The Decline of Established Christianity in the Western World

Interpretations and Responses

Paul Silas Peterson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781138308152
• eBook ISBN: 9781351390422
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Church

While Church attendance in the West is often cited as being in decline, it is argued that this applies primarily to the older established forms of Christianity. Other expressions of the faith are, in fact, stable or even growing. This volume provides multidisciplinary interpretations of and responses to one of the most complicated and controversial issues regarding the global transformation of Christianity today: the decline of "established Christianity" in the Western world. It also addresses the future of Christianity in the West after the decline.

Drawing upon historical research, sociology, religious studies, philosophy and theology, an international panel of contributors provide new theoretical frameworks for understanding this decline and offer creative suggestions for responding to it. "Established Christianity" is conceptualized as historically, culturally, socially and politically embedded religion (with or without official established status).

This is a dynamic volume that gives fresh perspective on one of the great social changes taking place in the West today. As such, it will be of great interest to scholars of religious sociology, history and anthropology, as well as theologians.

1 An introduction to the essays and to the phenomenon of established Christianity in the Western World

Paul Silas Peterson

In this introduction, the essays in this volume, the phenomenon of established Christianity and the concept of the Western world itself are briefly introduced. A short description of the general trend of decline is also offered, although this will be addressed extensively in my essay “Causes of the Decline: Historical, Empirical and Theoretical Perspectives” (see below).

There is an abundance of sociological and historical literature dedicated to the general theory of secularization (usually understood as the weakening and regression of religious modes of thought and ways of life). However, the general sociological theories and the historical analyses of the emergence of secular thought are usually not concerned with interpreting and responding to the specific decline of established Christianity. There is also a significant amount of literature on the place and role of religion in secular contexts and many works on the transformation of the self-understanding of Christianity in a post-Christendom West. In many cases, however, the specific phenomenon of the decline itself is usually only briefly addressed in this literature. How shall we understand this specific decline, and how should we respond to it? These are the simple questions that are behind this collection of essays. While building upon older discourses, the contributors offer new outlooks for understanding the contemporary situation of Christianity in the Western world. They have taken up the challenge of the decline, analyzed it and responded to it from various perspectives. In the end, they come to very different conclusions.

As a phenomenon – one that will be described below – officially and de facto established Christianity is still the dominant expression of the Christian faith in most of the Western world. Of course, this expression of the faith does not represent all of Christianity in the Western world. Established Christianity is one specific form of the faith, one form among others. Yet this form, more than any other, is in dramatic decline. There are, indeed, many expressions of the faith that are actually growing in the Western world, such as evangelical churches (including the Pentecostal churches), emergent/emerging churches (broadly understood, including the Fresh Expressions movement, and those churches that are sometimes called “messy churches”) and various new religious communities and energetic churches bolstered by immigrant communities. Especially in large urban centers across the Western world, there are many conservative immigrant Christian communities that are stable or growing.¹ There are also strongholds of vibrant churchly conservativism and dedicated pietism within established Christianity that seem to be maintaining their status in specific geographical areas, although these churches as a whole are declining. For the most part, however, these various expressions of the faith that are stable or growing are not associated with the traditions of established Christianity. In fact, many of them actually reject all forms of establishment, and with this, the desire to “fit in” with liberal cultural norms. Of course, when viewed on the large scale, these stable or growing groups are a relatively small cross-section of the populations in which they exist. By contrast, established forms of Christianity once represented the majorities of these populations.

At the outset of this introduction, the general outlook of this volume should be described: Most of the authors in this volume believe that the situation that is emerging in most of the Western world (and that has been emerging for the last few decades) is the formation of a diverse field of various competing religious communities and worldviews within the broader context of secularization. In some contexts, such as former East Germany, secular modes of thought and life are far more dominant than the rest of the Western world. In other places, such as the American Bible Belt, cultures of conservative religious establishment are still thriving in social and political life to a degree that remains mostly exceptional when compared to the rest of the Western world. Even here, however, there are now signs of regression. If one wanted to describe the situation in economic terms, the old monopoly of one established form of the faith is essentially being replaced with a free market of various options. On the whole, it seems that multiple expressions of the Christian faith will continue to exist in much smaller dimensions while the older established forms of the faith seem to be locked in modes of continual and orderly shrinking with disproportionally older congregations.

The working definition of “established Christianity” is that form of Christianity which is historically, socially, culturally and politically embedded in a given context, with or without official legal established status. The Western world is defined as those religious traditions, institutions, cultures and nations, including their contemporary shared values, that together emerged as the intellectual descendants and transformers of Latin Christendom. Geographically, this entails Western Europe (including Poland and other central European countries and the EU countries), North America and many other parts of the world that share these traditions and histories, or have adopted them. Both of these matters are addressed below. Before turning to definitions, however, the general trend of decline shall be briefly described.

1 The general trend: “We are getting smaller, poorer and older”

In April of 2014, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, claimed that the United Kingdom had become a “post-Christian” country.² With this statement he did not want to convey that the Christian faith had disappeared in the United Kingdom or that all of Britain had become anti-Christian, secular or atheistic but that the normal practice of the religion in the population had fallen to such a level that the country as a whole could no longer be thought of as “Christian.” This remark from this very popular public persona was discussed widely in the United Kingdom, across Europe and North America, especially in theological and ecclesial circles. Williams was addressing something that is well known among the clergy. This issue is, however, still somewhat controversial in the mind of the broader public. For many in the United Kingdom, there is a lingering sense that Britain is still, somehow, a Christian nation, or still rests upon the historic legacy of Christianity. While this cultural echo of Christianity is certainly evident in much of the public consciousness, the actual lived expression of the older socially and culturally embedded (established) faith is in very strong trends of decline. Only 4.3 percent (2.4 million people) of the population of those people living within the dioceses of the Church of England participated in a Christmas service of the Church of England in 2014.³ For some scholars who study this development, it seems that the Church of England has “lost the English people”⁴ (to use the phrase from Andrew Brown and Linda Woodhead). This suggests that the church is responsible for the decline. While there may be some truth to this, there is another sides of the story to be told, one regarding the broader transformation of society, including industrialization, the modern economy, modern mobility, modern families and modern thinking. Indeed, perhaps the people who live in England today simply do not have the time to go to church, to participate in ecclesial traditions or to learn about the faith. Whatever the case may be, the name “Church of England” has not reflected the reality on the ground for some time.

Remarking on the lack of engagement in the congregations of the Church of England, a pastor’s wife in rural England (who chose to remain anonymous) said that “things would be much easier if they could get younger laypeople involved.” As Brown and Woodhead add, by “younger laypeople” this dedicated pastor’s wife explained that “she meant those in their fifties rather than their seventies.”⁵ The new leadership of the church is taking this matter seriously. In March of 2012, Justin Welby – who became Archbishop of Canterbury in 2013 – remarked:

Big buildings and big institutions fall down slowly, but there comes a point when the roof really does fall in […]. My own gut feeling is that there will be serious questions of viability before I retire, probably camouflaged in pastoral reorganizing at diocesan level. Say seven to ten years.⁶

These developments are moving so quickly that academic literature is still trying to keep pace. A shift in the way we talk about the degree of secularization can be identified in the time period from the 1990s to today. Grace Davie’s book from 1994 titled Religion in Britain since 1945 had the subtitle “Believing without Belonging.” As Davie explains, this subtitle became the critical concept with which the book was associated. In the preface to the second edition, published in 2015, Davie seems to move away from this concept by transforming it. There she writes: “In terms of their statistical contours, the churches have continued to decline – a point that will become abundantly clear.”⁷ She adds that the debate about religion has now moved to the issues of religion in general in society. Although Britain was historically influenced by Christianity, it is “becoming increasingly secular and increasing diverse with regard to its religious profile.”⁸ In terms of the general trend, she describes a shift from a “culture of obligation or duty to a culture of consumption or choice.”⁹

The decline of baptism in the post-World War II period, for example, shows that there is an institutional decline of the Church of England. As Davie argues, in many cases today, baptism is becoming more of a decisive act of association or identification. This is effectively pushing the older systems of non-voluntary establishment into new systems of de facto voluntary organization. In effect, the free church model of religious voluntarism – which emphasizes the individual’s choice to join or leave – is prevailing as the trends of secularization advance.¹⁰

While earlier generations, and many academic theologians, thought that liberal Protestantism and cerebral Christianity would become more dominant and more influential, this is being disproven in the historical developments of the second half of the 20th century leading up to today. Davie sees the current situation of Christianity in Britain to be essentially made up of various forms of experiential religiosity. One group is represented by the conservative evangelical streams with charismatic experiences of all sorts. The other group is the “cathedral-type” religiosity, which has more to do with the beauty of ecclesial architecture, sacred music and traditional liturgical forms.¹¹ Davie writes:

rather more liberal forms of Protestantism, noticeably fashionable in the 1960s, have not fulfilled their promise. There are, of course, important exceptions to this rule but by and large the purely cerebral has less appeal in the twenty-first century than many people thought would be the case.¹²

While the situation in the United Kingdom is a good example of the decline of culturally and socially embedded Christianity, the older established form of Christianity across the entire Western world has been declining at least since the 1970s. The vice president of the Protestant Church in Germany, Dr. Thies Gundlach, recently commented on the trends of decline in church membership, the projected shifts in income and demographics (especially regarding the age of church members). In an interview in July of 2016, he stated: “we are getting smaller, poorer and older.”¹³ The essays in this volume address this issue from various perspectives. The contributors were asked to interpret the decline of established Christianity in the Western world and offer some practical suggestions for responding to it. Yet, as a phenomenon, what is the decline of established Christianity? The remarks from these church leaders are certainly descriptions of this phenomenon. Other issues can be mentioned here from the life-world that many churchgoers experience on a regular basis. For example, some expressions of the decline are declining church membership numbers (empty pews) or the decline of traditional birth, marriage and burial rituals.¹⁴ One could also mention the general disinterest in, or indifference to, the traditional Christian religion in many Western societies today. For example, in a typical theology lecture at a university theology faculty in a major German city in 2015, “there are more senior-citizen students than in art history, and the few people under the age of 30 are resting their heads on their desks.”¹⁵ It was not always like this in Germany. Well into the 1960s and 1970s, many theologians were still able to fill lecture halls with curious young students. At that time, religion still seemed to matter somehow. This was especially the case because the creative theologians of that era, like Jürgen Moltmann or Hans Küng, managed to integrate the religion into the moods of the social and cultural revolutions. In a sense, these older theologians were harnessing some of the remaining energies of establishment and building upon the fragments of an era that was, at that time, already in a process of dissolution.

Another simple description of this phenomenon has to do with the use of Christian symbols. For example, the Christian cross is used in many public places in Christian heritage nations. With the onset of secularization, these symbols sometimes become points of conflict. In the spring of 2016 in Germany, there was a conflict about one of these crosses. The public space where the cross was displayed was a room in the State Parliament of Brandenburg in the city of Potsdam. The room is used by the political party called the Christian Democratic Union. The same room is, however, also used for public meetings, such as tour groups of the State Parliament. Traditionally, this room was always decorated with a Christian cross. Following the complaints of many guests regarding the cross, it was then equipped with magnets. At those times when the Christian Democratic Union uses the room, the cross is displayed; when the public uses the room, it is taken down. This specific conflict was resolved in a very cool-headed and diplomatic manner. Although this is a relatively insignificant story about a few magnets, it illustrates the complex phenomenon well that is addressed in this volume. What was once established and accepted by the broader public, or at least tolerated with some degree of respect, has now become an issue of debate in many places. Indeed, in some places it is being disestablished and relegated to the private or semi-private sphere.

A final brief example can be offered from the North American context. Daniel Aleshire, the executive director of the Association of Theological Schools in the United States and Canada, claims that in the future around 80 of the 100 mainline seminaries will either be merged with larger institutions or radically restructured because of the lack of money and students. Over the course of ten years, from 2005 to 2015, the number of students enrolling at the mainline Protestant seminaries has dropped around 25 percent. Given the fact that many of the mainline churches no longer employ their pastors full time (in part because their congregations are in decline), the prospects of a pastoral career seem to be less attractive for many young people.¹⁶ In the essays below, many other concrete examples of the decline are provided for the various contexts across the Western world.

2 Overview of the essays

Many questions are addressed in this volume, for example: Is Christianity as a whole, or even “spirituality,” in decline in the Western world, or only the specific older established expression of the faith? What is established Christianity? How is the decline related to the concepts of “secularization” or “de-churchization”? What is the correct paradigm for understanding the subject matter: Are we witnessing a conscious and decisively willed rejection of established Christianity, or rather only the emergence of a new religious indifference? Is there, indeed, a form of secularization that should be welcomed by churches? Is the decline of established Christianity the result of historical and cultural developments that Christianity itself brought about? How should Christians reflect upon the fact that their churches are in decline? H...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of contributors
• Foreword
• Acknowledgements
• 1 An introduction to the essays and to the phenomenon of established Christianity in the Western World
• Part I Background issues and theoretical approaches 31
• Part II Case studies on specific regions and groups
• Part III Perspectives from world Christianity and African Christianity
• Part IV Contributions from public theology and the philosophy of religion
• Part V Response and outlook
• Bibliography
• Index