3) Jesus said the gate would be narrow, and many would be led astray.
4) the "recipe" which led to growth in the early church (acts 3:42-47. Acts 4:32-37), is contrary to our individualistic and capitalist society because and sounds like communism... 🤷🏻♀️
Re: While the growth seen in many Eastern Orthodox churches has fueled headlines, others are showing clear signs of decline.
In Orthodoxy it's my observation that churches which are heavily ethnic (and monoethnic) so they are in effect "ethnic clubs with a chaplain" are the ones that are shrinking, as younger generations assimilate and lose their connections to their ancestral cultures. Also doomed to shrinkage: churches that are "marooned" in the old ethnic ghettos of large cities, which at best have become yuppie gentrified places, but with largely suburban congregations these days.
In some cases growing congregations could certainly from larger facilities, and especially if those are already designed as Orthodox churches. But geography is important: How easy would it be for their congregation to commute to a new church? Ideally we should not live too far from our churches. My own standard is that's it's best to be within biking distance of church; and at the far distance no farther than ten miles. (I violated that last year when I was living-- temporarily, but longer than I had thought I would-- an hour's drive away). Also some cities have bad reputations and people do not want to go into them, even for things located in reasonably safe areas.
I lived in Baltimore for 14 years. My church there was in a good neighborhood (once the Slavic ethnic ghetto, but now a gentrifier's neighborhood). We have a few members who are afraid to come to church because of Baltimore's (understandably) bad reputation and since the Pandemic they "attend" by online live-stream. That church is not exactly moribund, but it is slowly shrinking as people die or move away and are not replaced. Meanwhile outside the city there's Holy Cross Antiochian Orthodox Church, once the church of Fr Gregory and Khouria Frederica Mathewes Green-- I assume you are familiar with her books. It's a convert-heavy church, in a picturesque small building that was once (I think) a Methodist church. Perhaps it could use a bigger church! But even ignoring the jurisdictional issues (my Baltimore Church is OCA) I can't see Holy Cross moving into the city.
Holy Cross was our home parish for 12 years. It urgently needs to start another mission. Urban? That might work in that area. The M-Gs are now in our parish here in NETenn, where their son Father Stephen is the priest.
Ah- we may have crossed paths then. I sometimes went down to Holy Cross for Saturday Vespers since it was easier to drive down the Balt-Wash Pkway than fighting traffic across downtown Baltimore. I last was down there to bid farewell to the M-Gs when they were departing in 2018. Please give my greetings to them- they may remember Jon of St Andrews in Baltimore, a friend (mostly online) of Rod Dreher. I would love to make it up to that parish someday (I am now in St Pete) if my travels will but take me that direction.
I recall a Burge post at Get Religion that predicted the Episcopal Church might disappear by 2040, because they were performing more funerals than weddings and baptisms. They have buildings, they have money, they have clergy --but not enough people
An interesting book I read a couple of years ago is "The Churching of America 1776-1990" by Rodney Stark and Roger Finke. They concluded that in 1776, only about 20% of Americans were regular church attenders. Even in Puritan New England, the known existing church buildings did not have enough pew space to hold more than than 20% of the people. Another thing they found--in the late 1700s and early 1800s, the fastest-growing denominations were the Methodists and Baptists. Many of the Baptist preachers were not highly educated, and supported themselves by farming. The early Methodists in the US did not even have local pastors--they had "circuit-riding" preachers who covered a large area, showing up at a local congregation every few months; the rest of the time local lay leaders managed the churches. In the 1850s, the Methodists started opening seminaries, building parsonages, and having local pastors --and their growth slowed dramatically!
In contrast, the Episcopalians, Congregationalists (Puritans) and Presbyterians were growing more slowly. One factor in this was that their seminary-trained pastors were often not willing to face the hardships of moving to the frontier, preferring to stay in their more comfortable, long-settled areas.
Researching my family on Ancestry.com a couple of years ago, I found that many of my forebears were Methodists. I visited a cemetery in a rural area of Clermont County, Ohio (just east of Cincinnati), where my great-great grandfather and many of his friends and relations were buried. He had donated the land now occupied by that church and cemetery.
I know. I have been following what's been happening for the last few years, mainly on the "Juicy Ecumenism" website. Personally, I am not a Methodist. I grew up in the Christian Churches/Churches of Christ in Cincinnati. (Which name they use seems to vary by region--a lot of the Cincinnati churches use C of C; I lived in Indianapolis for 17 years, and a lot of them there use CC.) I graduated from the old Cincinnati Bible College in 1972. I preached for some years; later became charismatic, and spent 10 years in Vineyard churches, including helping plant two. Now I am what many call a "None"--Josh Packard in "Church Refugees" labeled us "Dones." Some of us don't want any labels at all, others prefer "free-range Christians." Rodney Stark, the author I mentioned in my comment above, grew up Lutheran, became an atheist, but returned to Christianity late in life, describing himself as an "unaffiliated" Christian.
I was late to the Internet--we lived in a rural area in SE Indiana, and didn't even have dial-up Internet until late 2003. But I found a bunch of stuff on it, including a lot of Christian stuff. One thing I noticed back then was that serious Christians were going in two different directions. Some were going more formal--Orthodox, Catholic, or Anglican. I used to read a blog by Michael Spencer called "Internet Monk." Spencer was a Southern Baptist; but some of his kids went Anglican. Others were going even less formal, mostly toward house churches. My own tendency is less formal, but there just wasn't much interest in house churches where I was living. George Barna once called the Midwest "the last stronghold of the traditional church."
But is the tree of God's planting--or man's? There really isn't that much in the New Testament about what goes on in the church gathering; if you put them all together, you might get a whole page, maybe a page and a half. There is a lot in the NT about how you should live, 24/7/365. Which is more important?
A good book to read is "Pagan Christianity" by Frank Viola and George Barna. They trace the origins of modern church practices--the sermon, vestments, tithing, and a lot more--including comparatively modern things like Sunday School and dressing up for services. But their overall point is that most of what we do in church services is human tradition --not necessarily anti-Biblical, but non-Biblical.
I have mellowed enough over the years so that my position is, Do what gets you closer to Father. If liturgy, whether Greek, Latin, or vernacular, is what works for you--go for it. I'll do what's been working for me. I enjoy fellowship with other Christians wherever I find it (but I don't consider sitting in pews looking at the back of people's heads to be fellowship).
I appreciate that they preserved it; my gripe is that most of them didn't follow it. This is true of the various groups throughout history, including nearly all Protestants. All kinds of churches have titles for their leaders--Reverend, Pastor, Father, Bishop, Archbishop, Monsignor, Cardinal, Patriarch, Pope...and more. Here's a listing of titles and addresses in Orthodoxy--https://orthodoxwiki.org/Honorifics
But what did Jesus say? "But do not be called Rabbi; for One is your Teacher, and you are all brothers. And do not call anyone on earth your father; for One is your Father, He who is in heaven. And do not be called leaders; for One is your Leader, that is, Christ. But the greatest among you shall be your servant. And whoever exalts himself will be humbled; and whoever humbles himself shall be exalted." Matthew 23: 8-12, NASB
The Christian Churches/Churches of Christ that I grew up in refused to use the title "Reverend" (occasionally some ignorant reporter would apply it to one of their preachers in a news article). But when I was growing up, they used the title "Brother" a lot. The kicker was, in services, every adult male was referred to as "Brother So-and-So''--but outside the service only the preacher was addressed as "Brother," all the time.
The title Pastor is almost universal. But "pastor" is just the Latin word for "shepherd," and most English translations use it for the Greek word "poimen." Some of the uses of "poimen" in the NT are referring to actual sheepherders. Quite a few passages use it referring to Jesus. I can only find one verse in the entire NT that applies it to anyone in the local church--Eph. 4:11. If you look at the modern institution of the pastor, across all Christian groups, is one verse an adequate foundation for that institution?
Yes, I am a bit of a maverick. You may have noticed the title for my own Substack, "Autistic Redneck." I first heard of Asperger's Syndrome when I was 55. It was like the lights coming on for a lot of things in my life, both growing up and as an adult. "Redneck?" I have Scots-Irish heritage through both of my parents. While "Hawkins" is an English name, my father's family was in Clermont County, OH, which is historically considered the western edge of Appalachia in Ohio. The Hawkins men did marry Scots-Irish women. My mother was a Burns, born in 1920 at a coal mining camp near Hazard, KY. In the 1960s, she still had living relatives in the Hazard area, in LaFollette, TN, and in Cherokee County, NC. Two good resources on the Scots-Irish: Former VA Senator Jim Webb's book on their history, "Born Fighting;" and one section of David Hackett Fischer's more scholarly work, "Albion's Seed," covers the Scots-Irish migration to America and their spread across the country. I have both books on my shelf.
Kelley's analysis has another obvious limitation: it claims that liberal Mainline Protestants are too worried about appealing to the intellectual elite. Eastern Orthodox and Traditionalist Catholic priests ARE an intellectual elite unto themselves, the vast majority of these priests have Masters Degrees or higher.
My other contribution is the Anti-Natalism factor: alot of liberals have a visceral revulsion to the idea of having and raising children. Alot of liberals are gay or lesbian, a lifestyle that is De Facto infertility. It's something that exists in them on a deep instinctual level, probably as a result of unresolved childhood trauma.
1) population is in decline
2) baby boomers are dying
3) Jesus said the gate would be narrow, and many would be led astray.
4) the "recipe" which led to growth in the early church (acts 3:42-47. Acts 4:32-37), is contrary to our individualistic and capitalist society because and sounds like communism... 🤷🏻♀️
Re: While the growth seen in many Eastern Orthodox churches has fueled headlines, others are showing clear signs of decline.
In Orthodoxy it's my observation that churches which are heavily ethnic (and monoethnic) so they are in effect "ethnic clubs with a chaplain" are the ones that are shrinking, as younger generations assimilate and lose their connections to their ancestral cultures. Also doomed to shrinkage: churches that are "marooned" in the old ethnic ghettos of large cities, which at best have become yuppie gentrified places, but with largely suburban congregations these days.
Do you think that more convert-oriented parishes could survive if allowed to move into the abandoned facilities in key cities?
Sorry I took a while getting back to you
In some cases growing congregations could certainly from larger facilities, and especially if those are already designed as Orthodox churches. But geography is important: How easy would it be for their congregation to commute to a new church? Ideally we should not live too far from our churches. My own standard is that's it's best to be within biking distance of church; and at the far distance no farther than ten miles. (I violated that last year when I was living-- temporarily, but longer than I had thought I would-- an hour's drive away). Also some cities have bad reputations and people do not want to go into them, even for things located in reasonably safe areas.
I lived in Baltimore for 14 years. My church there was in a good neighborhood (once the Slavic ethnic ghetto, but now a gentrifier's neighborhood). We have a few members who are afraid to come to church because of Baltimore's (understandably) bad reputation and since the Pandemic they "attend" by online live-stream. That church is not exactly moribund, but it is slowly shrinking as people die or move away and are not replaced. Meanwhile outside the city there's Holy Cross Antiochian Orthodox Church, once the church of Fr Gregory and Khouria Frederica Mathewes Green-- I assume you are familiar with her books. It's a convert-heavy church, in a picturesque small building that was once (I think) a Methodist church. Perhaps it could use a bigger church! But even ignoring the jurisdictional issues (my Baltimore Church is OCA) I can't see Holy Cross moving into the city.
Holy Cross was our home parish for 12 years. It urgently needs to start another mission. Urban? That might work in that area. The M-Gs are now in our parish here in NETenn, where their son Father Stephen is the priest.
Ah- we may have crossed paths then. I sometimes went down to Holy Cross for Saturday Vespers since it was easier to drive down the Balt-Wash Pkway than fighting traffic across downtown Baltimore. I last was down there to bid farewell to the M-Gs when they were departing in 2018. Please give my greetings to them- they may remember Jon of St Andrews in Baltimore, a friend (mostly online) of Rod Dreher. I would love to make it up to that parish someday (I am now in St Pete) if my travels will but take me that direction.
I recall a Burge post at Get Religion that predicted the Episcopal Church might disappear by 2040, because they were performing more funerals than weddings and baptisms. They have buildings, they have money, they have clergy --but not enough people
An interesting book I read a couple of years ago is "The Churching of America 1776-1990" by Rodney Stark and Roger Finke. They concluded that in 1776, only about 20% of Americans were regular church attenders. Even in Puritan New England, the known existing church buildings did not have enough pew space to hold more than than 20% of the people. Another thing they found--in the late 1700s and early 1800s, the fastest-growing denominations were the Methodists and Baptists. Many of the Baptist preachers were not highly educated, and supported themselves by farming. The early Methodists in the US did not even have local pastors--they had "circuit-riding" preachers who covered a large area, showing up at a local congregation every few months; the rest of the time local lay leaders managed the churches. In the 1850s, the Methodists started opening seminaries, building parsonages, and having local pastors --and their growth slowed dramatically!
In contrast, the Episcopalians, Congregationalists (Puritans) and Presbyterians were growing more slowly. One factor in this was that their seminary-trained pastors were often not willing to face the hardships of moving to the frontier, preferring to stay in their more comfortable, long-settled areas.
Researching my family on Ancestry.com a couple of years ago, I found that many of my forebears were Methodists. I visited a cemetery in a rural area of Clermont County, Ohio (just east of Cincinnati), where my great-great grandfather and many of his friends and relations were buried. He had donated the land now occupied by that church and cemetery.
The doctrinal evolution of Methodists is a huge part of the story of American religion.
I know. I have been following what's been happening for the last few years, mainly on the "Juicy Ecumenism" website. Personally, I am not a Methodist. I grew up in the Christian Churches/Churches of Christ in Cincinnati. (Which name they use seems to vary by region--a lot of the Cincinnati churches use C of C; I lived in Indianapolis for 17 years, and a lot of them there use CC.) I graduated from the old Cincinnati Bible College in 1972. I preached for some years; later became charismatic, and spent 10 years in Vineyard churches, including helping plant two. Now I am what many call a "None"--Josh Packard in "Church Refugees" labeled us "Dones." Some of us don't want any labels at all, others prefer "free-range Christians." Rodney Stark, the author I mentioned in my comment above, grew up Lutheran, became an atheist, but returned to Christianity late in life, describing himself as an "unaffiliated" Christian.
Maybe join an ancient church — go to the trunk of the tree.
I was late to the Internet--we lived in a rural area in SE Indiana, and didn't even have dial-up Internet until late 2003. But I found a bunch of stuff on it, including a lot of Christian stuff. One thing I noticed back then was that serious Christians were going in two different directions. Some were going more formal--Orthodox, Catholic, or Anglican. I used to read a blog by Michael Spencer called "Internet Monk." Spencer was a Southern Baptist; but some of his kids went Anglican. Others were going even less formal, mostly toward house churches. My own tendency is less formal, but there just wasn't much interest in house churches where I was living. George Barna once called the Midwest "the last stronghold of the traditional church."
But is the tree of God's planting--or man's? There really isn't that much in the New Testament about what goes on in the church gathering; if you put them all together, you might get a whole page, maybe a page and a half. There is a lot in the NT about how you should live, 24/7/365. Which is more important?
A good book to read is "Pagan Christianity" by Frank Viola and George Barna. They trace the origins of modern church practices--the sermon, vestments, tithing, and a lot more--including comparatively modern things like Sunday School and dressing up for services. But their overall point is that most of what we do in church services is human tradition --not necessarily anti-Biblical, but non-Biblical.
I have mellowed enough over the years so that my position is, Do what gets you closer to Father. If liturgy, whether Greek, Latin, or vernacular, is what works for you--go for it. I'll do what's been working for me. I enjoy fellowship with other Christians wherever I find it (but I don't consider sitting in pews looking at the back of people's heads to be fellowship).
What church gave you the New Testament?
I appreciate that they preserved it; my gripe is that most of them didn't follow it. This is true of the various groups throughout history, including nearly all Protestants. All kinds of churches have titles for their leaders--Reverend, Pastor, Father, Bishop, Archbishop, Monsignor, Cardinal, Patriarch, Pope...and more. Here's a listing of titles and addresses in Orthodoxy--https://orthodoxwiki.org/Honorifics
But what did Jesus say? "But do not be called Rabbi; for One is your Teacher, and you are all brothers. And do not call anyone on earth your father; for One is your Father, He who is in heaven. And do not be called leaders; for One is your Leader, that is, Christ. But the greatest among you shall be your servant. And whoever exalts himself will be humbled; and whoever humbles himself shall be exalted." Matthew 23: 8-12, NASB
The Christian Churches/Churches of Christ that I grew up in refused to use the title "Reverend" (occasionally some ignorant reporter would apply it to one of their preachers in a news article). But when I was growing up, they used the title "Brother" a lot. The kicker was, in services, every adult male was referred to as "Brother So-and-So''--but outside the service only the preacher was addressed as "Brother," all the time.
The title Pastor is almost universal. But "pastor" is just the Latin word for "shepherd," and most English translations use it for the Greek word "poimen." Some of the uses of "poimen" in the NT are referring to actual sheepherders. Quite a few passages use it referring to Jesus. I can only find one verse in the entire NT that applies it to anyone in the local church--Eph. 4:11. If you look at the modern institution of the pastor, across all Christian groups, is one verse an adequate foundation for that institution?
Yes, I am a bit of a maverick. You may have noticed the title for my own Substack, "Autistic Redneck." I first heard of Asperger's Syndrome when I was 55. It was like the lights coming on for a lot of things in my life, both growing up and as an adult. "Redneck?" I have Scots-Irish heritage through both of my parents. While "Hawkins" is an English name, my father's family was in Clermont County, OH, which is historically considered the western edge of Appalachia in Ohio. The Hawkins men did marry Scots-Irish women. My mother was a Burns, born in 1920 at a coal mining camp near Hazard, KY. In the 1960s, she still had living relatives in the Hazard area, in LaFollette, TN, and in Cherokee County, NC. Two good resources on the Scots-Irish: Former VA Senator Jim Webb's book on their history, "Born Fighting;" and one section of David Hackett Fischer's more scholarly work, "Albion's Seed," covers the Scots-Irish migration to America and their spread across the country. I have both books on my shelf.
Kelley's analysis has another obvious limitation: it claims that liberal Mainline Protestants are too worried about appealing to the intellectual elite. Eastern Orthodox and Traditionalist Catholic priests ARE an intellectual elite unto themselves, the vast majority of these priests have Masters Degrees or higher.
My other contribution is the Anti-Natalism factor: alot of liberals have a visceral revulsion to the idea of having and raising children. Alot of liberals are gay or lesbian, a lifestyle that is De Facto infertility. It's something that exists in them on a deep instinctual level, probably as a result of unresolved childhood trauma.