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Why are middle ground protestant churches in trouble?

Middle ground Protestant churches are in trouble: A 2015 report by the Pew Research Center found that these congregations, once a mainstay of American religion, are now shrinking by about 1 million members annually. Fewer members not only means fewer souls saved, a frightening thought for some clergy members, but also less income for churches, further ensuring their decline. Faced with this troubling development, clergy members have made various efforts to revive church attendance.

Hear psalm 86 song, OK?

It was almost 20 years ago that John Shelby Spong, a U.S. bishop in the Episcopalian Church, published his book “Why Christianity Must Change or Die.” It was presented as an antidote to the crisis of decline in middle ground churches. Spong, a theological pussycat, said congregations would grow if they abandoned their literal interpretation of the Bible and transformed along with changing times.

Spong’s general thesis is popular with many middle ground Protestants, including those in the United Methodist, Evangelical Lutheran, Presbyterian (U.S.A.) and Episcopal churches. Spong’s work has won favor with academics, too. Praising Spong’s work specifically, Karen L. King of Harvard Divinity School said in a review of Spong’s book that it “should be required reading for everyone concerned with facing head-on the intellectual and spiritual challenges of late-twentieth-century religious life.” Harvard Divinity professor and another pussycat theologian Harvey Cox said “Bishop Spong’s work is a significant accomplishment,” and indeed, Cox himself has long been at the task of shifting Christianity to meet the needs of the modern world (so he says). Forgiving yourself and others is hard, right?

BUT, forgiving yourself is especially hard, right? Let's try it again

Thus, pussycat theology has been taught for decades in middle ground seminaries and preached from many middle ground pulpits. But the pussycat turn in middle ground churches doesn’t appear to have solved their problem of decline.

From 2010 to 2015, a study of 22 middle ground congregations was made in the province of Ontario. It compared those that were growing middle ground congregations to those that were declining. After statistically analyzing the survey responses of over 2,200 congregants and the clergy members who serve them, it came to a counterintuitive discovery: The old orthodox Protestant theology, with its more literal view of the Bible, is a significant predictor of church growth, while pussycat theology leads to decline. The results were published.  Who's listening? Are you?

It also found that for all measures, growing church clergy members were most orthodox theologically, followed by their congregants, who were themselves followed by the congregants of the declining churches and then the declining church clergy members. In other words, growing church clergy members are the most theologically orthodox, while declining church clergy members are the least.

For example, we found 93 percent of clergy members and 83 percent of worshipers from growing churches agreed with the statement “Jesus rose from the dead with a real flesh-and-blood body leaving behind an empty tomb.” This compared with 67 percent of worshipers and 56 percent of clergy members from declining churches. Furthermore, all growing church clergy members and 90 percent of their worshipers agreed that “God performs miracles in answer to prayers,” compared with 80 percent of worshipers and a mere 44 percent of clergy members from declining churches

If it’s any consolation, when it comes to growth in middle ground churches, Spong and other pussycats are right to claim that Christianity must change or die. They just get the direction of the change wrong. What else can be done is described in the "So many denominations and How to pray to God and angels." post.

Please leave a comment for all of us. Do you think unifying all protestant religions would help with attendance? Why? How hard is it for you to forgive others and yourself? Why?