A Time of Truth and Hope
for the Episcopal Church
by Charles N. Fulton III and the Rev. James Lemler
July 2006

Mainline Decline

The biblical purpose of the church is to bring ever increasing numbers of people into relationship with God through Christ. For most of the history of this country, churches of all kinds have been growing. However, in the mid-1960’s growth turned to decline for the mainline protestant denominations. In the years since, mainline churches lost eight -million members. The decline was not addressed as a serious trend at first. Today “mainline decline” is a common term and is a trend that has continued for three decades. The population of the United States continues to grow while mainline denominations decline, and growth rates of conservative denominations slow. According to recent research by Dr. C. Kirk Hadaway, using the attendance reports of faith communities, on a given Sunday in the United States fewer than twenty-one percent of the population attends a worship service of some kind. It takes both the slower growth of conservative churches and mainline decline to account for such low attendance in churches. It is difficult to imagine that such decline has not been more widely discussed.

Attributing Decline – What Happened?
The relationship of mainline denominations with the American culture is a sensitive one. Mainline churches often worry about selling out to the culture and occasionally wear decline as a badge of authenticity. This is a misreading of the relationship of Christianity to culture. The task is always to put the culture’s story into God’s larger story and not the other way around. St. Paul was a master at relating the gospel to alien cultures and placing them in God’s story. The accusation that mainline denominations are severely out-of-step with American culture needs to be taken seriously. The gospel cannot be understood if it is not proclaimed in the language and the patterns of the culture.

The division between evangelical denominations and mainline denominations limits and isolates both in the culture. That division has left the mainline wary of evangelism except for the most passive evangelism that expects the new member to find the mainline, rather than be found and invited in by the mainline members. The correlation between the rise and fall of mainline membership and the United States birth rate suggests that the most active evangelism strategy of the mainline is procreation. Couples marrying later, two-income families, modern birth control, and an aging membership work together to produce a lower birth rate. Add to that the connection of affluence and higher education with lower birth rates and there is another formula for decline. The other historic contributor to growth in the mainline church was conversion from other denominations. Recently there has been a declining propensity of persons to convert to mainline churches.

Beginning with the baby boomers, generational cohorts began to exit religious institutions. When many boomers left the mainline, they did not raise their children in the church even though they did maintain their denominational identity without attendance. Fewer people of the generational cohorts after the boomers have grown up in a mainline denomination, and denominational identity has become increasing less clear. At the same time, the attention of the mainline turned to important issues of justice, racism, war, and sexuality without noticing that the old pattern of separating from the church during college and returning in one’s mid-twenties with a spouse and child had been broken. Many in the mainline are still waiting for their 50-year-old children to return to church.

The last three decades have been marked by unprecedented change in the American culture. It is estimated that there will be more change in the first 14 years of the 21st century than there was in the previous century. In the context of rapid change the mainline still holds to “business as usual” and the honored seven last words, “We’ve never done it that way before.”

Nature of Decline
It is the nature of systemic decline to deny the decline itself. A denomination in decline ignores the decline as long as possible and then makes the mistake that time is its friend, that things will improve with time. The opposite is true. The denial is experienced internally within the denomination initially as financial crisis and blame is directed outward as long as possible, blaming the culture, the national church, an enemy group, etc. When the denial can no longer be focused outward, blame focuses within the denomination with internal conflicts. Denominations “circle the wagons and shoot at each other.”

When denial begins to break down, decline leads to underresponse, doing what might have been effective in the past but will no longer produce the reversal needed. “Too little, too late” is a trap to be avoided. Under-response to decline produces no lasting result other than to support the denial that things are not so bad, “look at what we are doing.” Overresponse will do no harm.

A New Purpose and Approach
It is time to develop a new biblical purpose in our church. The first step is to let go of the purpose that has gotten us this far. The old purpose of striving for two percent of the general population from a previously converted culture and introducing those few (and too often white) Christians to the subtleties of Prayer Book liturgies and worship is absurd. We live in a culture where on a given Sunday 79 percent of the American population is out of touch with a faith community of any kind. It is time to worry more about losing our Christian identity than our Episcopal-Anglican identity. It is time to discover a distinctiveness not found in separating from others but in connectedness and inclusion with all others who share with us in God’s redeeming and reconciling work. Our Episcopal identity and style of hospitality, respect, prayer, and inquiry support us in this work. It is time to move to making Christians our first priority rather than Episcopalians or Anglicans.

When Episcopalians embrace evangelism fully, it will be a different evangelism from popular images. Episcopal evangelism will be respectful of people and their personal experience, will be graceful, and will invite mutual sharing. There has been a basic shift in American culture, especially with those under 50 years of age, in their interest in religion and spirituality. Mainline persons want to talk about where they go to church, about the sacred or holy place which is reverenced, decorated, and associated with nearness to God. This attitude has been called the spirituality of habitation or dwelling. Those under 50 are interested in everything but the “where.” They ask, How do you pray? What difference does it make in your life? How do you experience God? This attitude has been called the spirituality of practice.

For Evangelism Resources visit www.episcopalchurch.org/congdev/ and select ‘Growth & Development’, then select ‘Congregational Resources’ for downloadable information on Congregational Life Cycle.

For additional statistics on the Episcopal Church and your congregation, visit at www.episcopalchurch.org/congdev/ and select ‘Research.’

For a guide to personal evangelism and telling your faith story, visit www.ecbf.org, select ‘Materials & Resources,’ then select ‘Newsletter Archives.’