John Chilton Explains Why the Episcopal Church isn’t Growing: Simple People Want Simple Answers

This is a great example one of my favorite revisionist vanities: “We’re not growing because people are stupid”

I love it.

Most people, it appears, want to be told that it really matters to their salvation what they believe, how they came to believe it, and what they need to do to grow in grace.

Most people are right.

LOL.  Not only is the average age around 57 or so and rising, people my age (30) who belong to Episcopal churches increasingly just do not consider it to be an integral part of their lives.  I don’t think the church realizes the extent to which the farm team just does not have its heart in it and that those solid-as-a-rock parishioners that every church needs as its backbone are going to be increasingly rare as the decades go on.

But there’s no sign that we do appeal to the unchurched, at least not in large numbers.

That’s right, your experiment failed! Go back, go back to the crossroads and “ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls. But you said, ‘We will not walk in it.’” Remember it is one definition of insanity to keep doing the same thing and expect different results.

What’s funny is that “simple people” will engage some pretty complex, mysterious stuff if it is presented “with authority.”  If people believe that the Bible and the Sacraments open up relationship with God, they will engage.
Yesterday, our midweek Bible study looked at the upcoming Sunday lessons (Trinity Sunday).  They are not “simple” ideas - two visions and a presentation of Trinitarian activity from John!  But the class was quite involved with great questions and insights and we ran overtime.
If we believe that what we present matters, then people of all kinds will check it out.  If all of our “religious” stuff is just background noise while we sit and opine with our social class peers, then no wonder nobody checks us out.

This completely sums up the moral relativist response -

“We’re’ smarter than you are.”

The height of intolerance and arrogance -

...a marvelously feckless approach to reframing what he and others like him have done to the Church, laying it to the ignorance of the consumer.

I would say I was astounded, but I’m way past that.  Simple people?  Simple answers?  This is such a “rich field” to harvest and the laborers are few.  I will focus on just one point and let the others share in the harvest.

“But the evidence suggests that the passive evangelism methods of the Episcopal Church are not effective in appealing to the tastes of the majority.

The assessment is it’s a question of “tastes” of the majority.  Note, it has nothing to do with the actual message, just the palate.  The hoi polloi are just not sophisticated enough to grasp the message.  Of course, since the message is being spread “passively” I think some of the burden should fall on the messenger. 
Side Comment:  The Amway reference seems a bit dated.  Really, you think he could’ve used Wal-Mart more effectively.

Thank you for this…it is hard to know where to start.

If you replace the word ‘niche’ with the word ‘boutique’, it all comes into focus.  ECUSA has become a boutique religion…specializing in fabrics, colors, and museum quality ceremonies. (in some places…in other places, not museum quality, if you know what I mean)

Years ago someone said that our choice was this: become fishers of men or keepers of the aquarium.

In some ways quite a thoughtful article: he recognises clearly the problem, that his church is not attracting people; and the need to do something about it.  He sort of grasps that the church is not delivering what people seek from it.

But he sees the answer as repackaging more of what the church is already delivering, as if repackaging a set of questions and uncertainties will attract.

He could look to the alternatives such as the Alpha Course developed at Holy Trinity, Brompton Road, London which has gone worldwide, being used not only by protestant denominations but by the RC church and extraordinarily by the Orthodox church, I understand.  Quite a course if all these denominations can agree on it.  Alternatively there is the older and somewhat more in depth ‘Christianity Explored’ course developed by John Stott’s All Souls, Langham Place.

But then what do the world’s three largest denomination know?  He could just keep puzzling on and hope this attracts others in ...somehow or other.

This article is a blunt assertion of pride by the writer, and an appeal to pride in the reader. Pride is never encouraged by our Lord.

Imagine an artist who cannot attract people to exhibitions of his paintings because the paintings are ugly, bad art. Rather than admit that his art is bad, the artist rationalizes his failure by attacking the taste of the viewers. He also seeks to attract viewers by telling them that only the most sophisticated, subtle, discerning aesthetes can appreciate his work. This is mere puffery of the artist and flattery of the viewer.

Mr. Chilton’s approach to evangelism is astonishing. I cannot imagine an approach to proclaiming the Gospel less like that actually practised by Jesus and the early Church. I challenge anyone to show me from the Bible an instance where Jesus, or any of the disciples, puffed themselves or flattered their listeners as Mr. Chilton does. 

Note well that Mr. Chilton’s article also serves to prepare TEC for an unrelenting, deep decline in members. By defining attendance to be irrelevent, Mr. Chilton answers concerns that will be stated when TEC’s members drop below 2 million, etc.

I don’t know whether to laugh or cry!  Can he not see that there is no purpose in having a church only to promote social activism?  People do not need to be in a church for that.  And if there are no faith requirements, what is the point of being a church at all?  And those who leave for reasons of faith—well I guess he thinks, they just don’t get it!

If this is the attitude of TEC leadership, the church will become irrelevant sooner than we all thought.

There is so much self conceit here that I find it painful.

Most people, it appears, want to be told that it really matters to their salvation what they believe, how they came to believe it, and what they need to do to grow in grace.

Why on earth would we bother if it didn’t matter to our salvation? He just really doesn’t get it, does he? I’m not sure what he means by “how they came to believe it”?

They want a charismatic leadership that professes no ambiguity or uncertainty.

Not really. We want a leadership that believes, that may have questions and may sometimes struggle, but are passionate for the faith - not for liturgical novelty.

They want to see a clear boundary between those who are in grace, and those who are not.

We want as many as possible to know God’s grace.  We are not happy over those who don’t, which I think is what the writer would like to believe.

<i> They desire membership requirements, and an intolerance of those who do not meet the requirements. They are inspired by unshakeable confidence, not by the encouragement to question and doubt.<i>

The first sentence is his way of saying that we like words to have meaning and faith to have value in our lives - it’s not just about a dress-up show at the altar. Confidence is inspiring when we flag, but is there anyone who doesn’t go through periods of questioning and doubt? It’s how we grow deeper into our faith. I would say he does this less than we do - has he ever questioned what he believes about us? Can constantly questioning sometimes be a way of avoiding ever having to answer?

I went over to “Episcopal Cafe” and tried to respond there, but the path to posting is (like many TEC parishes) impenetrable and I couldn’t get my comment posted.  Here’s what I wrote:

In the great paradox of Christian faith, “dying” is a form of success.
But that holy dying is a sacrificial, transformative death that brings new life.
I will not throw slogans at you - merely cite things from TEC’s own sources.
The congregational development office will tell you that TEC is just dying…that is, getting older and losing people to attrition. There is no evangelism, no physical reproduction and no transmission of faith generation to generation. This is just extinction, not holy dying.
TEC’s own recent self study indicates that most of our clergy are good at “doing liturgy” but poor at organizing people or “getting things done.” Just life support, not holy dying that transforms.
The Episcopal Church Foundation calls our leadership “incoherent.” Death agony, not transformation.
Dr. Chilton makes an effort to put a happy face on this, as do the PB and other TEC club insiders. It is a mask…a death mask. This denomination (which I’ve served very effectively for almost 20 years as a priest) is dead set on being a small club for a few like minded people. Call that what you want, just don’t lie and call it a Christian success story.

It is evident that our mission now is to be that city on a hill for the Anglican Communion.

Well, maybe that is the mission, but to date, I think TEC is not so much “a city on a hill” as a maze in a laboratory. And we are the lab rats.
I don’t see the TEC of the present day as a desirable destination.  The very fact that he uses the “city on a hill” metaphor (they are metaphorically “above” the rest of the Communion) demonstrates the hubris alive today in the Episcopal Church.  It is no surprise that the only way he can explain the decline of TEC is that as it rises higher and higher, fewer of the simple folk understand them, and so fall away.  What should be the real wake up call (but isn’t) is that it is the very young people who they seek to appeal to who are leaving in the greatest numbers.  Either they become disillusioned as teens and young adults (as happened to me, 30 some years ago) when they come to understand the hypocrisy of a church whose leadership is more interested in power and politics than in the souls of the faithful. Or, as young families, do not want to bring their children into a church that cannot determine the difference between right and wrong.
  One can be an evangelist, in the classic sense of a person who spreads the gospel and tries to bring people to Christ, without being an Evangelical Anglican.  The difficulty for me, truly, is that I would feel guilty bringing people into TEC, when I myself doubt I will be here much longer.  And while I know, for the moment, they and I will be safe in our little parish, that will change sooner rather than later- it is the calm before the storm, so to speak.  And when you do talk to someone about it- well, what they have heard about the church in the last 5 years is hardly going to incline them to bring their spouse and children into TEC.

Excellent, Timothy. The whole thrust of Chilton’s post seems to be to convey the idea that TEC is just too superior to grow. :-( But he takes his cue from the PB on that one.

-Numbers matter because, if you believe what Christ taught us, each individual soul saved matters.
-I’m an nth generation Episcopalian, with a doctorate degree, with a modicum of taste I guess.  I and my family haven’t remained in this church for the high cultured-members and the supposed ‘tolerance,’ but for the doctrine first and second for the manner of worship.  If I thought the doctrine and manner of worship were beyond repair, I would leave. 
-the Average American isn’t interested in coming to the Episcopal Church not because tolerance or culture doesn’t matter to him, but because the Episcopal Church as a whole has devolved to teaching next to nothing and certainly nothing you can’t hear in a graduate course in religion, in a social club, or at a nice concert.  It’s not simplicity that they want, it’s something different—something that will change the way they view an increasingly dead and weary world.  The antidote to a sick soul is not more of the pathogen.  The antidote that people come for is Christ.  All else is secondary, or worse, harmful.
-So I really wish people, many of whom have no claim to be the Elder Statesmen of Episcopalianism, would quit spouting this bunk.  If this church is dying, it’s because the people who had responsibility over it allowed it to die.  The church wasn’t dying in the 40s, 50s, and 60s—when Americans were no more or less ‘cultured.’

Actually, there are parts of this I strongly agree with and parts that I totally disagree.

“[T]he Episcopal Church is following the call to bring heaven to earth.” The liberal left’s social gospel becomes gospel-less socialism. It doesn’t matter what you believe so long as you are “making the world a better place.” Thus, we have Buddhist Episcopalians, Druid Episcopalians, Atheist Episcopalians, etc. They have lost the narrow path.

As a medical missionary, I travel the world “doing good.” Two months ago, I went all the way to Kenya and fixed 13 kids with cleft lips and palates in four days. In essence, I didn’t make a dent. But I realize that I am there merely to draw patients and patients’ families in for the purpose of evangelization. We are called to love and serve God’s people not transform the world but to reflect the love of Christ. I despise the MDGs because not a single soul is saved by them and their de-emphasis on the evangelical goal of bringing people back into right relationships with the Lord. I would love the MDGs if they would add that one additional goal.

That being said, I agree with the notion that the Episcopal church is a niche church. Most were drawn to it because, in a setting of beautiful architecture, liturgy and music, we can sense the holiness and reverence that is not possible in a K-mart store turned church. I disagree that a spirituality centered church is incompatible with evangelization and growth. We need to get back to the notion of “Come worship with us.”

I also agree that it isn’t all about numbers. This coming from one who peruses the charts and graphs and spreadsheets! We need a serious pruning. I would start with all clergy who practice open communion including Marc Andrus who allows it to be rampant in his diocese. Bonhoeffer talks about giving away the sacraments unwanted which leads to the proliferation of cheap grace, grace without the cross or discipleship. Pruning away this lot would affect the numbers in the short term.

I find it interesting that the three fastest growing denominations, the Roman Catholics, the Southern Baptists, and the Assemblies of God don’t have much in common regarding style of worship or approach to evangelism.  However, as institutions, they are all unabashedly pro-life.  We see through a glass darkly, but I have wondered if God has made His face to shine upon them.

Dr Rob Roy

Were your in Kenya with Mercy Ships or something similar?  I went to a lecture by a small charity which funds cleft lip and palate surgery in the Ache region of Sumatra.  Apparently it is extremely common among children there, they think partly genetic and due to folic acid deficiency, zinc I gathered.

Well done.

Wow, great thought, Jill.  And TEC (institutionally) has embraced death - its own meaningless demise, abortion, worship of “things passing away” - so perhaps we see the negative to what you stated positively.  God’s face is not shining on those who reject life.

Pageantmaster, re Alpha: as a born-again evangelical with ten years’ experience presenting & advising Alpha, I would strongly discourage any “revisionist” church from trying to run Alpha. They would have to (and have in the past) water down the teaching to make it fit their version of the “gospel.” I suspect it would bear little or no fruit.

Meanwhile, Alpha continues to bring people to Christ all over the place - just not very many in TEC.

John Chilton to the few people left in TEC: “The whole world is crazy except me and you, and I have my doubts about you.”

NancyNH - sort of understand.  I find this Christianity without Christ very strange.

Boiling this down to its essence, here is what I came up with:
If you don’t give the people what they want, they will just have to learn to want what you have.

the snarkster

They want a charismatic leadership that professes no ambiguity or uncertainty. . . They are inspired by unshakeable confidence, not by the encouragement to question and doubt.

Umm, yeah.  ‘Cause everyone should want to follow non-charismatic self-doubting leaders who haven’t a clue.

I kind of think Jesus was “confident,” and his teachings free of “ambiguity.”

Many are going to call it a cheap out, but my belief is that numbers are not the only measure of success.

I can see Schori’s risible “numbers” argument is spreading like the flu.  Do these people have any idea how ridiculous they sound?  Do they just not care anymore?

Timothy Fountain, I’ve wondered the same thing.  I don’t know whether AMiA and CANA have made institutional statements regarding abortion.  If not, it is something they should examine. 
I don’t think TEC will change their position, but those pro-lifers remaining in TEC should speak out, for the sake of their own households.  I know it sounds heavy, but if God does indeed regard the unborn as a human being, there is no escaping the fact that it is heavy.  May God have mercy on us all.

John Chilton to the few people left in TEC: “The whole world is crazy except me and you, and I have my doubts about you.”

Another way to express the same attitude;

“Everyone in this parade is out of step except for me!”

RE: “But our style doesn’t work for everyone – even if they agree with us on social issues – and that’s okay.”

I think this is an important admission.  And he puts his finger on the marketing problem for the radical progressive church that the Episcopal church now is.

He’s not *simply saying* that “the masses”, the “Walmart peasants” and such find the Episcopal church appealing.  He’s also dealing with those who actually hold the same liberal/progressive views as he does.

And this brings us into simple demographics.  In small to medium sized towns—as the census’s show us—there just aren’t a whole lot of radical progressives [at least by percentage].  The vast majority of folks in small to medium sized towns—in rural areas—are essentially conservative.  So a progressive Episcopal church will never or rarely do well there—why? 

Because even the small percentage of progressives in that town won’t all be interested in church.

If one could count on the 20% of the town’s members who are progressive *all* being interested in church, then a progressive church or two could do just fine.  But that’s just not the case.  Even if the people agree with the national church “on social issues”—most of them don’t want to go to church at all!

The progressive Episcopal church essentially has to rely on large urban areas—or it bites the dust.

No, it isn’t “OK” that ECUSA isn’t growing!  We’re told by our Lord to preach the Gospel to the whole world, not sit back in dying churches and leach off the efforts of our forebears.

There’s a kernel of insight in what he writes, but, yes, I believe this is a “cheap out” – a cheap out to dealing with the fact that ECUSA’s message doesn’t sell.  And, yes: “the passive evangelism methods of the Episcopal Church are not effective in appealing to the tastes of the majority.”  In other words, people don’t come to church if they’re not asked to come to church.  Ya think?

We need a serious pruning. I would start with all clergy who practice open communion including Marc Andrus who allows it to be rampant in his diocese.

Does anyone keep a list on these guys (and no doubt women too, nowadays).  It is my understanding that open communion still violates the canons of the national church, although I am sure it is not a presentment offence like violation of diocesan boundaries. Is that correct? What’s next?  Drive through window?  Order communion online?  Put a wafer and cup of wine on your mousepad and have it blessed electronically by logging in to episcope and charging your pledge to your paypal account?

It’s a curious thing that even as they denigrate and sideline the Hoky Scriptures, revisionists have begun to elevate and even idolize the sacraments.  We’ve seen the prominence they grant to baptism (especially the modern version of the Baptismal Covenant).  And I have yet to see a liberal parish that doesn’t venerate the Eucharist to the point of idolatry: giving communion wafers to babies, insisting that every single service have a Eucharist, etc.  I suspect it’s part of their radical reinvention of Christianity as a series of warm, fuzzy, happy-clappy, feel-good rituals.

Holy Scriptures.  Darned finger-slippage!

It’s their rituals that are “hokey.”

It is not realistic to expect TEC to grow while it “rebranded”.  How does a Church known as the Republican party at prayer when I was born in 1969 go to the church for by and of the gay and lesbian lobby in one generation without turmoil and membership loss. Growing up my family attended a medium size parish where my parents got married (Dad served two terms on the vestry) in the part of town that was becoming less and less Anglo-Saxon we were losing membership both to demograpic change and the grave.  By the time we realized that we probably should transfer to a nearer parish it was obvious that ECUSA did not reflect our theology or values and we did not like the Rite II service (I always think of the 60’s and tamburines) at the nearby surburban parish.  Too much change too fast.
  In this day and age all churches are niches some with wider appeal than others.  Assuming that a second province is created either by
primate fiat or by the facts on the ground (AMiA and CANA both appear to be gaining momentum unlike the continuing churches) - and people more or less vote with their feet over the next decade - I think a much smaller liberal TEC with a coherent leftwing theology (assuming that is possible) will prosper as it serves its niche target group.  I think that a robust growing second province with a sound gospel driven theology combined with rich tradition and structure could then flourish.

“We are not a mass market church. We are a niche church with a rich liturgical tradition that brings some closer to God’s immanence, transcendence and longing for a relationship with God’s people.”

In other words (and as one might conclude from even a ha’porth of knowledge of early Church history), ECUSA is marketing itself today as offering what sects like the Gnostics, the Valentinians and Marcionites in particular (which aped a church-like organization, as opposed to the formless associations of the like-minded of other Gnostic groups), were purveying from ca. 150 AD onward; and, like these earlier groups, it is essentially parasitic of more orthodox Christianity, standing in relation to it as strangling ivy vines do to trees.  At least the Valentinians (the evidence for the Marcionites is less clear) did not call themselves “churches” or “the Church;” that TE"C” continues to do so shows that its modus operandi is increasingly like that of a reckless dipsomaniac or drug addict who feeds his destructive habit by squandering the fortune he has inherited.

The idea of a “niche” church has some merit.  If the revisionists had created their own niche denomination, I would look much more favorably upon them.  Instead, they took what had been an effective religion for much larger numbers of people in the United States, and what is still a powerful, evangelistic force in other countries, and they sought to destroy it for purposes of serving their own, small niche.

One still hopes that this watered-down faith they extol will be for some a “gateway drug” to Jesus.

As we read this viewpoint, let us not forget that he is the husband of Carolyn Chilton who is the Program Director for the Dio of Va (responsible for all Dio programs and both retreat centers).  When you are that close to things/drink that much of the Kool-Aid, you are going to regurgitate the same old same old.

Like Mr. Tighe, I was struck by the following comment:

We are not a mass market church. We are a niche church…

Whatever happened to being part of the “ONE, holy, CATHOLIC and apostolic Church”???  I don’t recall anywhere in Jesus’s prayer for unity in the Gospel of John where he says “and they will know they are Christians by the wonderful niche and boutique churches they create.”

What a myopic attitude this is.

We don’t need another niche church as Chilton suggests.  One can join the local Unitarian church.

Texas - I would disagree with you on one point.  The “museum quality ceremonies” you speak about are EXTREMELY rare today.  You won’t find it if the parish is following either Rite in BCP ‘79.  I have attended services over the past 25 years in dozens of parishes in states all over the country, and the vast majority of the services have banality to them that has crushed my heart over time.  I vividly remember from my childhood huge congregations (yes even here in the Midwest) singing loudly through an entire MP service prior to 1979….in services that were much more museum-like and memorable than the vast majority of post 1979 HC services.  In fact, I can sing through the entire 1928 MP service (and multiple settings of several of the parts of the service) from memory to this day.  Face it.  The vast VAST majority of services “celebrated” across the land today SUCK.  They have been designed to appeal to everyone - thus appeal to NO ONE.

“They are inspired by unshakeable confidence, not by the encouragement to question and doubt.”

Must be senility creeping up, but I can’t remember just where that Scripture is where Jesus says that salvation comes by questioning and doubting.  Can anyone help me??

There’s just enough to this to deserve a thoughtful rebuttal and not “simple” ridicule.

I can admit that I find a lot of evangelical teaching simplistic, and that a big part of the reason why I was attracted to the Epsicopal Church (albeit a relatively conservative parish) was that they acknowledged that nuances and ambiguities are part of life and even part of religious life.

But while I am suspicious of “too easy” answers, at some point I do want answers, and I want to see people who live as if they believe that the creed they profess is at least reasonably close to the truth.  And while I am grateful for the relative inclusiveness of the Episcopal Church, I also see too many priests and bishops that have taken inclusiveness too far and reached the point where what they offer is not subtle, nuanced, and occasional ambiguous answers, but no answers at all to the questions that we hope a religion will answer.

I can sympathize with the sentiment that a lot of Christians have oversimplified things, but I cannot accept the notion, embraced by so many Episcopal leaders, that the historical creeds of the church are simply not true—at least not as a teaching of any church worth attending.  If one really thinks that way, one shouldn’t be in the Christian church at all.

Wolverine

This is one of the most misleading statements about Christianity I have ever seen…

We are not a mass market church. We are a niche church…

Perhaps that is indeed now true of TEC as a whole, but it is clearly not what God intends for us as Christians.  We are called to spread the gospel truth to all people; there is no bigger “mass market” than that!  TEC has devolved into a niche “church,” by its own desires, and resembles now little more than a take-it-or-leave-it cafeteria of watered-down platitudes.

I concur that introductary evangelical teaching can often come off as simplistic to a “mature” Christian.  However, I find it helpful to periodically go back to Christianity 101 and take a refresher course!

But not so long ago when society resisted change in attitudes towards blacks, women, and homosexuals the renewal of gospel attitudes in the Episcopal Church moved it into tension with the secular world. As a consequence, American society has moved in our direction on those issues; the Episcopal Church is following the call to bring heaven to earth.

Thus does the caboose claim to pull the train.

carl

A silver lining to the developing ejection of the orthodox from TEC, is that evil does not ultimately prosper. While the liberals rejoice that orthodoxy is being removed, root and branch, from among them, they are still perhaps not aware of how much faster their decline will be as a result. Sometimes I wonder if God is reserving even greater judgement of TEC until the last of the orthodox have been run out. It reminds me a bit of Sodom and Gomorrah after the angels literally dragged Lot’s family to safety.

Why would an organization embrace decline and death? Try Proverbs 8:35-36:
For whoever finds me finds life
and receives favor from the LORD.
But whoever fails to find me harms himself;
all who hate me love death. Italics Mine

Aye-Aye Cap’n! I get really angry sometimes with the liberal usurping hierarchy has taken over the power structure and now are destroying the institution that I love. Numbers do matter if one doesn’t have enough for sustainability. Padre Wayne talked about a “really successful church” with a homosexual priest, and I pointed out that the average Sunday attendance had dropped to below 30. Not sustainable and another soon to close beautiful place of worship.

I appreciate, though, the Cap’n for putting it in perspective. After the “cleansing”, we can then worship in spirit and in truth. A silver lining indeed.

To pageantmaster: I went with World Medical Mission which is the medical branch of Franklin Graham’s organization, Samaritan’s Purse.

I joined TEC after being raised in the Baptist church, and have come to realize more and more lately the former’s problems, but that doesn’t mean I’m going back to the Baptists. One thing the mega-churches offer that LITURGICAL churches don’t is easy access—you don’t have to worry about knowing what to do, you just step in and sing the hymns on the big screen. People claim to be more and more crunched for time lately, and the big churches make it easy—not only the aforementioned hymns, but the fact that you can slip in and out if you want. Small churches, especially small liturgical churches, are not always so easy. You have to deal with possibly three different books and knowing where to follow the service. This is not “user-friendly” for those who don’t already have an inclination to such things. Don’t get me wrong, I think our leadership is way WAY off sometimes, but there are some hoops to jump through when worshipping in TEC. Not that those problems are insurmountable. Also, I am one of those Alpha people too who is hoping to implement the program this Fall at my church. My feeling is we MUST do this as a church, to grow, but more importantly, to spread the Gospel.

Niche church is a euphemism for the protestant sectarianism that pecusa is now embracing.  As they walk away from the Anglican Communion they can be the smart party at prayer ever prideful of their intellectual superiority over all those millions that embrace more orthodox forms of Christian faith.  As for Alpha, I have seen three liberal churches do Alpha in my area.  The courses don’t last long or have much impact on the parishes.  One reason for this is that in every case that I’ve seen they don’t use the Holy Spirit weekend tapes.  They substitute their own watered down ideas on the Holy Spirit.  These folks really are gnostics.

Gee, Tony.  The liberals keep telling us they are “like this” with the Holy Spirit.  (S)he’s always telling them stuff that is not confided to the rest of Christendom.

Despite our national myths surrounding the Plymouth Colony and Jamestown, the colonialists were, to put it mildly, not particularly religious.

Perhaps I’m wrong and naive, but somehow I seem to recall having been taught that the Puritans were a religious sect which came to the new world to escape religious persecution in England. I suspose that I must have simply misunderstood the teachings of my youth and that this concept is simply a figment of my imagination.

I have come to learn, the older I get, that white, anglo-saxon protestant males are the cause of all the world’s problems, a concept that is supported by a revised history which shows us as we truly are and not as the romanticists freedom-seeking, rugged individualists that we were portrayed by early historians..

Revisionists in the TEC are using this same technique to discredit the orthodox.

However, I do not find the arrogance that so many have fouond in Dr. Chilton’s article. It seems to me that it is an honest appraisal to the impending cause of death of TEC. I think its perceived arrogance comes from the fact that he simply describes the arrogance that now permeates TEC and is an integral part of its ultimate demise.

In fact, I thnik Chilton lays on the table quite clearly that TEC is in for significant decline. Oddly, however, he seems not to care since it will have its “niche” and there is no suggestion that it do otherwise.

Talk about your simple answers!

Revisionist:  Homosexual sex is not forbidden in Scripture.  In fact, it is behavior that should be blessed and elevated to the highest offices of the church.

Orthodox:  I can’t agree with you.

Revisionist:  That’s ‘cause you’re stupid.

Niche is not a dirty word. Growth and niche are not incompatible. The Episcopal church had done very well over the years as a Christian church for rich, white college educated who want a Christian church that emphasizes spirituality and are in tune with Christ’s message of service. Unfortunately, excise Christ from the mix and replace Him with feelings and everything collapses.

Quote from the article: “You might think that a tolerant church with modern attitudes, a willingness to experiment even with its rich tradition in order to be accepting, and an orientation to bringing about the Kingdom would appeal to those who remain unchurched in secular American society. But there’s no sign that we do appeal to the unchurched, at least not in large numbers.”
Um, I think it’s difficult to tell the churched from the unchurched here and that may present difficulty to…?

Cap’n Jack wrote:

A silver lining to the developing ejection of the orthodox from TEC, is that evil does not ultimately prosper. While the liberals rejoice that orthodoxy is being removed, root and branch, from among them, they are still perhaps not aware of how much faster their decline will be as a result. Sometimes I wonder if God is reserving even greater judgement of TEC until the last of the orthodox have been run out. It reminds me a bit of Sodom and Gomorrah after the angels literally dragged Lot’s family to safety.

Why would an organization embrace decline and death? Try Proverbs 8:35-36:
For whoever finds me finds life
and receives favor from the LORD.
But whoever fails to find me harms himself;
all who hate me love death. Italics Mine

 

Robroy responded:

Aye-Aye Cap’n!

I appreciate, though, the Cap’n for putting it in perspective. After the “cleansing”, we can then worship in spirit and in truth. A silver lining indeed.

 

I more than agree.  I see in what is happening in the Anglican Communion—most notably in the USA, Canada, and the UK—a great and providential correction of the Church, and a winnowing that will leave the remaining body (whatever it looks like) much the stronger for it.  Too long we (and, to my own acute shame, I pointedly include myself in this ‘we’) were willing to coast on the achievements of saints and apostles, confessors and martyrs, who built up the Body of Christ through great sacrifice.  We relied upon the reputation and eventual social prestige won by those forbears as a sufficient draw to keep numbers up, sustain institutions, and give us pretty Gothic buildings in which to worship.

That past is dying.  Even were Gene Robinson, Jefferts-Schori, Marilyn Adams, et al. to convert to what passed for middle-of-the-road ECUSA orthodoxy in, oh, about 1980, we would still see ages rising, numbers falling, and a fatal complacency reigning in ECUSA and the C of E.

Among the relatively-orthodox, the capital sin of sloth, in the disguise of charity, permitted those whose agenda are truly at odds with those of Jesus Christ to rise to essentially unassailable power over ECUSA.  A similar sin, and an excessive love of the visible institution at the expense of the Church’s mission, has eviscerated the Church of England, leaving all but a remarkable minority of parishes with laughable Sunday attendance and indiscernible impact upon the lives of those who should make up their membership.

We are seeing God’s response.  Did we love the buildings too much?  God is taking them away from us—be it by court order in the US or by the ongoing programme of church closures which is converting parish after parish into libraries, coffee-houses, and the like in the UK.  God is forcing us, first to choose sides, and ultimately to choose allegiances.  Was the institutional ‘church’ previously a comfortable career option with pleasant social prestige, lifetime tenure, and a quietly-affirming air of moral respectability?  We are now being faced with a choice between renouncing Him altogether to keep these things, on the one hand, and worshipping in living rooms and rented auditoriums, with little or no material recompense, in the face of widespread scorn from the media, on the other.

God’s punishments usually turn out to be His saving medicine for the healing of our sin; His judgements are the means of grace.  If Anglicanism is to survive in the First World (and, likely, anywhere), it will need to be as serious about mission as the First World Anglican hierarchies now are about money and real property; it will need to acknowledge from its heart the importance and the gravity of the ministry of the laity; it will need to do these things with minimal money and other resources, with minimal prestige (because these things are among those which God has deemed necessary to remove after our pathetic stewardship.)  But if we are faithful in admitting our complicity in what has gone before, and in shouldering the most undramatic and unattractive (and sometimes seemingly futile) yoke of obedience and perseverance, I think He will bring out of the present Communion crisis a church that is much more lively and life-giving, and even much more secure, than what we have become accustomed to seeing.

rwkachur wrote: 

The Amway reference seems a bit dated.  Really, you think he could’ve used Wal-Mart more effectively.

I think the comparison with Amway hits the nail right on the head. In order to succeed in Amway, you must be able to add people to your group, and those people must add others to their groups. Likewise, any church that doesn’t make disciples who make disciples will fail.

God have mercy!!  Of course belief matters relating to salvation. How are folks expected to trust Christ if they are unable to acknowledge who He is or even understand their need.

We should all be excited about the faith, concerned to share, and to see people come to faith in the Lord.

I certainly see no problem with being open, and encouraging questions. But,  to me, the whole point of posing the question is with hope of finding the answer. (Otherwise, why bother??) It seems there are folks out there who delight more in seeking than in knowing truth.

I don’t know if I qualify as a mature Christian or not.  What I can say is that I am an educated person whose experiences are of the sort to make him inclined to reject easy answers—exactly the sort of person that TEC is supposed to appeal to if one accepts Chilton’s “niche church” argument.  And I can tell you that even if you accept all that, Chilton’s argument falls flat.

Maybe there are enough people like me to support a church, maybe there aren’t.  Doesn’t matter.  In terms of being simplistic “Jesus Loves Everyone So It’s All Good” is no better than “God Said It, I Believe It, That Settles It.”

Wolverine

I have posted a response to Chilton’s article on my weblog AnglicansAblaze. To read it, go to: http://anglicansablaze.blogspot.com/

It is lengthy so I chose not to post it in the “comments” section. I sent a copy to Stand Firm and Stand Firm is to free to post it in its entirety.

It amazes me that people who are so “educated” can come to such a simplistic conclusion about church growth.  Doesn’t it seem strange that a “welcoming affirming” church can in the same breath described as a “niche church”?

It all depends on what one uses one’s niche for, doesn’t it?  Since the main mission of the ECUSA/TEC is the MDG’s per the PB, I suspect that nice is miniscule.  But even the gay niche hasn’t flocked to the ECUSA/TEC as anticipated.  So many niches and so few people…it would seem the niche church is nonviable.  Oh, wait, that’s what the ECUSA/TEC statistics say!  (Never mind, “growth” is like acceleration, isn’t it, as it doesn’t matter in which direction it goes.  So loss of members at an ever accelerating rate is “growth” merely in the negative direction.  At that rate there will be negative membership “growth” niche church - this is the ECUSA/TEC.)

Africanised: Thanks for your comments, they really spoke to me. I am a member of the Dio. of West Michigan, which just recently, as has been noted before, sold its cathedral because of lack of funds. I have never heard it said around here in the diocese, but I think it should be prayerfully considered by people that the loss of this building, however controversial its construction was from the start, is very possibly God’s judgement on the waywardness of many people in both leadership positions and elsewhere. Often, it seems, people have the misperception that “God’s judgement” is somehow a bolt out of the sky, rather than the simple outgrowth of bad decisions, theology and thinking. This diocese has been pruned, but I don’t know how many people are ready to admit that yet. “Judgement” is such an icky word…

Dr. Stroud, not only have national leaders in the Episcopal Church completely failed to capitalize on +Gene’s consecration to bring in more LGBT members, but I happen to know that its weird emphasis on waging World War III with dissenting parishes and then blaming it all on gays has driven many LGBT parishioners away.  And if the Episcopal Church continues to leave the issue of inclusion up there as a bargaining chip, it will continue to fail to bring in gay members.  Gay parishioners don’t want to invest themselves in a denomination that might suddenly flip and turn against them next year.  Can you blame them?

But then I’m not clear what “inclusion” is supposed to mean in an upper-class, 95% white denomination anyway, and the fact that folks are supposed to look at the demographics of the church and call it good has always troubled me.  I helped lead a panel on church segregation in December 2005 that dealt with the St. Peter’s Oxford/Second Baptist initiatives, and the stuff I saw and heard both at that time and afterwards is still under my skin.  I have referred more than once to the dreadful James Adams quote from So You Think You’re Not Religious?, where a nice liberal national church leader—founder of the Center for Progressive Christianity, may I add—makes an overtly segregationist argument, and I have said more than once that the quotation in question did more than anything else to drive me away from church. 

Cheers,

TH

Re why the church isn’t growing, mainline and evangelical churches are simply selling different products—mainline churches tell you you won’t go to Hell whether you go to church or not, while evangelical churches tend to take a different tack.  I have used the metaphor of a donut shop before.  “Eat here and try our tasty donuts” will never sell as well as “Eat here, try our tasty donuts, and become inoculated against the rapidly-spreading flesh-eating zombie disease.”

Sociologists of religion have been able to document pretty significantly that the decline in mainline attendance represents a transition to unchurched status more than it does a transition to more conservative churches.  And why shouldn’t it?  I like having my Sunday mornings free, and I believe I suffer no celestial punishments for it.  If I had a more conservative theology, I’d feel differently about the matter.  And that’s why progressive denominations will probably never do as well, all told, as conservative denominations.

Cheers,

TH

If you think your niche is educated people, and the number of educated people is growing while your church is shrinking, then perhaps the things you are saying are actually not very convincing to educated people.

But then I’m not clear what “inclusion” is supposed to mean in an upper-class, 95% white denomination anyway, and the fact that folks are supposed to look at the demographics of the church and call it good has always troubled me.

Same here. As the neighborhood has changed around our shrinking church, I feel that we are called to reach out to our new neighbors and our little group is not one to have racial or economic barriers, so that is not a problem. There may be some safety issues, as crime has gone up in the area. But the real stumbling block for me is not knowing how to start. In any case, I think the true road to inclusion is to stop pinning labels on people and consulting demographics, but to reach out to all the people who are given to you. And to make sure you actually *see* all of them.

One of the first things I learned when I entered the world of business was this: If people ain’t buyin’ what you’re sellin’, then you ain’t got anything they want.

the snarkster

“We are a niche church with a rich liturgical tradition that brings some closer to God’s immanence, transcendence and longing for a relationship with God’s people”.

Except for that pesky Scripture-Liturgy connection, which we regularly flout at will. 

I noted a dingy TEC rector the other day calling Diana Butler Bass the “most popular American religious author in the past five years”.  He must be another one of those Alban devotees who tunes in only when one of the elitist talking heads is busily telling everybody only what they want to hear. 

Obviously, though, he hasn’t been reading the NYT Bestseller list.  Just how long was Rick Warren, with either the Purpose-Driven Life or the Purpose-Church, on said list?  That other rector does have what, by most accounts, would be considered a successful Episcopal church, with ASA of ~ 300 per Sunday.  And yet Saddleback’s ASA would put it to shame, so if I were him I wouldn’t exactly get on my high-horse. 

Give me Tradition any day…it draws, and it grows.

The great irony here that I think Mr. Chilton entirely misses is he is under the impression that his (TEC’s) position is the complex, challenging one, and that traditional catholic and evangelical interpretations are offering “simple” answers.  He would do well to read through +Matt’s recent articles on Catholics and Evangelicals, or the recent thread on seminaries, to see just how rich and complex these traditions are.  From a purely secular point of view, I might compare it to games.  Which is more interesting- a game with complex rules where each player has a particular part to play, or a box with 2 dice and a board and some tokens, but no instructions?  I will grant that for some people, it is the latter, they can make up whatever they want to do using the parts, but sooner or later, they end up making their own rules as well, and differentiate the game.  Meanwhile, the people who have learned to play the game with complex rules, can now both enjoy the game and enhance their skills.  They can also go out and play the game with others in other places, who know the rules to the same game.  I have played chess with people with whom I do not share a common language.  If I had a box with a board and loose pieces, neither of us knowing the rules- or worse, each of us having our own rules, we would never have had a coherent game.
  TEC is a box of loose pieces but no rules.  They are more worried about the size of the box than what is inside.  If people are on their own to believe what ever they wish to believe, they may play around with religion, but they will not learn and develop as members of the Body of Christ.  The vestments have become costumes and worship a play.

But not so long ago when society resisted change in attitudes towards blacks, women, and homosexuals the renewal of gospel attitudes in the Episcopal Church moved it into tension with the secular world. As a consequence, American society has moved in our direction on those issues; the Episcopal Church is following the call to bring heaven to earth.

“As a consequence”?  Dr. Chilton has cause and effect reversed.  TEC has been chasing after whatever the advanced view in society is over the last 50 years and then found a religious rationalization for adopting it.

In the case of a racial segregation within the church, it was a good thing that society changed and TEC followed society in that change, because TEC, unlike some other Christian bodies, never would have done so on its own.  In the case of women and homosexuals, TEC is again just following what’s going on in the parts of society to which TEC’s members belong. But that’s not leadership or “gospel values”—it’s being what TEC has always been, which is a worldly church that reflects the values of the educated white upper middle class.

In his eagerness to pat himself and TEC on the back, Dr. Chilton is claiming credit for leadership, when it’s simply conformity to the mores of a particular segment of society.

This reminds me of that quote Louie Crew uses from Aaron Henry.  Henry was asked if the church was a light for justice in the civil rights movement.  He paused, chuckled, and then said “Yeah.  A tail light.”

MLK said much the same thing in his letter from Birmingham Jail. 

The sad truth is that the Episcopal Church as a national body still practices racial segregation for the most part.  “We don’t have (m)any and just between us we don’t want (m)any, but we’ll let ‘em in if they come” isn’t really integration; it’s segregation by inertia.

Cheers,

TH

Yes, tjmcmahon, haven’t you noticed?  People like NT Wright and Ephraim Radner are “simple”. 

Puh-leeze…

“the Episcopal Church is following the call to bring heaven to earth.” The TEc has lost the notion of the fall. What have we now: drugs, rampant crime, casual sex, government sanctioned killing at both ends of life, etc. The TEc allowed Elton John to party hearty in St Johns in New York because he is the new gospel messenger.

A biblically based life and lifestyle is boring and so repressive. Heaven to earth? No. The consequence of the “new thing” preached by KJS, VGR, Mark Sisk, Mr. Chilton, et al, is to increase the Hell-ness of the world. They then close their eyes to all the increased suffering and vain pursuit of “happiness” and declare it all heaven.

And see, this is why I think we should have an equitable distribution of assets—because I do consider Elton John a new gospel messenger.  He has practically dedicated the last twenty years of his life, after the death of Ryan White, to funding HIV-AIDS prevention and research.  He has also successfully fought alcoholism, came out at a time in his career when it was not necessarily helpful to him to do so, and has remained in a stable 12-year relationship with his partner in the entertainment industry, where stable monogamy is incredibly rare.  I would not want to be a member of a church that wouldn’t welcome his full participation, including special events and so forth, because I see him as an excellent role model who represents Christian values extremely well.

I don’t mean this to say “I’m right and you’re evil,” because I don’t think you’re evil at all.  But we clearly do have different ideas of what we want from people, and I think that reflects a broader division in the church.  Rather than having some bishops who think Sir Elton is a hero and some who wouldn’t want to see him within 500 yards of the pulpit, I think it makes sense to have two separate churches—so that the people who invite Sir Elton don’t have to worry about losing pledge money, the people who won’t don’t have to worry about it either, and parishioners get to choose which vision of the church they want to participate in rather than finding themselves shuffled back and forth depending on what the leadership’s priorities happen to be at the time.

Cheers,

TH

Tom, I would grant you that Elton John has done some wonderful things and is heroic in some respects. But a gospel messenger? I think I would have to understand more about what you mean by that.

Tom, I think that you are great, and I would love to sit and shoot the bull with you in in the coffee shop…However, we have very different ideas of what church is all about. Sir Elton has called for the banishment of organized religion. He is the epitome of decadence. To be honest, I am skeptical about generosity of celebrities. All a pretense.

The new church of the enlightened Sufi/Islamic/Zen Episcopal church states do what you feel like and we’ll bless it. We have NOT moved closer to heaven on earth despite Mr. Chilton’s progressively tossing out tradition.

Thank you for your comments on the first essay.

My second essay on the subject is here:
http://www.episcopalcafe.com/daily/evangelism/be_fruitful_and_teach_your_chi.php