Ross Douthat published an intriquing article in today’s New York Times (click here) entitled Can Liberal Christianity be Saved? It is worth a careful read.
The article points to two seemingly connected yet disparate facts: Conservative Christianity and its focus on personal conversion is seeing increasing attendance, participation and contributions membership, while Liberal Christinaity and its focus on social issues and/or social reform sees a decline in all three. He notes:
The defining idea of liberal Christianity [is] that faith should spur social reform as well as personal conversion.
Two groups in particular enjoy robust growth: Charismatic/Pentacostal Christians and members of “mega” and “giga” Churches (those with attendance over 2,000 or 10,000 per week, respectively).
Douthat’s article suggests basic differences between the two groups: liberals aligning behind the idea “that faith should spur social reform as well as personal conversion” while conservatives focusing on a “deep grounding in Bible study, family devotions, personal prayer and worship.”
Southat sees this as a relatively recent split. During the heyday of Civil Rights & the Social Gosepl leaders “argued for progressive reform in the context of ‘a personal transcendent God … the divinity of Christ, the need of personal redemption and the importance of Christian missions.’”
Douthat notes this trend is not limited to Protestant Christianity but impacts Catholic institutions as well. The “liberal orders” – one can presume this refers to the Jesuits and other similar orders, and/or most if not all of the women religious orders – no longer recruit sufficient new members to sustain themselves in the future. Here he points out some collateral damage:
“Because progressive Catholicism has failed to inspire a new generation of sisters, Catholic hospitals across the country are passing into the hands of more bottom-line-focused administrators, with inevitable consequences for how they serve the poor.”
Christian Churches in the past offered institutions that preached the (social) gospel through actions and service: hospitals for the poor, care of the homeless and orphans, etc. The institutions gave concrete expression to religious sentiments. Douthat suggests that Liberal Christianity’s move away from personal conversion is at the root of this decline.
“What should be wished for, instead, is that liberal Christianity recovers a religious reason for its own existence.”
There is a significant gap between today’s religious sentiments and yesterday’s dogmatic expressions of faith. Phrases like “personal transcendent God”, “divinity of Christ”, and “personal redemption” do not capture the “soul” of religious sentiment today. This is part of the split between conservative and liberal Christianity. Conservatives cling to this expression (with its roots in feudalism and bygone social structures) and project out the “gospel of health and wealth” from it; liberals can’t accept the expression and flounder around unable to find their soul. Douthat is correct: it is time to reconsider how Christian religious sentiment is expressed and how it is practiced.
Alas, his closing sentence may be all too true…
“Absent such a reconsideration, their fate is nearly certain: they will change, and change, and die.”