Church Growth in Britain 5: analysis

Goodhew offers both an introduction and conclusion to the book, which are valuable. In the introduction, he identifies the classical secularisation thesis as a ‘dominant narrative’ assumed by much of the academy, and by essentially all of the media. He suggests that the book serves to ‘subvert’ that narrative. This might be ambitious: the secularisation thesis is a macro theory, concerned with what happens in general on a whole-society scale; particular accounts of growth cannot, by themselves, subvert the narrative, only a large-scale sociological change could do that. That said, the book is of great importance in drilling below the headline statistics. There is a bad old joke to the effect that a statistician can lie with his head in the freezer and his feet in the oven and announce that, on the whole, he is feeling completely normal; global statistics do, of necessity, flatten out local variations, and sometimes that can be of enormous significance. Imagine that you were the leader of a small denomination in Britain, which showed a 15% decline in attendance each decade since 1980; if that pattern was universal – every congregation declining at more-or-less the same rate – then your denomination seems destined to cease to exist by about 2050. If, by contrast, on drilling into the statistics you were to find that your rural churches were declining precipitously – 40% per decade – but that your suburban churches were in fact growing, your denomination is destined to change, certainly, but to survive. Individual stories of growth matter; identifiable patterns of growth matter even more. The narratives of Goodhew’s book suggest that the church in the UK is not destined for extinction, but for shrinkage, certainly, combined with change. It will become more ethnically diverse, more (sub)urban, more charismatic – it will not disappear. Church growth in Britain seems to be occurring in the centre of cities and in the suburbs – not in the inner city UPAs; it occurs along major trade routes – the A1/East Coast Mainline corridor, for instance; it is presently focused around London in the SE of England; it is in part driven by female leadership (data suggests churches with a female leader are more likely to grow than churches with a male leader); … In some of this, we might see signs of hope. For some centuries, religious change in Britain has followed a pattern well-known to historians as a ‘centre-periphery’ model. Something begins in a cultural centre – London, always. From there, it spreads to other sub-centres – the main trade towns; from there it spreads into the wider community, eventually reaching the peripheries (the Scottish islands, always, in Britain…). If this pattern continues to obtain – and (a) there is no reason to suppose it should not; and (b) the data around trade routes suggest it does – then the focus on church growth in London is profoundly significant: this will be the reality for the rest of the UK over decades to come. Other points demand explanation. I suppose that the statistical association of church growth and female leadership reflects not a preference for women in ministry on the part of the Holy Spirit, but the reality that, given the human prejudices still operative, women who make it into church leadership tend, on average, to be rather more able than men who do. It is inescapable that conservative churches are generally growing, whilst less conservative churches are – not so much shrinking, as disappearing rapidly from sight. Particularly, churches that self-denominate as both evangelical and charismatic tend to grow. I confess a temptation here: I happen to be committed to a charismatic, evangelical Christianity that is affirming of women in leadership; statistically, I could claim that I am obviously right… I suspect, however, that the reasons are more complex than that. Charismatic evangelical churches tend to be considerably more flexible and mission-minded than other congregations; my supposition – I have no evidence – is that these characteristics are more important than theological stance. For some years after I formally left, I used to teach from time to time in Spurgeons College, my alma mater; generally, that coincided with the day in the week when, as a gathered community, the college would pray for its former students, having first solicited news from a number of them. I recall vividly one such service: having read the news from several sisters and brothers in Baptist ministry, Nigel Wright, the college principal, paused, looked over us all gathered, and commented, ‘it’s not difficult to grow a church in Britain today, is it?’ No. It is not. Some intentionality, some thought, some support – or...

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On writing and being read: Jared Wilson on Fifty Shades…

‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’ ‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’ ‘The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.’ (Lewis Carroll, Alice Through the Looking Glass, ch. 6) A rather ugly storm in the blogosphere has broken out over the last couple of days over a recent post on the Gospel Coalition website. I don’t want to adjudicate who is right and who is wrong (like anyone involved might listen to me…), so much as to reflect on the misunderstanding – and the anger – to understand a bit more about what we do when we blog, or write in other contexts, and what our proper ethical responsibilities might be when addressing a sensitive subject. The post, by Jared Wilson, was an attempt to account for the popularity of E.L. James’s Shades of Grey trilogy. This is a worthwhile aim: we understand our culture better by understanding those parts of it that become popular, and so understanding why a piece of – by all accounts – very poorly written pornography has suddenly achieved enormous mainstream success is an relevant task for the church. Jared Wilson quoted several paragraphs from a book by Doug Wilson which applied the ‘complementarian’ understanding of gender relations to the act of intercourse in the context of marriage; Jared Wilson then suggested that this was God’s intention for human sexuality, and that male rape fantasies and female submission fantasies – such as those reflected in Shades of Grey – arose because of our cultural refusal to practice proper male headship/female submission. Our culture’s embracing of gender equality leads directly to the popularity of the books. Now, I I have not read the book quoted, or – to the best of my recollection – anything else Doug Wilson has written, but, insofar as I can understand it from the post and the ensuing discussion, I do not find his account of the marriage relationship to be convincing when tested against Scripture. Even if it is granted for the sake of argument, Jared Wilson’s analysis of 50 Shades at least needs a great deal of expansion to be plausible (he accepts without comment Freud’s bombastic claims about the universality of rape fantasies, which have surely been comprehensively demolished by the last century of psychological work in this area; I can begin to imagine how an attempt might be made to extend the argument to reflect such data, but that attempt is wholly absent from the post…) Disagreement with the claims made does not make a blog post offensive, inappropriate, or otherwise worthy of the opprobrium heaped on this one, however. After all, only by disagreeing, and teasing out our disagreements, can we hope to make progress in understanding. Yes, I find the casual assumption that Freud’s bizarre theories of a century ago are right very difficult – particularly coming from a site that professes a commitment to Biblical authority – and I confess to serious concern over the apparent lack of any awareness of the extensive work that has been done in understanding the real causes of rape and domestic abuse that has been done since then (which would point in very different directions to those proposed in the post). All this, however, is a cause for engagement and (hopefully) mutual edification, not for a call for removal. So is there any reason to regret the fact that the post was published? Yes – because the post contains language which will inevitably be heard by some as promoting or justifying domestic abuse, and we have an extremely serious pastoral responsibility not to use such language. This has been repeatedly pointed out, but both Jared Wilson and Doug Wilson have attempted to defend the language used. The defence is summed up in a second post by Jared Wilson, and seems to consist of two, rather contradictory, lines – one of which has some validity as an argument, but does not lead to the conclusion pressed. The first line can be summed up in a quotation from a comment by Doug Wilson, quoted in Jared Wilson’s second post: Anyone who believes that my writing disrespects women either has not read enough of my writing on the subject to say anything whatever about it or, if they still have that view after reading enough pages, they really need to retake their ESL class. The defence here is that the offending language is being read out of context, and so misunderstood. As I say, I have certainly not read enough of Doug...

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Divided by a common language

I over-reacted in my post yesterday, as I admitted when challenged by Alan Jacobs in the comments. Ross Douthat himself was not only generous enough to notice and respond to the post, but was very kind in his response. I do certainly take the point that he and Alan were making concerning the centrality of the social gospel to a specifically American tradition of liberalism, and I am glad both have been willing to indicate that they took my point about the deeper intellectual roots. Douthat is an excellent journalist who I respect greatly. The misplaced passion of my reaction came, on reflection, from a different division between American and British traditions of Christianity, concerning evangelicalism – a subject I spend more time on, and care more about, than liberalism. I am passionate about reclaiming an evangelical tradition of progressive social involvement that I see as native and intrinsic to the movement – on both sides of the Atlantic (slavery is an easy example, either way: Wilberforce, Hannah More, and the rest over here; Finney inventing the altar call because he was not going to let anyone profess conversion to Christianity without signing them up for the abolitionist cause over there). In the early decades twentieth century, both sides of the Atlantic, social transformation slipped off the evangelical agenda for various reasons; it was recovered by the new evangelicalism of Billy Graham, the NAE, and Christianity Today, and then later over here, not least through the teaching and example of John Stott. The reasons that an alliance grew up between American evangelicals and the Republican party are well-enough rehearsed, and have largely to do with certain touchstone ethical issues becoming partisan in the USA (if abortion and euthanasia became partisan issues here, I suspect there would be just as monolithic an evangelical block vote in Britain). We shouldn’t forget, of course, either that there was some overlap between Christians involved in the anti-Vietnam protests and Christians involved in protesting Roe vs Wade, or that the first mobilising of a block evangelical vote was in support of a Democrat, Jimmy Carter. That said, for various reasons – culture wars not least amongst them – the alliance between evangelicals and political conservatives has shaped – not monolithically, but to some extent, and certainly in public perception – evangelical politics in the USA. As a British evangelical, indeed as someone actively involved in coordinating national public policy discussions amongst British evangelicals from time to time, I have to confess that, on the one hand, the loss of the older progressive and transformative agenda from the American wing of the movement concerns me and, on the other, the easy assumption made regularly on both sides of ‘the pond’ that what is true in America is true over here annoys me greatly. It annoys me because it hinders our mission, closes doors that would otherwise be open to us, prevents us from forming progressive alliances which would be of great benefit to those most in need in our society. I could give several specific examples of these points, of opportunities for gospel work – feeding the hungry, healing the sick, giving sight to the blind, proclaiming the year of the Lord’s favour – which were either lost, or made more difficult, because of the ignorance of somebody over the difference between the social/political stances of British evangelicalism and (the popular perception of) the American strand of the movement. I don’t apologise for getting passionate about this – indeed, I would be seriously concerned about the state of my soul if I ever stopped getting passionate about this. Where that passion leads to my being unnecessarily harsh on someone who is commenting very fairly on a related subject, I do apologise. I think that was the case in the tone of at least some of my comments...

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Defining liberal Christianity

There are a number of reports on the Web reacting to last week’s ECUSA triennial convention – Mike Bird linked to one at BeliefNet and one at the WSJ; Several people on Twitter and FB pointed out Ross Douthat’s piece in the NY Times, which took the opportunity to give thought to the wider issue of the ‘collapse’ (his word) of liberal Christianity in the USA. The piece is humorous (‘Leaders of liberal churches have alternated between a Monty Python-esque “it’s just a flesh wound!” bravado and a weird self-righteousness about their looming extinction.’) and perceptive in drawing attention to a fact that is also one of the chief lessons of Goodhew’s Church Growth in Britain: there is a strong positive correlation between church growth and conservative theology, and between church decline and liberal theology. (This is not, of course, necessarily a reason to commend conservative theology – our calling is to faithfulness to the gospel, not to worldly success – but it is a reason to greet the (very regular) announcements from the more liberal denominations in both the UK and the USA that the best way to stop their decline in attendance is to become yet more liberal with something akin to a facepalm…) That said, Douthat’s piece seems to me to be built on a fundamental misapprehension; he asserts that ‘the defining idea of liberal Christianity’ is ‘that faith should spur social reform as well as personal conversion’ and laments the possible loss of this idea from American national life. As a definition of liberal Christianity, this is astonishingly misdirected; indeed, it might better serve as a definition of classical Evangelicalism, which was, and increasingly is again, precisely about the combination of personal and social transformation in the name of the gospel. Someone might attempt a historical account in which this evangelical holism was lost in both directions, with conservatives holding on to the need for personal conversion and liberals holding on to the need for social transformation, but I don’t see this as being in any way plausible; classical evangelicalism was already defined against a liberal tradition, that had its own clear intellectual position, and that in turn rejected the evangelical position. Further, it does not hold even in relatively recent history, at least in the UK (I suspect it does not in the USA either, but my knowledge of the history there is less sure): in the face of mass immigration from the West Indies in the 1950s, for instance, the mainstream liberal churches were fairly uniformly racist; the reactions of evangelical churches were mixed, but at least some did in fact open their doors and welcome their new black neighbours. What is liberal Christianity? The question is complex, of course. To give a fully adequate answer would demand reference to renewed confidence in reason, to a high estimate of the possibilities of human endeavour, married to a downplaying of the doctrine of original sin (at least as classically taught), to Biblical criticism, to the turn to history that affected theology as much as every other academic discipline in the early twentieth-century, and to other currents. That said, most of these currents coalesce in popular expressions of Christianity into a fairly unified stream. So, as a broad approximation, liberal Christianity is Christianity that is acutely alive to the challenges to belief coming from modern philosophy. Kant’s denial of knowledge of the noumenal realm apparently made traditional accounts of revelation impossible, and the more-or-less simultaneous rise of Biblical criticism made traditional accounts of revelation profoundly precarious even if possible. Of course, every intellectually serious mode of Christianity has had to respond somehow to these challenges – this was the sense of Stephen Sykes’ announcement that we are all liberals today; the particular character of liberal Christianity has been to find a response in accepting the force of the challenges and seeing a profound need for doctrinal reformulation to meet them. The greatest, and still defining, figure in the story is Schleiermacher, who attempted to refound theology on a different basis, an appeal to shared human religious experience. All religious traditions, and all systems of theology, were attempts to analyse this shared experience, and to say what must be the case concerning the divine if the experience was in fact accurate. (I am very conscious that recent scholarship on Schleiermacher has resisted this sort of foundationalist reading of his theology; if it is not accurate, then the story I am telling needs slight revision: ‘Schleiermacher was understood, wrongly, to be saying this; those who misapprehended his programme created a vibrant liberal tradition that proceeded on this basis…’) This central methodological place for human experience has...

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Church Growth in Britain 4: The Nations

Three final chapters look at Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, offering some helpful different perspectives on church growth. Ken Roxburgh notes that the recent narrative of decline in Scotland is even more catastrophic than in the UK in general, before looking at five congregations in Edinburgh that have nonetheless grown to some extent. The case-studies are deliberately denominationally diverse: an ecumenical congregation; ‘Ps & Gs’ (St Paul’s & St George’s Episcopal Church, to non-locals); St Mary’s Roman Catholic Cathedral; Morningside Baptist Church; and Destiny new church. Ken notes that the growth generally – although not exclusively – happens within the evangelical and charismatic wing of Scottish Christianity, and also that each of these success stories features a city centre congregation that has been conscious in identifying a mission strategy into its community, and aggressive in pursuing the strategy through, for instance, the appointing of dedicated staff. Paul Chambers looks at Wales, first noting that the ‘secularisation thesis’ never applied very well to Wales, which managed to respond to rapid industrialisation by staging a major revival… He proposes instead a critical paradigm borrowed from Bourdieau, which focuses on the interactions of symbolic capital within different fields of action. The overarching field is unquestionably secular, and so inhospitable to church growth; congregations that grow do so because they find a smaller field of action, typically a local community, in which they become deeply involved and connected. The collapse of the old South Wales economy, particularly coal mining, has left needy communities in which local congregations can make significant connections if they try. Claire Mitchell looks at ‘Evangelical vitality and adaptation’ in Northern Ireland. She follows Christian Smith in using social identity theory to examine and narrate the changes in evangelicalism, although of course Smith was working on American evangelicals. Late modernity, on this account, creates a particular, pressing, need for belonging amongst disassociated people; groups – of whatever sort – can survive and flourish by becoming subcultures with strong social identities, and by defining themselves against ‘out groups’. Mitchell suggests that Northern Irish evangelicals have done this in a number of different ways, and shown great adaptability in a rapidly-changing political and cultural context in so doing. In different ways, these three essays all point to the idea that church growth happens to congregations that are intentionality situated within their local cultural context – either in targeted missional engagement, or in conscious self-differentiation, or (most likely)...

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