By Mark Tooley, Juicy Ecumenism.
Craig Barnes
Princeton Seminary President Craig Barnes, former pastor of evangelical-leaning National Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C., urges in Christian Century that Mainline Protestants stop obsessing over their decline.
Most of the people who used to fill the pews of the mainline congregations long ago decided that the church has little relevancy to their souls, which are worn down by work, family, and a world that seems to be coming apart at the seams. They didn’t leave in a huff. They didn’t nail up 95 theses that called for reform. They wandered away and found that a Sunday morning spent with the New York Times or cheering for a child’s soccer game came closer to a sabbath than what they found in a sanctuary.
True enough. Barnes adds:
Little good comes from getting fixated on the empty pews. The mainline Protestant church has to stop fretting about its future. The anxiety takes up the air and leaves the church too lethargic to offer anything to the world. The alternative response is for the church to do what it’s always done at its best, what it did from the beginning: stop thinking about its future and sacrifice itself to its mission.
But what is the Mainline church’s mission? Barnes doesn’t really say, and neither typically does the Mainline church in any compelling way. Instead, he notes that Christianity has been remarkably resilient over 2000 years:
Historically, every time we landed in the ditch, as the mainline church has done today, Christ pulls us out and invites us again to lose our lives to find them.
True, but there’s no pledge from Christ, who promised that The Church will prevail, that Mainline Protestantism will necessarily have any future.
Read more: The post-anxiety church, by Craig Barnes.
3 Comments. Leave new
I have heard Heath Rada, PCUSA moderator, and Dr. Craig Barnes speak at Abington PA Pres. Church PCUSA here four blocks from my house. I wish Dr. Barnes had more urgency in this article from the Christian Century.
Billy Graham said that a national awakening needs to come through the mainline churches,if it comes at all. Dr Rada told us, “We are being persecuted in the media!” He meant for openness and tolerance.
Our son, Robbie, went to Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts in this church. Only God has the answer as we look to https://www.layman.org and the Bible and times of prayer for the answer for our children and grandchildren.
There is a PCUSA church in my town that is small but thriving. They are unabashadly liberal in a mainly moderate-to-conservative community. Their worship is liturgical, capturing the older, responsive, and reflective styles, while serving and loving the community. And they aren’t shy about loving Jesus. The one thing they don’t have is the appearance of being separate from the community. To the unchurched, too often they see evangelical churches as exclusive clubs for the saved rather than as mission outposts from which servantood and sacrifice flow.
Dr. Craig Barnes should be very concerned about “empty pews”.
Why? First, His seminary students will be the ones looking for jobs in the PCUSA. A diminishing Denomination means many of those students will not be called to a pastoral position.
Secondly, the empty pews are a significant indicator that something is not working and part of the blame needs to be put on the pastors that come out of our seminaries! Head knowledge is not enough to effectively
lead people to God and lead people to be growing disciples. Understanding how to be totally submissive to the Holy Spirit, and in a working relationship with the Holy Spirit is key. The basis of humility is totally giving up and submitting to God yet there is a certain arrogance that needs to be broken down.
Thirdly, He should be asking why the power of God to bring many to the saving grace of Jesus Christ is lacking and the pews are empty in stead of over flowing. Certainly, that was a mark of the early church. Holiness before a holy God requires repentance and awe of God who alone brings people to himself. We are the servants here and maybe God is not pleased with the way we have been “doing church”.
Dr. Barnes is right to say don’t fixate on the problem in a way that it saps all the spiritual zeal out of you. But he needs to be advocating for the right kind of learning and change that comes by admitting human failure is real and that is evidenced by “empty pews”. Then he needs to be aware of how changing the program at Seminaries to foster revival, real commitment to Jesus Christ, to God’s word, to the power and Glory of God and the work of the Holy Spirit can once again bring people into our body of churches.