The asteroid has struck, the sky is darkening, and the mainstream churches and any evangelical megachurch you care to name are the dinosaurs.
The asteroid is late capitalism and it is darkening the skies in at least two ways.
(1) The global economy is putting an end to national economies and marginalizing the modern nation state. The present recession is the result of our inability to understand or control global financial flows. People in the right places press a few keys on their desktops and laptops and vast amounts of money leap across boundaries and around the world and ‘national’ economies are twisted into bizarre pretzel shapes by the event.
Capital intensive forms of church and parachurch will undergo a mass extinction event as this recession is followed by later ones. It is impossible to predict (much less control) the outputs of what mathematicians call ‘ a chaotic system’ so this will just be the first of many such downturns each resulting in yet another episode of what the economist Shumpeter called ‘creative destruction”.
(2) Historic cultures are replaced by a symbolic marketplace. Cultures are looted in order to replace them with niche markets, lifestyle options, and colorful commodities. Counseling options of all sorts become available (Freudian, Neofreudian,and Postfreudian psychotherapy are joined by Jungian depth psychology, Adlerian analytical psychology, gestalt therapy, rational-emotive therapy, reality therapy, Skinnerian behavioral modification, hypnotherapy, group therapy, New Age spiritualities et cetera, et cetera).
This wider range of well capitalized options will greatly reduce the demand for pastoral counseling as well as the demand for much of what passes for spirituality today. Wonderful choral and organ music will be available in the form of CDs, DVDs, And public, cable and satellite TV and radio. The market for organizations that offer opportunities for civic activism in many causes (environmentalism, poverty, homelessness, architectural preservation, and many, many others) will soon be saturated with better funded and better promoted organizations than anything the church can put put there. Since the postWW2 church has organized itself around the goal of meeting the demands of a denominational market, the results of the symbolic marketplace filling up with slick, well-capitalized alternatives will be mass extinction.
There will be only two ways to survive.
(1) We can go further into the realm of the religion business. Dioceses and parishes can take on corporate sponsors. We can stamp their corporate logos on our hymnals and display them on the west walls of our churches. We can experiment with such things as online parishes that never meet. We can mail out to the subscribers/members consecrated eucharistic elements that can be consumed in the context of a broadcast or recorded ritual. We can pay programmers to develop a virtual reality version of the rite of reconciliation. You get the idea.
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(2) We can return back to the premedieval diocese that covers a metropolitan area and its immediate environs. We can choose pastorally oriented and theologically adept bishops for such dioceses. We can dump an understanding of priesthood that is modeled after the professional careerist model of the attorney and the physician. Professional training is not the same thing as education, so we can stop kidding ourselves about having an ‘educated’ clergy (we don’t) and we can follow the model of the early church in which people like Ambrose and Augustine were told, “I’m sorry, but the church sees you as being called to be a priest (or a bishop) and you don’t really have a lot of choice in the matter.”
Those so called can learn how to do what they need to do from faithful working priests and the church can send them to a public university to pursue any needed academic education or training. Attendance at frequent seminars and conferences can acquaint one with what is happening in other dioceses. We don’t need to worry about interfacing that much with the ‘national church’. It will be marginalized just as the nation state will become marginal. Many of our parishes may meet in homes and in many cases their priests may have to be ‘tentmakers’.
I know that it seems now that we have plenty of other options and that another fistful of well designed ‘programs’ can do the trick. But programs are not the answer. They’re part of the problem.
All of the dinosaurs will eventually die. The mammals will survive. In other words, the bureaucratic, program-driven, mainstream Protestant churches will die. The out-and-out religion businesses and the sacramental neomonastic communities and other forms of organic church will survive.
I wonder which category your church will be in.
It is interesting you write about this. I was just thinking that with the current economic condition, where the rich are getting richer, and are running out of things to spend their money on, maybe some of us poor theologians could find “Patrons” to support our theological writing.
We could revert back to the old “Patron-Client” system of the arts and theology. Much of the great theology of the past was written in such a system. Of course, I think this would fall under your first option, and I also think that the need to maintain income caused many theologians to teach and write whatever their patron wanted.
Hi, Valdez. Hi, Jeremy.
I’m working my way through seminary. One of my courses online, there is a deep debate about the state of the American church(es) including whether or not there is a place for paid clergy, what that role looks like, and how it ought to come about. So, this blog post is right in line with my current pondering.
V, I see that you value an apprenticeship model of training combined with book/seminary learning and a focus on regional rather than national (or international) ministry. I also see that you value discernment within the church. Have you been in a place where you have seen these three elements well-implemented or are you suggesting a rediscovery of our roots that has not come about yet?
Like you, I would like to see congregations that are self-aware and connected enough with the Holy Spirit to recognize when She is moving through the people in their midst. Our congregational leadership doesn’t do a great job of raising up new leaders; we let them climb up the ladder on their own and then place our stamp of approval (or not) on them once they’ve gotten themselves through the education system. The combination of individualism and globalization has wounded our system, but it need not be seen as the deadly blow you portray here.
We have an opportunity to be a part of the healing and strengthening of God’s Church. How might we help our churches transition back to the ekklesias (the gathering of people) and foster a healthy environment where spiritual gifts are encouraged and recognized so that the laborers and the leaders are equally valued but distinct in their roles? I look forward to continued dialogue with you, and am thankful for Jeremy’s sharing of your blog.
Peace be with you both.
ZombieStudent,
That sounds like a great class! I am trying to work through many of the same questions. Right now, I suppose I am what some would call a “tentmaker” but the church planting aspect of that has been difficult.
One of my goals is to never take a salary from a church again. But this is difficult in the traditional model.
Jeremy, thanks for being the first commenter on this blog. Yes, there’s no easy way through this thicket, but the only chance to survive the present troubles lie on the other side.
Zombie Student, you sound very alive and aware to me. No, *I can’t say that I’ve seen anything exactly like what I’m looking for in my area, but there is a local network of mikcrochurches called The Underground that’s doing some interesting things.Other signs of hope can be found in some of the discussions of “organic church” that people like Frank Viola are engaging in and, in a more liturgical and sacramental mode, the “new monasticism” that Shane Claibourne and Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove are participating in. Unfortunately the denominational leadership in this country is trying to rebrand itself by inviting “emerging church” leadership tell then how they can get cooler. I fear that it will take a lot more than deconstruction, incense, wrought iron, and cafe tables.
We can let the dinosaur die and let the truly organic form of Christianity emerge from homes and local communities and raise up whatever leadership they need from within. Am I comfortable with this? Not completely but I don’t know what else can emerge when the old organizations crumble! What I am suggesting is different from setting up “the premedieval diocese that covers a metropolitan area and its immediate environs” and putting bishops in charge because the latter raises the question about who or what is setting up the dioceses and appointing the bishops? Sounds to me like the remnant of a dinosaur doing that rather than anything organic.
Nancy, it depends on what we mean by “organic”. “Organic” and “organized” come from the same root.Sometimes we tend to think that only the spontaneous can be Spirit inspired, but Acts shows us how the Spirit’s wisdom can emerge over several years and through the things taking place in several different places and involving several differene people.’Organic’ does not exclude a great deal of reflection and consultation in order to discover the mind of God and it does not exclude the public recognotion of leadership among the people of God. Paul laid hands on those who should be recognized as local elders in many of his churches and he and Barnabas were commendeed to their apostolic ministry by the laying on of hands. Bishops in the 2nd,3rd, and 4th centuries were selected by the local believers rather thn being imposed by some distant headquarters. Anyone who ishes to declare all post 1st century developments illegitimate is going to have to make a solid theological case for that position.
Thanks for the challenge. This is the sort of discussion that makes a blog worthwhile. Feel free to push back.
I’d direct folks to Andrew Jones (aka Tall Skinny Kiwi)’s blog. He’s been talking since 2008 about the demise of the Christian conference circuit and this while missional marketing machine. Along with that comes less reliance on funders and exploration of social entrepreneurial ways to build sustainable ministries that aren’t contingent on the stock market.
“We can dump an understanding of priesthood that is modeled after the professional careerist model of the attorney and the physician. Professional training is not the same thing as education, so we can stop kidding ourselves about having an ‘educated’ clergy (we don’t) and we can follow the model of the early church in which people like Ambrose and Augustine were told, “I’m sorry, but the church sees you as being called to be a priest (or a bishop) and you don’t really have a lot of choice in the matter.”
Please see my comment at Jeremy’s blog concerning William Law’s book: http://www.tillhecomes.org/preach-the-word-2-timothy-4_2/#comment-6729
As long as the people of God (lay & clerical) are by the grace of God following the Great Commandments and the Great Commission I believe Jesus will build His Church using traditional, emergent, mainline, neomonastic, organic, house, multi-site, liturgical, sacramental, diocesan, networked churches/parishes/communities. Even with this plethora of models, I think ecumenical movements will grow vis. the Lausanne Covenant and the movement to repair/end the 1054 Schism. Tentmaking clergy will become the norm (already see this happening). Interesting times, indeed.
I do not disagree with your analysis at a global level. However I think the crushing blow may well be excessively local as congregations and clergy have to deal with the actual pastoral and social disruptions of an extended recession(s). The English riots and the OWS OLSX and other such events will call the clergy and church to action in a crisis the size of the great worldwide depression of the 1930s and perhaps sustained violence between rich and poor.
Michael, I think you’re reminding us of the essential fact about what lies ahead: the prosperity that underwrote the post WW2 form of church life and the social stability it made possible are evaporating. Only a few Christians seem to be even trying to prepare for what lies ahead. Are there people out there who some of you think are pointing us in te right direction? Tell us about them.
Thanks for sharing, this is a fantastic post.Thanks Again. Much obliged.