Remnant Christianity in a Post-Christian World

Plight of the Modern Church

W. Paul Jones

• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781725294844, 9781725294851
• eBook ISBN: 9781725294868
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Systematic Theology & Ethics

The contemporary Christian church is in critical decline, both in membership and finances. All attempts at reversal are failing, primarily because of the consuming socioeconomic-secular dynamic in which society is immersed in its self-destructive course. Consequently, Christian imagery is losing its conceivability and credibility, and past motivations that once encouraged belief have lost their appeal. Without these as points of contact, the demise of the institutional church will be relentless, despite all efforts to halt it. Yet, as at other crisis points in history, the divine promise has been to raise a "faithful remnant" with sufficient promise to outlast whatever the societal demise. After carefully analyzing the ingredients of our societal crisis, the author develops the contours of a "Remnant Church" to be set in place now within the present institutional churches. This necessitates distilling a vital spirituality and discerning the heart of a preservable tradition, sufficient to claim both personal and communal commitment. Thereby prepared for the long haul, the Remnant Church can emerge as a prophetic alternative.

CHAPTER ONE

POSTMODERN SECULARIZATION

Christianity’s Silently Relentless Erosion

A CRISIS IN RECOGNITION

One need do no more than skim a recent issue of the Christian Century1 to sense the widespread and ongoing dilemma of the modern church. Here it is hard to miss, confronted with such phrases as “irreversible decline,” “desperation strategies,” “loss of legitimacy,” and “relentless membership loss.” The descriptions are diverse, but the shadow is heavy—articles on denominational splits, pastoral approaches when a church closes, internal scandals, a snake-handling preacher bitten to death, and how to dispose of holy things when churches are sold. Also included is an interview with a clergy person’s son whose novels are said to have touches of spirituality but are barren of religious themes or of church presence. There is a book review lamenting modernity as having lost all viable past. The cinema coverage is about two filmmakers who “leave you gasping with their vision of the meaninglessness of life,” portraying a New York City drained of color, perpetually wintry, where most dreams go to seed. Then, for overseasoning, there is a poem entitled “Fear.” Closing the magazine, one can taste with grittiness the pervasive grayness infecting the world in, around, and within which today’s church is struggling, and within the churches themselves.

In 2014, a multimillion-dollar General Social Survey2 funded by the National Science Foundation gives one of the most accurate reports on the American scene. Since 2012, 7.5 million persons have “left religion,” with one in four persons indicating “none” as their “religious preference.” This makes them 21 percent of the total population. Furthermore, church attendance is far from what it used to be, with a third of Americans (34 percent) never even having attended a worship service. This is a 3 percent increase in just two years. In the past ten years, the number of persons who “never pray” has risen from 10 percent to 15 percent. It is not simply the statistics that are overwhelming but, even more, the rapidity of decline.

This demise is particularly significant in that it is happening especially in areas that have traditionally been centers of Christian populations and influence, notably in the Western world. One in four Canadians no longer has any religious affiliation, which stands in startling contrast to 1991, when the figure was 12 percent.3 In both England and Wales, there has been a 10 percent rise within the last ten years of those who no longer identify themselves as Christian, resulting in “no religion” being the single largest group.4 This group is twice the size of identified Anglicans and four times the size of the Catholic population. At the same time, Anglican and Catholic churches lose at least ten members for every convert made. During the last decade, membership in the British Methodist Church has fallen by one-third, with attendance diminishing proportionally. Linda Woodhead, a sociologist at Lancaster University, concludes that Methodism in England “is totally dying out,” and, based on current trends, “will disappear, very soon.”5 A 2016 study by St. Mary’s University (London) indicates that only 48 percent of the population identified themselves as Christian, meaning that, for the first time, Christians are outnumbered by those claiming no religious affiliation.6 Philip Jenkins, an expert on global Christianity, after analyzing church growth efforts in England, concludes that hope for a wide-ranging religious revival seems futile.7 It is not farfetched, he ventures, to see Christian faith as confined to recent immigrants. A statistical projection done by the Spectator indicates that if the number of Christians in Britain continues to decline at the current rate, that country will have no more Christians by 2067.8 Between 2001 and 2011, British churches as a whole have lost 5.3 million members—about 10,000 each week. In the 2016 British Social Attitudes Survey, for the first time in history, a majority of Britons reported having no religion.9 This 53 percent reflects a 5 percent increase of “nones” since 2015 and 12 percent increase since 2002. The result is that many of the 347 Church of England churches presently vacant are centuries-old masterpieces, citadels of architecture, paintings, and stained glass, forced into rental for varied nonreligious activities without restrictions.

After centuries in which Ireland and Catholicism were near-synonymous, the rapidity of secularization there is setting historic records. From 2005 to 2011, the atheist/nonreligious population there has almost doubled, from 28 percent to 54 percent.10 Philip Jenkins predicts in the Christian Century that Ireland will soon become “one of Europe’s least religious countries,”11 citing a Gallup survey showing that 44 percent of the Irish population declared themselves to be “not religious,” with a further 10 percent claiming for themselves the atheist label.

Yet despite these alarming Irish statistics, those of almost every European country are still lower. Aside from Poland, where 42 percent of respondents attend church weekly, every other European country12 has rates of attendance at or below 25 percent. Several countries in Scandinavia and Western Europe are in the single digits. France, for example, once deeply Christian, adorned with Gothic cathedrals and abundant monasteries, is now one of the most vehemently secular countries in Europe. Sunday attendance is the lowest ever, with tourists exceeding worshippers. In Sweden, only 6 percent of the population are churchgoers. Here and throughout Europe, this diminishment of active members has rendered tragic the income necessary for maintenance, resulting in a plethora of empty churches for sale. Many of these abandoned churches are ending up as secular commercial endeavors, indicative of which is a beautiful church in Arnhem, Netherlands, now impressive as a skating rink.13 Roman Catholic leaders in that country estimate that, within a decade, two-thirds of their 1,600 churches will be closed. Protestant leaders there project that 700 churches will close by 2020.

Although Africa as a whole has been showing Pentecostal gains through a message of healing and prosperity, a recent WIN-Gallup poll indicates that even there—for example, in South Africa from 2005 to 2012—persons regarding themselves as religious have dropped from 83 percent to 64 percent,14 a statistic that if extrapolated would parallel the vanishing point characterizing that of Europe as a whole. An international Pew Research Center survey of one hundred countries15 reported in 2018 that younger adults are those far less likely to identify with a religion, to belie...

Table of contents

• TITLE PAGE
• PREFACE
• CHAPTER 1: POSTMODERN SECULARIZATION
• CHAPTER 2: POSTMODERN DIMENSIONS OF THE DEMISE
• CHAPTER 3: CAPITALISM, SYSTEMIC INEQUALITY, AND LIVING THE CONSEQUENCES
• CHAPTER 4: THE POWER OF SOCIOECONOMIC CONTROL
• CHAPTER 5: LOSS OF NARRATIVE VISION AND DISSIPATION OF RELIGIOUS FAMILIARITY
• CHAPTER 6: DETERIORATION OF RELIGIOUS MOTIVATION
• CHAPTER 7: FORFEITURE OF OBJECTIVE TRUTH AND PURE FAITH
• CHAPTER 8: THE BURNED OF GOD
• CHAPTER 9: TOWARD A POSTMODERN CHRISTIAN SPIRITUALITY
• CHAPTER 10: TOWARD A MINIMALIST CHRISTIAN VISION AS WAGER
• CHAPTER 11: TOWARD A POSTMODERN CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY
• CHAPTER 12: THE REMNANT AS A FUTURE FOR THE CHURCH
• BIBLIOGRAPHY