Why Conservative Churches are Growing

Why Conservative Churches are Growing (1972):

[Conservative churches] not only give evidence that religion is not obsolete and churches are not defunct but they contradict the contemporary notion of an acceptable religion. They are not "reasonable," they are not "tolerant," they are not ecumenical, they are not "relevant." Quite the contrary!

It is ironic that religious groups which persist in such "unreasonable" and "unsociable" behavior should be flourishing, while more "reasonable" and "sociable" bodies are not. It is not only ironic, but it suggests that our understanding of what causes a religious group to flourish is inadequate. Some dynamic seems to be at work that contradicts prevailing expectations.

(As quoted in Finke and Stark)

The author, Dean M. Kelley, was an executive at the National Council of Churches.


From Table 7.2 in Finke and Stark:
Membership per 1,000 Church Members (all denominations)

Episcopal

1940, 31.4
2000, 15.3

Southern Baptists

1940, 76.7
2000, 104.9

Church of God in Christ

1940, 2.6
2000, 36.2

Figure 3.1 Religious Adherents 1776 and 1850

Finke and Stark:

Percent of All Religious Adherents
x = 1776
o = 1850

Congregationalists
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 20.4%
oooo 4%

Episcopalians
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 15.7%
oooo 3.5%

Presbyterians
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 19%
oooooooooooo 11.6%

Baptists
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 16.9%
ooooooooooooooooooooo 20.5%

Methodists
xxx 2.5%
oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo 34.2%

Catholics
xx 2%
oooooooooooooo 13.9%

Church numbers and self inflation

Episcopal Life Online:

Jefferts Schori acknowledged that all mainline denominations have been reduced in their representation in the general population, "but Episcopalians have done better than others," she said. "Even though most Americans say that they pray regularly, only 21 percent of Americans are in worship services on an average weekend. That is very different than 50 years ago."

"Our challenge," she stated, "is to retain the children we produce and to reach to new populations in this country and the vast population of the unchurched to whom we are a highly attractive alternative."

Beliefnet:

Institutional Honesty

Mainline Protestant churches -- Lutherans, Presbyterians, Episcopalians and others -- are roundly criticized for hemorrhaging members for 40 years. And while membership has surely dropped, mainline churches are often the first to cleanse their rolls of the inactive to produce a more accurate figure.

The 15 million-member Seventh-day Adventists, for example, saw their U.S. numbers drop in recent years in part because a church audit found duplicates on membership rolls, said Kathleen Jones, an assistant for general statistics for the denomination. Those duplicates are being purged.

Often, new pastors want up-to-date numbers because they don't want to be blamed for any drops, said Lindner of the NCC. And some denominations assess fees to congregations based on membership, so the smaller the numbers, the smaller the fees.

Finke and Stark:

Hopelessly inflated statistics are precisely what are obtained when individuals are asked their religious affiliation. Ever since the start of public opinion polling in the late 1930s, surveys have found that approximately 85-95 percent of the population claims a religious affiliation.
...
Rather than being hopelessly inaccurate ... there are strong prima facie grounds for thinking that [U.S.] census statistics [based on reports by religious bodies] are relatively accurate.... The national rate of religious adherence based on the 1890 data is only 45 percent. ... the Bureau of the Census was very concerned with accuracy and provided extensive, sophisticated, and persuasive evaluations of its procedures.

Faith of our Mothers

Of attachments, religious and otherwise

From 1761 through 1800 a third of all first births in New England occured after less than nine months of marriage, despite harsh laws on fornication. [see 9] .... Single women in New England during the colonial period were more likely to be sexually active than to belong to a church -- in 1776 only about one out of five New Englanders had a religious affiliation.

--Finke and Stark, The Churching of America

One presumes that even if the baby weighed in well the father was not surprized by the premature arrival.

United Church of Christ Backs Gay Marriage :: ABC

The United Church of Christ's rule-making body voted overwhelmingly Monday to approve a resolution that endorses same-sex marriage, making it the largest Christian denomination to do so. The vote is not binding on individual churches, but could cause some churches to leave the fold. Roughly 80 percent of the members of the church's General Synod voted to approve the resolution. They debated for about an hour before voting.

On Sunday, a committee of about 50 United Church of Christ representatives gave nearly unanimous approval to the resolution, recommending that the General Synod approve it. It was supported by the UCC's president, John H. Thomas.

Traditionally strong in New England, the liberal denomination of 1.3 million members has long been supportive of gays and lesbians.

From J. Gordon Melton's Encyclopedia of American Religions (first edition, 1978):

The United Church of Christ was formed in 1961, at the end of twenty years of negotiating its formation. It inherits the legacies of four major nineteenth-century bodies: the Congregational Church, the Christian Church, the Reformed Church in the U.S., and the Evangelical Synod of North America.

The Congregational Church had continued the tradition of the Puritan fathers. . . .

The vision of a united Protestant Church . . . which came to the fore in the creating of the UCC and which has made it a unique body in American religion has not been without its problems. Frequently, the membership has voiced disapproval of the synod's work and liberal positions on certain issues, especially those related to social action. One result was the vote in the early 1970's to disband the Council on Social Action. . . .

In 1975 there were 6,552 churches, 1,818,762 members and 9,536 ministers.

Honey, who shrunk the church?

And, from the Finke and Starke's Churching of America 1776-2005:

In 1776 the Congregationalists, Episcopalians, and Presbyterians seemed to be the colonial denominations. Of Americans active in a religious body, 55% belonged to one of the three. . . . in 1761, Ezra Stiles . . . proclaimed that 100 years hence there would by 7 million Congregationalists in the colonies and fewer than 400,000 Baptists. But by 1860 there were actually fewer than 500,000 Congregationalists in America, while the Baptists numbered nearly 2 million. . . . in 1776 the Congregationalists, Episcopalians, and Presbyterians dominated. . . . The, in just 74 years, the combined market total of these 3 bodies shrank to only 19.1 percent of religious adherents, even though the proportion belonging to churches had about doubled, to 34 percent. . . .

we argue that . . . the decline of the old mainline denominations was caused by their inability to cope with the consequences of religious freedom and the rise of a free market religious economy.

For Congregationalism, the shift approached total collapse. . . falling from more than 20 percent of total adherents [in 1776] to but 4 percent [8 decades later]. . . . The Episcopalians also fared badly in terms of their share of the religious market, falling from . . . 15.7% to 3.5% of all church adherents. . . . The Presbyterians fared better because they were able to achieve some growth on the new American frontiers. Their share declined, however, because their growth failed to match the expansion of the proportion who were churched.

Religious zeal sets U.S. apart from allies, poll finds :: MSNBC.com

---QUOTE---
The polling was conducted in May in the United States, Australia, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, South Korea and Spain.

Nearly all U.S. respondents said faith is important to them and only 2 percent said they do not believe in God. Almost 40 percent said religious leaders should try to sway policymakers, notably higher than in other countries.

“Our nation was founded on Judeo-Christian policies and religious leaders have an obligation to speak out on public policy, otherwise they’re wimps,” said David Black, a retiree from Osborne, Pa., who agreed to be interviewed after he was polled.

In contrast, 85 percent of French object to clergy activism — the strongest opposition of any nation surveyed.
. . .
Australians are generally split over the importance of faith, while two-thirds of South Koreans and Canadians said religion is central to their lives. People in all three countries strongly oppose mixing religion and politics.
. . .
“In the United States, you have an abundance of religions trying to motivate Americans to greater involvement,” said Roger Finke, a sociologist at Penn State University. “It’s one thing that makes a tremendous difference here.”
. . .
Some analysts, like Finke, use a business model. According to his theory, a long history of religious freedom in the United States created a greater supply of worship options than in other countries, and that proliferation inspired wider observance. Some European countries still subsidize churches, in effect regulating or limiting religious options, Finke said.
. . .
Researchers disagree over why people in the United States have such a different religious outlook, said Brent Nelsen, an expert in politics and religion at Furman University in South Carolina.
. . .
“In Germany, they have a Christian Democratic Party, and they talk about Christian values, but they don’t talk about them in quite the same way that we do,” Nelsen said. “For them, the Christian part of the Christian values are held privately and it’s not that acceptable to bring those out into the open.”
. . .
The Associated Press-Ipsos polls of about 1,000 adults in each of the 10 countries were taken May 12-26. Each has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
---UNQUOTE---

Fetters of spiritual despotism thrown around human reason - Methodists

In the 1850s a publication of the Genesee Conference, The Buffalo Christian Advocate changed its name to The Advocate.

In 1857 a minister in the conference, the Reverend Benjamin Titus Roberts, published "New School Methodism" in the Northern Independent:

+ We commend the editor for this instance of honesty .... In an article on "Creeds," published in The Advocate ... a prominent New School minister lays it onto "the sects whose watchword is a creed ... No matter how holy and blameless a man's life may be, if he has the temerity to question any tenet of 'orthodoxy,' he is at once, in due ecclesiastical form, consigned to the Devil - as a heretic and an infidel. Thus are the fetters of spiritual despotism thrown around human reason...."
+ But [the New School's] theory of religion is more fully set forth in the leading editorial of The Advocate for May 14th...It says, "Christianity is not, characteristically, a system of devotion. It has none of those features which must distinguish a religion grounded on the idea that to adore the Divine character is the most imperative obligation resting upon human beings...."
+ The above may be sufficient to show what Christianity is not, in the opinion of these New School divines. Let us see what it is. "The characteristic idea of this system is benevolence; and its practical realization is achieved in beneficience. It consecrates the principle of charity....Whatever graces be necessary to constitute the inner Christian life, the chief and principal one of these is love to man."

Whew. And why can't it be "both and"? Neither is complete without the other. 'Creed is deed' isn't enough. And idle worship without action isn't either; it's idol worship. Aside: "To love thy God with all .... and the second is like unto it. To love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hangs all."

Roberts continues, in the same essay: They

+desire to raise money for the benefit of the church, they have recourse to selling pews to the highest bidder; to parties of pleasure, oyster suppers, fairs, grab-bags, festivals, and lotteries....The New School Methodists appear to depend upon the patronage of the worldly, the favor of the proud and aspiring; and the various artifices of worldly policy.
+....unmistakable indications show that prosperity is producing upon us, as a denomination, the same intoxicating effect that it too often does upon individuals and societies....it needs no prophet's vision to foresee that Methodism will become a dead and corrupting body.

Source: including the Robert's quotations (with my further editing): The Churching of America by Finke and Stark.

They go on to describe the fate of The Reverend Roberts:

Roberts's article provoked a vindictive reaction from the New School faction, for indeed they were in control of "executive power." Roberts was hailed (sic?) before the conference, declared guilty of unchristian and immoral conduct, and sentenced to be reprimanded by the bishop. Shortly thereafter the article was republished by a layman, which led to the expulsion of Roberts from the conference and from the church.

The fate of Methodism? Roberts was prophetic about its self-executing, if unintended, decline. Finke and Stark's chapter "Methodists transformed, Baptists triumphant" paints this in detailed relief, by the numbers.

Parting thought: Isn't it the essence of irony that an open-membership denomination ejected a member who was advocating tighter conditions of membership?

Biography of Rodney Stark - Encyclopedia of Religion and Social Science

------QUOTE------
Much of Stark's recent writing has been a reexamination of American religious history from a religious economies perspective, primarily in collaboration with Roger Finke. Their primary emphasis has been on clearing up a variety of misconceptions about religious life in America, beginning with the colonial era. The Churching of America, 1776-1990 (Rutgers University Press 1992) is the culmination of these efforts. In it they note such popular myths as the high religiosity of colonial New England (their estimates are that only 17% of colonialists had a religious affiliation), that mainline churches (Episcopal, Congregational, Presbyterian, and so on) began to decline in the 1960s (they find it started in the mid-1800s), and that the 1960s and 1970s were characterized by religious "eruptions" such as cult formation, Eastern religions making inroads, and the New Age (which they state are all exaggerated).

Stark and Finke go on to provide evidence for a different view of American religious history, one in which the colonial era is seen as a time of low religious fervor. They note that this did not change until the colonies became more interdependent economically, forcing colonies to be more tolerant of religious traditions not financially supported by them. Eventually the U.S. Constitution opened up the religious marketplace, making it easier for new religious groups to flourish. Through several chapters, they indicate the impact this religious freedom had on the rising fortunes of such groups as Baptists, Methodists, and Catholics, as well as the subsequent decline of the Methodists.
------UNQUOTE------

My emphases.

The Church confronts modernity - LewRockwell.com Blog

Thomas Woods links to a review of his book The Church Confronts Modernity.

What strikes the reader is that the Catholic Church really did “confront modernity” during the early decades of the 20th century.... In the last chapter Professor Woods contrasts that strong position with the weakness of the Church since Vatican II. Rarely do we hear anyone say that the Catholic Church is the only true Church of Jesus Christ, that Protestants and orthodox should return to the true Church, that there is no salvation outside the Catholic Church. The Church has not changed her teaching, but most Church leaders seem to be reluctant to confront modern American culture with the truth of Catholicism and to condemn it where it is in error.
Kenneth Baker, S.J., Homiletic & Pastoral Review, March 2005

This dovetails quite nicely with some reading I have been doing today. In the chapter entitled "Why 'Mainline' Denominations Decline" Fink and Stark (1992 edition) write on this counter-intuitive proposition:

People tend to value religion on the basis of how costly it is to join - the more one must sacrifice in order to be in good standing, the more valuable the religion. A major reason people rate religion this way is that as religious bodies ask less of their members their ability to reward their members declines proportionately.

Finke and Stark write:

Since at least 1776 the upstart sects have grown as the mainline American denominations have declined. And this trend continues unabated, as new upstarts continue to push to the fore....These historical trends are not oddities of the American religious economy or of recent history - they are not new things under the sun. Rather, they reflect basic social forces that first cause succesfull religious firms to compromise their "errand in the wilderness" and then to lose their organizational vigor, eventually to be replaced by less worldly groups, whereupon the process is repeated.

That is, the sect-church process is always under way, and the less regulated the religious economy, the more rapidly and thoroughly the process will occur.

[emphasis in the original]

Please note that at this point I am not displaying any courage: I am not endorsing one brand of religion or one kind of theology over another. Indeed, if the Fink and Starke thesis is true all mainline denominations were once sects. I am drawing attention to a dynamic that denominations of any faith must pay attention to if they wish to spread their system of belief, faith, and codes of personal behavior.

Aside: The 1960s and 70s growth in Northern Virginia of the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia was not the result of a rebirth of the Episcopal Church. (See previous post.) It was a consequence of the growth spurt in the size the federal government due to the Cold War, the war in Vietnam, and the growth of the welfare state. What the Diocese of Virginia did was respond to the growth in population, and do a good job at fostering reasonably healthy new congregations. But the growth in memberships (if not in market share) was driven by migration to the Washington area due to the growth in employment opportunities.