The End of Denominationalism

            Most of us are suspicious of institutions. They’re big, out of touch, impersonal, pushy, and so on. Our gut says, “less government.” We don’t see bank tellers or develop relationships with them anymore. Kids get lost in today’s factory schools and are too often bullied by peers. Facebook changes privacy settings without asking us about it. Security breaches allow hackers harvest our personal data from Target and many other corporations—sometimes even from the government. And at church, we want spirituality rather than religion. This does not bode well for denominations.

            Denominations—like many religious institutions—have been in trouble for a long time. I thought I’d sit down and try to list a few reasons why.

1.  Historically, and still theoretically, denominations coalesce around theological distinctives. Where there was choice, long ago, matters such as predestination or the nature of Jesus’ presence at the Lord’s Supper or children’s baptism played a part in helping people to join different, competing camps. Of course, long ago there often was less choice than we imagine now. You joined the church of your sovereign, or your nation, or your village. And if you didn’t, you were in trouble. My own Mennonite ancestors fled persecution in Reformed Switzerland to find religious freedom in somewhat more liberal, but still Reformed, Netherlands. Their children mostly married Reformed spouses. The truth is that most people actually belong to the church they do due to accidents of birth, race, location, and even war even if the denominational roots of those churches are in ancient doctrinal conflicts. Churches have never really examined the causes (simpler) and consequences (much more difficult) of this reality, and what it means in light of its own story that it is all about distinctives. Unfortunately for denominations, the big “accident,” of history these days is secularism and religious relativism.

2.  These days, however, people know about as much about that history, or theological distinctives, as they know what is in those User Agreements you click in order to download new apps. For most people, the “original” doctrines are anachronisms. It isn’t necessarily that they disagree with them. The vast majority of denominational members don’t know much about them. If they do, they know the content of their own doctrines, but have never seriously wrestled with alternatives. The reasons for this lack of understanding in the pews are complex. The issues that led to the formation of denominations don’t seem very relevant anymore—so much junk DNA. We don’t go to war with Mennonites or Catholics. Most issues that separate today’s denominations seem irrelevant, abstract, or are not at all understood. Not nearly as many people read theology as in the old days—say from about the seventeenth century till about fifty years ago. So people are poorly informed.

3.  In the absence of deep understanding of theological distinctives, people sometimes coalesce around moral issues instead: abortion, homosexuality, premarital sex, corporate crime, the environment, poverty and so on. They find communities on the Internet, and in media, that loudly trumpet particular moral positions on these issues. These virtual communities are like silos—all filled with a single point of view, and separated from other communities with different points of view. People become very emotional about their perspectives. In this environment, denominations find it hard to keep everyone on the same page. People would rather stick with their virtual community’s perspective on these issues than bow to 

what the denomination (tries) to insist on.

4.  One of the largest groups of leaders and paid employees in most denominations, the seminary faculty, is understandably deeply engaged in doctrinal distinctives. They seem unable, unwilling, and always unimaginative when it comes to helping denominations deal with this massive shrug of the shoulders when it comes to what they as theologians care deeply about. Few know their names, look for their opinions on the internet, or can understand the relevance of a life spent trying to understand Rupert of Deutz on the sacraments.

5.  Denominational bureaucracies (including most seminaries) are deeply committed to the status quo. You can hardly blame them. Fundamental change is always controversial, and that risks (at worst) schism and (at best) the slow erosion of dissatisfied members elsewhere (or more often than not, out of church altogether). Holding the line on budgets and staff while churning out more and more memos and workshops and reports is safe, but inspires no pastor or member in the parish.

6.  You have to do the Exegetical Twist to justify denominations or their central concern for doctrine Biblically. Churches were named by the city they were in. Theoretically faith, hope and love are the most important realities. While much in the New Testament over time morphed into a thousand theological views, doctrine itself is rarely presented there as, “you must believe this version of the truth,” rather than, “that version.” I realize this oversimplifies things. But it is hard to imagine anything other than a friendly “maybe this, maybe that,” discussion between the apostles about words such as “begotten,” “virgin,” “catholic,” “descended into hell,” never mind whether or not women could preach or whether Mary bodily ascended to heaven, or the practice of naming saints. Ironically, one doctrinal matter they probably all agreed on—the immanent return of Jesus—was something they were all wrong about.

7.  Denominations have always been about doctrine, in theory. But in truth, the glue that holds people in denominations is usually ethnicity or community. Modern culture, on the other hand, is increasingly multicultural. Every new generation has a harder time understanding why they ought to go to mom and dad’s church with other Dutch or Scots or Lithuanians than the previous generation.

8.  Denominations, while having a semblance of unity and homogeneity based on their shared dogma, are ironically much less homogenous than they seem. When I worked as editor for a denominational magazine I travelled from one end of the denomination to the other. I was constantly amazed by how dissimilar the churches I visited were. Many were aligned with right-wing evangelical politics and attitudes. Others were most definitely not. Some were still very focused on doctrinal distinctives, while most were not. Some were deeply committed to being ethnic islands (though few admitted it). Others were cosmopolitan. Some leaned charismatic, others Baptist, others to piety, others to political activism or social justice, and others again to nothing much of anything. When so much substantive difference exists between different congregations in one denomination, the unity they share is more imagined than real.

9.  People might care about doing something with the Baptist or Catholic congregation down the street, but could care less about national or international ecumenical organizations. All politics, and nearly all church, is local. I’m not saying this is a good thing, but it doesn’t bode well for denominations because the lack of interest for stuff happening beyond the town line is the same lack of interest people have for denominations. This is doubly so when being on the boards or being sent as a delegate to these ecumenical organizations is usually understood as being a reward for especially well-connected clergy or church bureaucrats. It just doesn’t get traction in the pews.    

10.  Pastors are often stuck with their denominations for very practical reasons--pensions, denominational jobs, the trouble that goes with convincing a congregation to change course. And of course, there is legal recourse that denominations use to keep congregations on board, too. But pastors resent these practicalities, and congregations don't like the coercion.  
          

          So, as I noted above, people are suspicious of institutions: their coercive ways, their fine print, their focus on what seems irrelevant to life here at home. This distrust is easily projected on church doctrines and documents and rules and regulations and bureaucracies and old boys’ clubs and national personnel. I sympathize with some of these objections but worry about others. The bottom line, however, is that it is hard to imagine that much time or energy ought to go into preserving a largely unresponsive, tone-deaf, sixteenth-century, nexus focused on less than strategic realities. Real church, basic church is congregational. If we could undo the ties that bind us into denominations, I’m pretty sure we’d soon develop new ties for community and education and mission that make a lot more sense, would be far more responsive, and much less coercive than what we have now.

           Or maybe a few denominations will pioneer new ways of being denomination. The United Church of Canada is floating ideas for a radical new structure in a document called “Fishing on the Other Side” ( http://tinyurl.com/p5u9vdy ). It offers a vision for a great strategic retreat from the structures that bind us today, and bears careful examination—even by people who belong to other faith communities.

Cardinal Ouellet the Next Pope? I Hope Not.

            Pope Benedict XVI has resigned. The Canadian press is full of speculation that Quebec’s Cardinal Marc Ouellet might be his successor.

            But the next pope is going to face momentous challenges. This is especially so if the Roman Catholic Church chooses another pope in the traditionalist mold of Pope Benedict, which Ouellet, by all accounts, certainly is.

            In the wake of Benedict’s resignation, the challenges facing the Roman Catholic Church are also getting a lot of press coverage. For example, two weeks ago courts forced the publication of thousands of pages of secret files from the archdiocese of Los Angeles. The files concerned decades of child abuse by clergy. Two or three days after the forced release of the papers, in a show of hard-heartedness, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles admitted that it had nevertheless still withheld key documents. These were mostly related to Cardinal Roger Mahony’s role in the cover-ups. As usual, while the Roman Catholic hierarchy has sometimes been long on apology, it remains terribly short on action that looks and feels like true repentance.

            Another issue the next pope will face is the growing divide between people sitting in the pews in the West and those in the “Global South,” countries like The Philippines, Nigeria, and Brazil. A number of religious experts point out that the “energy” in the Roman Catholic Church today mostly comes from the South.

            Perhaps. But these churches are not without their own issues. When I visited Brazil, fifteen years ago, a bishop had just written a book about the dangers of putting the Bible in the hands of the laity. This attitude might explain why Evangelicalism is growing exponentially in Brazil. But Catholics in the South also do and believe what they want. When I lived in Manila, The Philippines, I was always amazed at how many vendors sold traditional (and absolutely unsafe) herbs and concoctions to induce abortion in the courtyard of the main cathedral. Meanwhile, the Filipino hierarchy was working hard against government plans to begin birth-control education. In my travels through Africa I’ve often heard about and seen Catholics mix traditional religious practices and Catholicism.

            But there are surely even more serious issues simmering under the surface in the Global South. The abuse scandals that have exploded in the secular West are waiting to do the same in the South. The difference is that for now, in the South, the cultures are generally more conservative, more accepting of authority, and less able to make use of the courts and public advocacy to get their stories out. Does foot dragging and resistance on the part of the Catholic Church in the West not hint at a similar, and surely more successful strategy in the South? Are we to believe that powerful, politically well-connected leaders in the Global South are not keeping their dirty laundry under wraps?

            Another oft-mentioned challenge is that the Roman Catholic Church is a shadow of what it used to be, at least in the West. In Quebec (as in Ireland, or Spain or even Italy), for example, after putting up with generations of cultural and even political control by the church over every aspect of Quebecers’ lives the Quiet Revolution of the sixties ushered in an era where it is now hard to find anyone who goes to church anymore, even when Ouellet was the Archbishop there. Were it not for immigration by Catholics (and priests) from the Global South to Canada and the United States, most Catholic churches would probably have to be shuttered.

            Even more difficult for the next pope is that fact that Catholics who still go to church don’t buy what it teaches. Survey after survey shows that when it comes to birth control, or homosexuality, or women as priests, or immaculate conceptions, Catholics believe what they want and not what they’re told.

            But one further challenge faces the Roman Catholic Church, a challenge that ties all these others together. The Roman Catholic Church is hierarchical and male-dominated, thus coercive, secretive, and preoccupied with power and political structures to maintain that power. Some of this preoccupation is almost laughable.  Robes that clergy wear have more to do with the clothing of officials in the collapsing Roman Empire over 1600 years ago than anything in the Bible. Such robes, of course, put power on display (albeit in a rather comical way). The ongoing resurrection of Latin, the language the pope used for his resignation speech, reminds the laity that what the clergy says is for the clergy first. The laity has no say about who their priests will be, or whether doctrines should be re-examined or changed. But the concentration of power in the hands of a few older men is nowhere as frightening and coercive as it is when it is used to assault children and then protect its own, the perpetrators.

            So remind me—why is it that in Ontario we think the Catholic Church ought to run a school system on the public dime?

            Of course, Protestant Churches have their own issues—including their own abuse scandals. For that matter, the Canadian government, armed forces, police forces, and even the Boy Scouts also all have had their own well-publicized scandals surrounding abuse of power. Male dominated, secretive, old-boy cultures that preserve power in the higher ranks are a common thread that runs through most of these scandals. Still, it isn’t the case that such scandal means that the church, or the armed forces, or the Boy Scouts ought to be disbanded either. Organizations can and must change.

            What is more, the Catholic Church has other, more hopeful and grace-filled stories to tell as well. Pope John XXIII, who called Vatican II, was a bright light of renewal—even if the church since then has tried to put him and his council out of mind. Many Catholic saints gave their lives for the sake of the poor and marginalized. My favorite is Father Damien, who ministered to Hawaii’s lepers until he himself died of the disease. I’m grateful for towering Catholic scholars like Canadians Marshall McLuhan and Charles Taylor. Where most religious conservatives are anti-science, at least when it comes to things like climate change and evolution, the Catholic Church has learned a lot since the days of Galileo. It now leads the way in showing that faith and science don’t need to be at war.

            So, in the end, if there is a God, I’m pretty sure he or she will find a way to help steer the Catholic Church beyond the whirlpool of its present problems and on to what Margaret Avison beautifully describes as “more ample, further waters.”

            Still, that coercive, hierarchical, male-dominated structure that is especially well designed to protect its own at great cost to innocent children has to go.

            Which also means that if he is all that he is advertised, a doctrinaire traditionalist like Marc Ouellet most-certainly should not be given the helm.