Check it out to see which film(s) and book(s) were chosen.

Yes, evangelicals do have more retention of youth than mainline churches. But it is unfair to say that this is because evangelicals care more about keeping them. As someone who grew up as an evangelical and who is now in a mainline denomination, I see a different way of analyzing this trend. Rather than evangelicals caring more, they engage in the business of scaring more (sorry for the pun, it just worked well.)

Mainline denominations are uninterested in telling youth that they are going to burn in Hell if they don’t commit to Christianity and regularly come to church. Evangelicals, on the other hand, do. Mainline denominations are uninterested in guilting their members into attending; evangelicals see no problem with this. It’s a matter of philosophy. Evangelicals are consequentialists when it comes to youth formation”“the end justifies the means. Mainline denominations are typically deontologists”“if the means are not right, the action is wrong, even if good comes from it….

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Evangelicals care more than mainline Protestants about keeping their young people in the faith. This is the striking conclusion James Wellman reaches in his fascinating book, “Evangelical vs. Liberal: The Clash of Christian Cultures in the Pacific Northwest” (Oxford). Based on observations, interviews, and focus group discussions with people from 24 evangelical and 10 mainline churches, all vital churches with stable or growing memberships, this lively book compares these two religious cultures in many ways. How people think about youth and youth ministry emerges as a key difference: “For evangelicals, if children and youth are not enjoying church, it is the church’s fault and evangelical parents either find a new church or try to improve their youth ministry. For liberals, the tendency is the reverse; if youth do not find church interesting it is their problem. Evangelicals are simply more interested and invested in reproducing the faith in their children and youth and their churches reflect this priority.”

Even though evangelical and mainline churches both lose many young people to the ranks of the religiously unaffiliated, and even though both groups lose more young people than they did before, evangelical churches still lose fewer young people than liberal churches lose. Evangelical families emphasize religion more than mainline families do, and evangelical churches involve young people in a denser social web of youth groups, church camps, and church-based socializing, all of which increase the chances that a young person will remain in the fold as an adult. This is one reason that evangelical denominations have not suffered the same membership declines in recent decades that more liberal, mainline denominations have suffered.

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Leaders of the Presbyterian Church (USA) voted Thursday to remove the barrier keeping non-celibate gays out of the ministry but stopped short of redefining marriage to include same-sex couples.

Currently the denomination requires clergy and other ordained leaders to either be married or remain celibate. That rule remains in effect until the denomination’s 173 regional presbyteries ratify the assembly’s decision.

At least one local critic of the clergy decision says that’s unlikely to happen.

“It has gone to the presbyteries three other times,” said the Rev. Harry Hassall, a retired minister from Brentwood. “Every time it has been defeated.”

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Two local Presbyterian ministers took the view that the debate over human sexuality and church polity obscured larger, more pressing issues.

What’s more, they said, by voting either for or against a policy change, the church makes a complicated subject that requires thoughtful discussion into a black-and-white matter that’s got a winning side and a losing side.

The Rev. Spike Coleman, of St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in West Ashley, said many members of his church don’t follow General Assembly proceedings, or the debate of gay marriage and ordination, very closely.

“Not that it’s not an important issue,” he said. “For some people it’s very important, I realize that, but for most members they’re worried about their jobs and families and children.”

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A split decision from Presbyterian leaders on two gay-friendly measures guarantees even more debate among the U.S. church’s members on an issue they’ve been divided over for years.

Delegates to the Presbyterian church’s convention in Minneapolis voted Thursday for a more liberal policy on gay clergy but decided not to redefine marriage in their church constitution to include same-sex couples. Approval of both measures could have made the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) one of the most gay-friendly major Christian churches in the U.S.

Even the more liberal stance on gay clergy faces more debate before it can become church policy. A majority of the church’s 173 U.S. presbyteries must approve it. Two years ago ”” after years of efforts by supporters ”” a similar measure was sent out to presbyteries but died when 94 of them voted against it.

Both of Thursday’s votes were close. Fifty-one percent of delegates voted to shelve the proposal to redefine marriage as being between “two people” instead of between “a man and a woman,” just hours after 53 percent of them voted to allow non-celibate gays in committed relationships to serve as clergy.

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Proposals to have the Presbyterian Church (USA) denounce or divest from Caterpillar Inc. because the company sells bulldozers to Israel are not playing well in Peoria.

The central Illinois city is home to the heavy machinery manufacturer, and a healthy number of local Presbyterians count on the company for paychecks, pensions or health care.

Nearly a third of the 700-member Northminster Presbyterian Church, for example, derive their income from Caterpillar or one of its subsidiaries, said Senior Pastor Doug Hucke; five of the church’s nine elders work for the company.

“Caterpillar’s huge in this part of the world,” Hucke said.

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Denominations appear to have fallen on difficult times. Theological controversies over core Christian beliefs have weakened some denominations. Others have succumbed to classic liberalism. A handful of denominations have reaffirmed their commitment to theological orthodoxy, but even many once-growing conservative denominations have experienced difficult days. All in all, membership in 23 of the 25 largest Christian denominations is declining (the exceptions being the Assemblies of God and the Church of God).

The 2008 American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) found that the percentage of Americans who self-identify as Christians decreased from 86 percent in a 1990 study to 76 percent in 2008. Much of the loss does seem located in large mainline denominations. At the same time, the ARIS indicated that nondenominational churches have steadily grown since 2001””and that self-identified evangelicals have increased in number. But it seems that denominations have not shared in the growth.

According to many church leaders, denominations are not fading away””they are actually inhibiting growth. I have heard many pastors denounce denominations as hindering more than helping their churches’ mission. Others carp at wasteful spending, bureaucratic ineffectiveness, or structural redundancies; these objections seem to have gained adherents in an economic climate of pinching every penny. Loyalty to a denomination has declined and in some cases disappeared.

Meanwhile, many of the better-known churches in America today have no denominational affiliation….

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Lately, when the Rev. Canon Sally Bingham, president and founder of Interfaith Power and Light, preaches a sermon about the United States’ dependence on fossil fuels and the possible shift toward renewable energy sources she turns to Luke chapter 5 and the metaphor that Jesus used when talking to the frustrated fishermen on the Sea of Galilee.

“When it’s not working, put your nets on the other side of the boat,” Bingham, also an Episcopal priest, said in a telephone interview from Washington, D.C., where Interfaith Power & Light, a national organization with 35 state affiliates aimed at mobilizing a religious response to global warming, is having its annual meeting.

“After a hundred years’ of fossil fuels, it’s time to look to alternatives. Put the nets on the other side of the boat. Wind, sun, geothermal ”¦ just like oil, gas and coal, they are God-given resources. What Jesus was saying was, when something isn’t working, try something else.”

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After a decade-long clergy shortage in America’s pulpits, Christian denominations are now experiencing a clergy glut — with some denominations reporting two ministers for every vacant pulpit.

“We have a serious surplus of ministers and candidates seeking calls,” said Marcia Myers, director of the vocation office for the Presbyterian Church (USA), which has four ministers for every opening.

The cause of the sudden turnaround: blame the bad economy.

According to PC(USA) data, there are 532 vacancies for 2,271 ministers seeking positions. The Assemblies of God, United Methodist Church, Church of the Nazarene and other Protestant denominations also report significant surpluses.

Cash-strapped parishioners — who were already aging and shrinking in number — have given less to their churches, resulting in staff cuts. Meanwhile, older clergy who saw their retirement funds evaporate are delaying retirement, leaving fewer positions available to younger ministers.

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The Episcopal Church, like other mainline Protestant denominations, is not immune from the seismic political, sociological and economic shifts happening today. Most of us are experiencing “a time of no longer and a time of not yet”–an era of rapid, complex change; chronic anxiety; and heightened ambiguity. The comfort of the familiar is fading, and the movement toward an unknown future can feel terrifying.

In times like these, Christians expect religious leadership to help bridge the gap between the ideal and the real, and to equip followers to live out the Gospel in an environment of extreme polarities, i.e., poverty and wealth, insularity and inclusiveness, hostility and hospitality, homogeneity and diversity. The call “to love our neighbors as ourselves” is being drowned out by a barrage of shrill and hate-filled rhetoric. The distance between what Christians profess to believe and what they do seems wider than ever, creating a gap of dysfunction. There are few trusted religious leaders in the public square, whose rational voices, theological gravitas and moral authority can quell the incivility, incendiary rhetoric, and growing intolerance of differences. At a time when the leadership of the church is most needed, there is silence.

The mainline churches are finding themselves on the margins, declining in membership and donations. Some are in the grip of unresolved conflicts and divisions; others are locked in scandal. The main mission is hostage to a host of distracting issues. In short, the church is experiencing a crisis of leadership.

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In the Charleston area, where history runs deep, a church has to be pretty old to register on the “Wow Meter.”

Johns Island Presbyterian Church is one of the oldest in the Lowcountry, established 57 years before the signing of the Declaration of Independence and 13 years before George Washington was born.

This year, the congregation marks its 300th anniversary. Amazingly, the original church building, a simple, white, wooden building in the Colonial meeting house style, still stands. It has no steeple or bell tower, no stained glass, no fancy organ, no ornate columns or interior art.

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Facing continued drops in membership and a shrinking budget, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is offering severance packages to about 30 employees at its Louisville headquarters ”” part of an effort to cut its budget by nearly one-fifth by 2012.

This impending round of cuts is just the latest in a series over the past decade as the denomination attempts to cope with losses in membership, congregations and, more recently, investment returns.

“We are seeking to reduce our expenses in order to come into line with our revenue projections, as a matter of good stewardship,” said a statement from Linda Valentine, executive director of the General Assembly Mission Council, which oversees most of the denomination’s programming and Louisville workforce.

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(The above is my title, you can see his by going to the link below–KSH)

The Christian churches in the United States are in trouble for all the usual reasons ”” human sinfulness and selfishness, the temptations of life in an affluent society, doctrinal and moral controversies and uncertainties and on and on and on ”” but also and to a surprisingly large degree they are in trouble because they are trying to address the problems of the twenty first century with a business model and a set of tools that date from the middle of the twentieth. The mainline churches in particular are organized like General Motors was organized in the 1950s: they have cost structures and operating procedures that simply don’t work today. They are organized around what I’ve been calling the blue social model, built by rules that don’t work anymore, and oriented to a set of ideas that are well past their sell-by date.

Without even questioning it, most churchgoers assume that a successful church has its own building and a full-time staff including one or more professionally trained leaders (ordained or not depending on the denomination). Perhaps no more than half of all congregations across the country can afford this at all; most manage only by neglecting maintenance on their buildings or otherwise by cutting corners. And even when they manage to make the payroll and keep the roof in repair, congregations spend most of their energy just keeping the show going from year to year. The life of the community centers around the attempt to maintain a model of congregational life that doesn’t work, can’t work, won’t work no matter how hard they try. People who don’t like futile tasks have a tendency to wander off and do other things and little by little the life and vitality (and the rising generations) drift away.
At the next level up, there is another level of ecclesiastical bureaucrats and officials staffing regional offices. When my dad was a young priest in the Episcopal diocese of North Carolina back in the late 1950s the bishop had a secretary and that was pretty much it for diocesan staff. These days the Episcopal church is in decline, with perhaps a third to a half or more of its parishes unable to meet their basic expenses and with members dying off or drifting away much faster than new people come through the door ”” but no respectable bishop would be caught dead with the pathetic staff with which Bishop Baker ran a healthy and growing diocese in North Carolina back in the 1950s. (Bishop Baker was impressive in another way; he could tie his handkerchief into the shape of a bunny rabbit, put it flat on the palm of his hand, and have it hop off. I was only six when he showed me this trick, but it was clear to me that this man had something special to offer. Since that time I’ve traveled all over the world and met bishops, archbishops, cardinals and even a pope ”” but none of them made quite the impression on me that Bishop Baker and his jumping handkerchief did.)

Bishops today in their sinking, decaying dioceses surround themselves with large staffs who hold frequent meetings and no doubt accomplish many wonderful things, although nobody outside the office ever quite knows what these are. And it isn’t just Anglicans. Lutherans, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, UCC, the whole crowd has pretty much the same story to tell. Staffs grow; procedures flourish and become ever more complex; more and more years of school are required from an increasingly ”˜professional’ church staff: everything gets better and better every year ”” except somehow the churches keep shrinking. Inside, the professionals are pretty busy jumping through hoops and writing memos to each other and grand sweeping statements of support for raising the minimum wage and other noble causes ”” but outside the regional headquarters and away from the hum of the computers and printers, local congregations lose members, watch their buildings fall year by year into greater disrepair, and in the end they close their doors.

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Since the first Protestants rowed to shore in Jamestown, Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay, they’ve been in charge. As recently as the 1950s, the president as well as seven of the nine members of the Supreme Court were Protestant Christians. Methodist, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Episcopal and other so-called mainline Protestant leaders called many of the shots on civil rights, school prayer, immigration, education and other key issues of the day. Then, in the late ’60s, their numbers began to dwindle.

Today, only one member of the high court is Protestant (John Paul Stevens), and President Obama appears to have stopped attending church altogether at least outside of Camp David. Instead of dominating public debate, mainline Protestants find themselves struggling to reach a quorum. Half of their churches have fewer than a hundred members, and in nearly six of 10 congregations, it’s the Church of the Blue Hair. Or No Hair. A quarter or more of their congregants are 65 or older. That’s three times the number for their more conservative Evangelical cousins.

So what happened? How did America’s most influential religious group become so marginal?

The conventional wisdom has been that the more conservative Catholic and Evangelical churches simply won over the hearts and minds of the American people. And, if there is a culture war, these more liberal Protestant groups surely must have lost.

But not so fast.

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The Presbyterian Church USA’s statement of faith says God through Jesus Christ delivers followers “from death to life eternal.”

But one in three members of the nation’s largest Presbyterian denomination seem to believe there’s some wiggle room for non-Christians to get into heaven, according to a recent poll.

The Presbyterian Panel’s “Religious and Demographic Profile of Presbyterians” found that 36 percent of members disagreed or strongly disagreed with the statement: “Only followers of Jesus Christ can be saved.” Another 39 percent, or about two-fifths, agreed or strongly agreed with the statement.

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You really need to take the time to listen to it all (just over 65 minutes).

There used to be a time when churches could rely on being filled on a weekly basis, come rain or shine.

But dwindling congregations and ageing members have forced churches to look for ways to innovate and modernise in an attempt to get the Christian message out.

And so members of Greyfriars Parish Church in Lanark have decided to exchange pews for bar stools in an attempt to spread the festive message with a Christmas Eve carol-singing session at a local pub, the Clydesdale Inn.

Their minister, the Rev Bryan Kerr, said that the church had looked at ways of getting their message out beyond the church.

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Three Valley Presbyterian churches have finalized their divorce from the nation’s largest Presbyterian denomination, citing differences over the Bible’s supreme authority and the possible ordination of gays.

But unlike the split within the Valley’s Episcopal diocese, which turned into a bitter court fight, the three congregations are leaving on friendly terms. They have retained their church properties and have agreed to fulfill financial pledges for ministries run by the church they’re leaving.

“The relationships we share with these three congregations, as brothers and sisters in Christ, are more important than property,” said the Rev. Rick Irish, interim leader of the Presbytery of San Joaquin, which governs Valley congregations within Presbyterian Church (USA). “Therefore, we didn’t make property an issue.”

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When asked why they chose their current denomination, the majority of respondents spoke of the strong similarity between their present church and the Catholic Church in terms of liturgy, ministry and theology. This was especially true for the Episcopalians and seems to explain why so many of the survey respondents gravitated to the Anglican Communion. Most of those who joined the Episcopal Church said that with only minor adjustments they “felt at home” from the beginning and that they found comfort in the fact that they could hold onto their core beliefs in the Resurrection and the Eucharist. Over time they modified their views on other subjects, such as papal infallibility and women’s ordination, but many of them had already begun to question the validity of those doctrines.

Before I began the interviews, I hypothesized that diocesan priests would be overrepresented in my sample because they seem to be at greater risk for loneliness than religious order priests. (Most religious live in community, while diocesan priests often live alone in rectories because of the shortage of priests.) The survey results support this hypothesis. Based on the historical ratio of American diocesan clergy to religious, one would expect to find 61.5 percent diocesan priests in this sample; in fact, 72.3 percent of the respondents had served in diocesan ministry. (Recall that Cutié was a diocesan priest.)

Where [Alberto] Cutié differs from most of the men I surveyed is in the historical timing of his decision. The majority of respondents began their journey to a new church in the period from the late 1960s to the early 1980s. It seems unlikely that Cutié’s example will spark another wave of priestly resignations. According to research conducted by Dean R. Hoge and Jacqueline E. Wenger in Evolving Visions of Priesthood: Changes from Vatican II to the Turn of the New Century (2003), young priests today are more theologically conservative than their immediate predecessors and are more likely therefore to embrace the church’s traditional teaching on celibacy. Questions remain, however, about how many young Catholic men have chosen lay or Protestant ministry over the Catholic priesthood because of the demands of celibacy””a fitting area of inquiry, perhaps, for another curious sociologist.

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A year ago, the meetings began. Representatives from Mount Pleasant Presbyterian and several other East Cooper churches got together to discuss a collaborative approach to community service and worship.

They knew it wasn’t the first time such cooperation has been attempted; they knew that other efforts have met with various degrees of success or failure, according to Becky Van Wie, a Mount Pleasant Presbyterian member and associate director of the Lowcountry Continuum of Care Partnership.

Van Wie said the group met with people who have been around this block. Both Chuck Coward, executive director of Charleston Outreach, and the Rev. Bert Keller, pastor of Circular Congregational Church, explained some of the pitfalls, and both encouraged the nascent ecumenical team to forgo establishing a formal organizational structure for the time being and focus instead on action.

“Do something,” they said, according to Van Wie. That way others will see that the effort is about more than just good ideas and they’ll get involved.

Read it all from the Faith and Values section of the local paper.

Two new reports on the size and strength of American congregations present contrasting pictures of church life today.

The October issue of Outreach magazine is all about growth. It lists the 100 largest U.S. churches, based on attendance statistics gathered by LifeWay Research, Nashville.

Leading the list, as in 2008, is Joel Osteen’s Lakewood Church, Houston; 43,500 attend weekend worship.

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It is too early to call the ELCA’s decision a tipping point for mainline Protestants. The Presbyterian Church (USA) and the much larger United Methodist Church continue to prohibit gay people from being ordained. Demographics likely explain some of these differences – there are many more Methodists and Presbyterians in the most conservative regions of the country than members of the ELCA, Episcopal Church, or United Church of Christ.

The history of debate in individual denominations matters too – the Presbyterians and Methodists have been locked in divisive internal battles about homosexuality for longer than the ELCA – as do the formal ways denominations make decisions. The Presbyterians seem the most likely to follow the ELCA; their denominational vote on gay ordination this year was narrower than in the past.

These shifts within mainline Protestantism reflect liberalizing public opinion about homosexuality. They show that mainline Protestant denominations, like most religious traditions, are continually adapting and revising theological interpretations as their social environments change. We salute the ELCA for taking a bold step in the direction of justice and equality and hope the Presbyterians and United Methodists soon follow suit – fully tipping the mainline Protestant denominations toward complete equality for gay men and lesbians.

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Of mainline Protestants surveyed by the Pew Forum for its U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, 56 percent said homosexuality should be accepted by society. Thirty-four percent of those Protestants said it should be discouraged. In all, the Pew Forum surveyed more than 35,000 adults of all faiths.

Others say the growing acceptance of homosexuality in churches is unique to North American liberal Protestantism.

Christianity is growing fastest in Africa, Asia, and Central and South America, and those believers are much more conservative on sexuality, said Bishop Callon W. Holloway Jr. of the Southern Ohio Synod of the ELCA. He opposed the changes at last week’s Churchwide Assembly in Minneapolis.

Now, Holloway is trying to hold his synod together. He’s heard from between 200 and 300 people who say they intend to leave the denomination, he said.

Such departures could have devastating consequences for congregations that rely on members financially, he said.

The Rev. Paul Ulring, pastor of the 5,000-member Upper Arlington Lutheran Church, said his congregation is likely to leave the ELCA.

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AFA Journal: Considering that the mainlines have been on a path away from orthodoxy for more than 40 years, do you ever feel that IRD is a voice crying in the wilderness, that no one is listening?

Mark Tooley: No! God clearly has preserved a strong voice of orthodoxy and renewal within all the mainline denominations. We should be careful not to conflate the views of church elites with the views of all church members. They are part of the Body of Christ. None of us has the liberty to write off any part of the Body of Christ, no matter how troubled.

In a more temporal sense, the mainliners still bring a powerful history and legacy to American Christianity from which modern evangelicals can and should learn. As we see from distressing current evangelical trends, doctrine, church structure and appreciation for church history are vital for strong churches.

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Word came recently that the Episcopal Church national convention plans to affirm gay and lesbian clergy. Some celebrated, while others recoiled. The public pondered.

From the sidelines I say, “Hooray for the steady progress of God’s holy spirit.”

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A few statistics tell the story.

A majority of seminary students now carry educational debt, and they’re borrowing larger amounts than in the past. Graduates confirm that their debt affects their career choices, holds them back from purchasing homes, prevents them from saving for their children’s education, limits their retirement savings, delays health care and creates distress.

Christian Century magazine recently reported that “churches are paying their clergy proportionately lower salaries today then they did a generation ago, making it more difficult for ministerial candidates to justify the high cost of a graduate degree.”

Fewer than 7 percent of clergy in most Protestant and Catholic denominations today are under age 35.

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Like most 24-year-old men, Stephen Jones is keenly interested in sin. But while many of his peers enjoy their youthful indiscretions, Jones takes a more, shall we say, Puritanical stand.

Last weekend (June 12-15), Jones and 4,000 other young Christians packed into a convention center in Palm Springs, Calif., to hear preachers tell them that they are totally depraved, incapable of doing the right thing without a mighty hand from God, and — most importantly
— have absolutely no control over their eternal fate.

The mind behind that message is John Calvin, the 16th-century Reformer often better known for condemning sinners and heretics than for igniting evangelical zeal. But as Presbyterian and other Reformed churches prepare for the 500th birthday of their spiritual godfather on July 10, increasingly, it is young American evangelicals who are taking up his theological torch.

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“What if church wasn’t just a building, but thousands of doors?” asks a new website launched by the United Methodist Church. “Each of them opening up to a different concept or experience of church. . . . Would you come?” After watching its membership drop nearly 25 percent in recent decades, the United Methodist Church, which is still the nation’s largest mainline Protestant denomination, thinks it knows the answer. So it’s pouring $20 million into a new marketing campaign, including the website, television advertisements, even street teams in some cities, to rebrand the church from stale destination to “24-7 experience.”

“The under-35 generation thinks church is a judgmental, hypocritical, insular place,” says Jamie Dunham, chief planning officer for Bohan Advertising & Marketing, the firm that designed the United Methodist campaign. “So our question is: What if church can change the world with a journey?”

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Few doubt that the graying of members, low birth rates and various controversies have contributed to the diminishing numbers of mainline Protestants found in the United Methodist Church, the Evan gelical Luth eran Church in America, the Pres byterian Church (U.S.A.), the Epis copal Church, the American Baptist Churches and the United Church of Christ.

But has the slippage become precipitous, threatening to reduce mainline Protestants ever closer to remnant status? “A generic form of evangelicalism is emerging as the normative form of non-Catholic Christianity in the United States,” said Mark Silk, who helped design the 2008 American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS).

That survey, which polled more than 54,000 adults, reported in March that the number of mainline Christians had slipped to 12.9 percent of adult Americans””down from 17.2 percent in 2001 and 18.7 percent in 1990””as evangelical numbers grew.

By contrast, the Pew Forum’s U.S. Religious Landscape Study, after polling 35,000 adults in 2007, reported last year that 18.1 percent of adults said they were affiliated with “mainline Protestant” churches.

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