For all the talk of church growth and decline, evangelism strategies and the fruits of faithfulness, church growth or decline is typically just tied to one variable: birth rates.
Although various denominations would like to display their growth as a result of zeal or sound doctrine of effective evangelism, in truth denominations grow when members in them have a lot of babies.
As Philip Jenkins proves in his recent Fertility and Faith, "Fertility rates correlate closely to the strength of organized and institutional religion." Nations with lower fertility rates detach from organized or institutional religion.
Up until recently in the United States, for example, Southern Baptists had been growing. And their birth rates were higher than the national average. But when Southern Baptists joined the rest of the country in similar fertility rates, Southern Baptists began to decline.
So a couple of observations. First, it's been a hallmark of white evangelicalism that, in spite of their cultural dominance, they see themselves as an oppressed minority. As a friend recently remarked, watching local white evangelicals scream and shout about the oppression of children wearing masks to school, "They are determined to feel oppressed if it’s the last thing they do."
In the meantime, we find ourselves in a surprising moment. The evangelicals really are declining. A recent PRRI study indicates "the number of white Americans who identify as evangelical Christians, from twenty-three per cent of the population in 2006 to fourteen per cent in 2020." If one defines oppression as no longer being the largest and most influential religious denomination in the United States, then maybe they are oppressed.
But more surprising, "According to the study, white mainline Protestants represent 16.4 per cent of the population (up from thirteen per cent in 2016), which means that they now outnumber white evangelicals, some of whom may have defected to the traditional denominations." (see Bill McKibben's The New Yorker summary)
Diana Butler Bass offers a short summary of an example congregation and how their local narrative helps understand the national trends:
"Trinity broke all the conventional wisdom of church growth. They preached politics from the pulpit. They married gay members before marriage equality was legal in California. They went to protest marches. They innovated liturgy. They read liberal theology books, studied feminist and liberation theology, embraced contemporary biblical criticism. They followed no plan—except for believing that Christianity was an adventure and that Christian community could be transformative, challenging, and deeply spiritual in and for the world."
The reasons for the decline of evangelicalism and the modest growth of more progressive Christianity is clear. Lots of folks, especially Millenials, are fleeing strict evangelical churches to more welcoming, affirming congregations. Those who are leaving cite white evangelical identification with Donald Trump, the Republican Party, American nationalism, and opposition to racial justice and sexual equality.
I don’t know if anyone needed this good news, but there it is.
Now, here’s my challenge to myself: if this is happening, those of us who are white mainline Protestants need to “earn” this change. “Earn” probably isn’t the right word, but I think y’all know what I mean.
Many who are fleeing evangelicalism experienced religious trauma. We have a responsibility to understand how to be safe spaces for recovery.
Many more are deconstructing. They are re-evaluating what they believe, which means our churches need to be Minecraft-like spaces for folks to explore faith and have tools for building and playing.
Also, a lot of our mainline denominations are a mess. I know my denomination is. I don’t even know what to do about that, honestly, other than focus on the local and the congregational. But that presents its own set of problems, and I do like having a “brand” to affiliate with, and a history to share in order to be transparent.
And finally there’s this whole “white” thing. A lot of this statistical analysis is related to the shift in sizes of white evangelical vs. white mainline denominations. It makes sense to analyze this shift because these are large groups of people with significant cultural and political influence.
However… it also does reinforce the kind of white supremacist phenomenon that allowed abusive forms of white evangelicalism to emerge in the first place. So our progressive churches have a responsibility to lean into the work of anti-racism, not to mention the justice work related to all the other forms of harm that have emerged through supremacist forms of Christianity.
I’m thinking here of addressing climate change, overcoming nationalism, and more generally just doing creative theological work that diversifies and complexities how we think about Christianity.
I mean, if you look at the shelves at the bookstore, science fiction novels are no longer predominately written by white men. The publishing industry and fans now know it’s more fun to read diverse authors.
In the meantime, churches and people of faith keep going to very narrow sets of resources to fund their faith. We have a responsibility to become less anemic.
Last point: this is not a post glorying in church growth. I honestly am not convinced it would be a good thing for mainline Protestant numbers to grow back to the Eisenhower era. I don’t need Christianity to be the majority. I’d prefer it weren’t. I think the emergence of secularity is a very good thing, and that’s because I accept the Charles Taylor definition of secularity, that it is finally the space for people to believe things, or nothing at all.
So we are seeing the slight increase in mainline Protestants AND a rise in people identifying as witches. And atheist. All the things. That’s secularity. And the world is far more interesting when Christians get to sort out how to care for this big old world side-by-side with witches, instead of killing them.
For real. And returning to the whole topic of birth rates, it certainly would be good for progressive Christians and witches and others to work alongside another as human beings who cherish the planet on which we live, so that all of us feel hopeful enough that we have a lot of babies. Because that was the one thing about the Eisenhower era I actually think is worth recovering: Babies are awesome.
While this study gives some encouragement to mainliners it is likely to be less accurate than helpful. Data terms were fuzzy and evangelicals and mainliners were sorted using their use of terms like "born again" and not put into clear baskets for data. In addition, whatever Exodus has happened in the white evangelical church and whatever portion of those folks have come to the mainline, the majority of those folks have made their move and the trend will likely slow (whatever trend it has been). So for most congregations, whoever your are going to get from that movement has mostly already happened. If mainline churches continue to wait for whoever enters their doors, most congregations will not see any change in trajectory. So, while this study is still mostly bad news for evangelicals, it is not likely to be as rosy for mainliners as folks may think when the actual data settles. And nothing has changed either way. The work of the church is to love the world; share the good news of God in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus; and continue to serve and welcome the stranger in our midst - all in the name of Christ. Those who do that will find plenty of reward in the work - and some may even find themselves in growing ministries. Thanks for putting your thoughts out there.