Losing Church

The Decline, the Pandemic, and Social and Political Storms

Michael J. Gehring

• Publisher: Resource Publications
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9781666734591, 9781666790627
• eBook ISBN: 9781666790634
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Systematic Theology & Ethics

From Ft. Smith, Arkansas, to Princeton, New Jersey, to Kernersville, North Carolina, with a stop along the way in Asbury Park, New Jersey, to pay homage to "The Boss, " Michael Gehring takes us on his journeys as a pastor at a pivot point in history for the church and the world. Along the way, we meet up with a fascinating array of characters: Barbara Brown Taylor, Albert Einstein, Ernest Hemingway, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Jesus's forerunner, John the Baptist, to name just a few. But it's the questions Gehring raises that make this book not only entertaining, but compelling reading for individuals and small groups: How might the decline of the church lead us into rediscovering the gospel? Did clergy, and all of us for that matter, make a good choice investing in institutional Christianity? How would you describe the emotional price of love? What does living a soulful life look like? With the humility and genuineness of someone who doesn't pretend to have it all figured out, Gehring is the perfect travel companion. Come along.

Chapter 1

Sands in an Hourglass

On March 1, 2020, we, the community called Main Street United Methodist Church in Kernersville, North Carolina celebrated the Eucharist. As the ushers directed, congregants and visitors lined up at the various stations to partake of the Lord’s Supper. With hands cupped and outstretched, they came forward, and the pastors and the Eucharistic assistants broke off a piece of bread from one of the loaves, handing it to the congregant while speaking the words, “The Body of Christ given for you.” The Corpus Christi recipients took a few steps, positioning themselves in front of the person holding the chalice. Dipping the bread into the dark grape juice, they heard the words, “The blood of Christ shed for you.”

After giving the Benediction, the pastors recessed, while the music played. We took our spots at the sanctuary doors so we would be ready to greet. And greet we did, with handshakes, hugs, and pats on the backs. We received them in return, as well, along with a few kisses on the cheeks for good measure. In this age so defined by the Roman Catholic sexual abuse scandals, clergy are hesitant to follow the Apostle Paul’s admonition that we greet one another with a holy kiss, even though Paul encouraged the churches in Thessalonica, Corinth, and Rome to do so.1 The Apostle Peter instructed the same.2 Fear of being misinterpreted in the twenty-first century is never far from the minds of many clergy. At times, it can feel like Damocles’ sword is suspended above one’s head. But I find it wonderful to be the recipient of such kindness, love, and grace that is communicated with a kiss on the cheek.

There has been much written about clergy antagonists within congregations. One pastoral counselor dubbed individuals seeking to dethrone, to take down, to harm pastors, as “clergy killers.”3 Though it is true that clergy do have to navigate and deal with difficult personalities, it is also true that for the few individuals seeking power and control in a congregation, there are many more who love their pastors and churches and want the best for them. Yet, pastors feel the heat and pressure increasing as institutional Christianity increasingly finds itself marginalized from the ongoing streams of cultural change in America. Church consultants, practical theologians, and denominational hierarchy continue to sound the alarm regarding the large number of ministers heading to the exit doors.

Some of those who cannot afford to leave the pastorate line up on Wednesdays and Saturdays in convenience stores purchasing Powerball lottery tickets and, for a few hours, feel a lightness in their souls as they dream of a life not constrained by economic hardship. Preachers who are morally opposed to the lottery find other ways to cope. Some indulge their escapist fantasies by immersing themselves in books, movies, and TV shows of an age that no longer exists. One of my favorites is Grantchester.

There is no shortage among United Methodist preachers of Anglophiles. The program’s setting is a 1950s Cambridgeshire village named Grantchester. The Anglican priest, Vicar Sidney Chambers, and his successor Vicar William Davenport, are known by all and loved by many. The Vicar is so vitally relevant to community life that he assists Detective Inspector Geordie Keating in solving one mystery after another. For such a sleepy little town, it does not lack in murders. But what is important to notice is that in the Grantchester world, culture and power structures still support the institutional church. The church is culturally relevant and central to the life of the village.

On that first Sunday in March, standing at the doors of my church, basking in the fellowship, I could not visualize a scenario in which we would not celebrate in-person Communion as a community gathered in the sanctuary again, until the first Sunday in the following October. Seven long, fearful, anxious months later, while the pandemic still raged, we congregated there again. This time, no common loaves or chalices were used. In the narthex, everyone was given his or her very own, self-contained, pre-packaged wafer, and pre-filled cup. They are, according to the distributor, hermetically sealed and easy to open. During the filming for the weekly Thursday devotion, I attempted to demonstrate just how simple they are to open. Struggling with one while the camera fixed its eye upon me, I finally set it aside and said with a smile, “Well, maybe not so easy to open.”

By the first Sunday in October, so much had changed. So many aspects of worship we once took for granted were gone; masks were mandatory, temperatures were taken before entering the narthex, and everyone provided contact information. Ushers directed people to socially distanced seating; people who had occupied the same pew with their friends for decades were dislocated. No congregational singing was allowed and no handshakes, hugs, or kisses before or after the service. On March 1, if you had narrated such a pandemic story as we were living by October 4, I would have guessed it to be from some dystopian novel.

By March 8, things had changed just slightly. We had heard about this new virus, SARS-COV-2, we were instructed to refrain from shaking hands and giving hugs. On that day we were not asking, what did President Donald Trump know about the coronavirus and when did he know it? We were not asking whether the President had known how deadly the virus was in January. We were not wondering if the government was sacrificing public health to keep the economy propped up. The Ides of March were then a week away, and we were acting as if this virus were like the common cold. Knowledge was trickling down to us from the Executive Branch Office like sands struggling to make their way through a much too narrow neck of an hourglass.

On the eighth day of March, no masks were required, no social distancing, no temperatures taken, and no contact information provided. That afternoon, we gathered for a workshop in the Fellowship Hall. It was a packed house. Amy Coles, the Assistant to the Bishop, explained The Protocol of Reconciliation and Grace through Separation, which was proposed legislation for the General Conference that would meet in Minneapolis from May 5 through the 15, 2020. That was the hot topic of the moment, not COVID-19.

Amy explained that the United Methodist Church has been discussing and debating homosexuality since 1972. The denomination, founded in 1968 in Dallas, Texas, resulted from the merger of the Methodist Episcopal Church and the Evangelical United Brethren Church. Separation and unification are patterns repeated throughout Methodist history. The Methodist Episcopal Church founded in 1784 had numerous separations branching from it: The Republican Methodist Church in 1792, the African Methodist Episcopal Church in 1816, the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church in 1821, the Methodist Protestant Church in 1828, the Wesleyan Methodist Church in 1841, and a few others after that. But the seismic shift, like tectonic plates crashing into each other, occurred in 1844. It was an issue of conscience, an issue of ethics, full of economic implications. Southern Methodists owned slaves. Even a Southern Methodist bishop owned other human beings. The Northern Methodists could not abide by such a departure from the teachings of John Wesley, the founder of Methodism.

Wesley, an abolitionist, also a friend and mentor to John Newton and William Wilberforce, loudly proclaimed his opposition to the vile slave trade. The Southern Methodists, unwilling to condemn human trafficking, lacked the motivation to work to abolish what the father of Methodism so vocally detested. Here were the Southern Methodists, a people who were moving on to perfection (supposedly), blatantly participating in, and profiting from, slavery. The Methodist Episcopal Church South, during the Civil War, adopted as its name the Methodist Episcopal Church in the Confederate States of America. When the war ended in 1865 and the country was reunified, the Methodist Episcopal Church North and South did not follow suit. Old feelings linger long. Old grudges are not easily released. Finally, in 1939, the Methodist Episcopal Church reunited, dropping the words of North and South.

The Evangelical United Brethren Church is itself the result of a union between the United Brethren in Christ and the Evangelical Church. The United Brethren roots are in the German pietistic movements of the eighteenth century. Philip Otterbein and Martin Boehm are the founding fathers of this denomination and its first bishops. The United Brethren were strongly opposed to slavery and, in 1837, declared that slave owners could not remain as members of United Brethren congregations. Likewise, a German ethos pervaded the Evangelical Church. Jacob Albright was its first bishop. This denomination also experienced divisions and mergers.

Some might think that the United Methodist name was chosen because of a shared denominational DNA that fuels and unites it for mission and ministry. That would be compelling, if only it were true. Others say that our denominational name is a typo and should have been called more accurately the Untied Methodist Church, which would certainly reflect the ideological conflicts present in the denomination since its beginning.

Albert Outler, the famed Southern Methodist University professor, served as the theologian of the new denomination, which embraced theological and doctrinal pluralism. And now, after all these years of conversation, debate, and conflict, the issue of homosexuality continues to divide. One cannot begin to imagine the pain that this has caused for the LGBTQ communities. Nor should one minimize the pain that this long-standing conflict has caused for some who hold to the traditional Christian teaching on marriage. Neither side believes the conflict and division is good for the church, yet the impasse remains. Every General Conference came and went without a solution that appealed to both sides.

In 2016, the General Conference voted to create another special task force charged with attempting to find a way forward that would hold the denomination together while allowing for a diversity of views and practice. Their proposals were defeated by the Traditionalists in the Called 2019 General Conference that met in late February. No compromise was achieved, and the Progressives viewed the actions of the General Conference as uncharitable and mean-spirited. The General Conference voted to double down on the enforcement of dissenting clergy and bishops who disregarded, as a matter of conscience, the rules in the Book of Discipline that prohibit the ordination of self-avowed practicing homosexuals and forbid clergy from performing same-sex marriage ceremonies. The conserva...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Preface
• Chapter 1: Sands in an Hourglass
• Chapter 2: The Storm Before the Storm
• Chapter 3: Ruins and Restoration
• Chapter 4: Northward Bound
• Chapter 5: The Roaring Eighties
• Chapter 6: The Glory Days
• Chapter 7: Traveling South
• Chapter 8: Shutting Down
• Chapter 9: Aldersgate, Pentecost, and the Days of Summer
• Chapter 10: Dueling Politicians and a Rising Death Count
• Chapter 11: No Room at the Inn Revisited
• Chapter 12: The Days of Discontent
• Epilogue: Hopes and Prayers
• 6-Week Small Group Discussion Guide
• Bibliography