks on historian David Hollinger’s belief that the phrase “Protestant mainline” should be refashioned as “ecumenical Protestants.” Frykholm correctly observes that “so-called mainline Protestants are less ‘main’ and less ‘line’ than they’ve ever been.” She also remarks that the term “liberal” should be discarded when describing mainline Protestantism because it is primarily a political term. It is a very short article and worth reading, but what I found most interesting was one of the comments that a reader left. This person really hit the heart of the matter with the comment: “Frankly, you guys have more problems than just the name itself. You need to fix these problems first.”

Ouch! I agree with this person that simply adopting a new term to refer to mainline Protestantism will not cure the ills which plague progressive Christianity. In fact, I would answer Douthat’s question Can Liberal Christianity be Saved? with the following answer: NO. Liberal Christianity is already dead, thus simply renaming it is a meaningless exercise. I am not saying that these progressive denominations are going to fade away into oblivion. Some of their individual congregations may disappear, and church property sold off, but the Protestant mainline – no matter what term it uses to describe itself – will always exist in some shape or form. To use a crass marketing term, the mainline will always have a baseline market share which will prevent its outright extinction. As for its place in the larger Christian family, however, liberal Christianity has ceased to be relevant in any meaningful way.

The problem with liberal Christianity is not that it has done a poor job in telling its story, or that it has not offered enough modern programmatic accoutrements to attract new congregants: the problem is liberal Christianity itself. Douthat correctly points out that, unlike its conservative and evangelical counterparts, liberal Christianity has departed from the idea of “a personal transcendent God, the divinity of Christ” to such an extent that it does not “seem to be offering anything you can’t already get from a purely secular liberalism.” Despite the mainline’s steady protestations, there is nothing essentially counter-cultural that one will hear in sermons coming from progressive pulpits. If there is indeed nothing unique about Jesus Christ; if there is no bodily resurrection; if Jesus is to be regarded as merely a social radical, and not the Son of God eternally begotten of the Father; if there is no salvation through Christ’s redemptive work on the Cross; if pastors continue to talk about evangelism and outreach but do so without Christ… then why bother going to church at all? Until the historic mainline denominations offer something more than what one can find in secular modernism, more and more people will continue to not bother. Perhaps the question should not be whether liberal Christianity can be saved, but can liberal Christianity be resurrected?