American national church denominations are not as old as people think.
We have no real memory before national denominational corporations, because they started before any of us saw the light of day; but not long before…
They came into being with the advent of the railroad.
For instance, with Lutherans, we used to gather, more or less, in state-sized groups:
-The Pennsylvania Ministerium
-The Ohio Synod
-The Iowa Synod
-The Missouri Synod
-The Wisconsin Synod
etc. etc.
The railroad changed all that. It made a national bureaucracy and national gatherings (assemblies) possible and affordable. This new transportation method also created the big political party conventions.
Nothing lasts forever.
These statewide church groups merged into national groups which merged some more. Along with the “Peter Principle,” they advanced to their level of incompetency: they became politically and economically unmanageable.
There are many reasons for the demise of national church corporations:
1) Many, if not most young adults, prefer being part of cool indie projects to being “tools” of large corporations.
2) The mergers have created coalitions with incompatible viewpoints (sexuality, etc.)
3) Lutheran versions (more so than other brand names) of these corporations tend to operate as closed systems (tightly controlled roster, Lutheran seminary requirements, etc.).
4) These corporations, in efforts to hold things together and make structure and function coherent, have discouraged innovation by entrepreneurial types.
5) For whatever reason, these corporations have very strained relationships with their best practitioners.
6) Generational and ethnic diversity issues have become too heavy for the corporations to carry.
This does not mean that church brand names are a thing of the past. It just means that the national church corporation is unraveling before our eyes. All the king’s horses and all the king’s men will not be able to put Humpty Dumpty back together again. There is nothing wrong with this and it should not be seen as a failure–every human organizational form has a life span.
This does not mean that faith families and connectional Christianity are dead.
Post-denominationalism is just a reality that is emerging. I want to clarify: this does not mean post-brand-name.
This means that the national corporations are failing and will continue to fail. There is no point in any effort to “renew” them.
I don’t know what the post-denominational world will look like. But I do know that:
-Railroad-era national conventions are a thing of the past.
-Coalitions will replace national corporations
-The effort to form smaller, new “theologically correct” corporations to replace national denominational corporations will fail if they follow the template of the national church corporation (parliamentary conventions, national office, official rosters, closed systems, etc.). That’s railroad thinking in a Twitter-world.
-The influential congregations within faith families will fill the leadership vacuum, along with the more innovative evangelical seminaries (Fuller, Asbury, Gordon-Conwell, Bethel, Luther, etc). Classic “div schools” (Chicago, Yale, Union) will become irrelevant to church life, as will “company shop” seminaries of dying corporations.
-A lot of people won’t be able to separate the faith family names (Presbyterian, Lutheran, Methodist, etc.) from the national corporations. Some of those names might not survive because of this. Hard to say.
-National leaders with a clear life message and a New (Social) Media presence will rule the roost. If it doesn’t matter on Twitter, it doesn’t matter.
My advice:
1) Think both/and, not either/or. We are in a postmodern era.
2) Stop trying to renew the denominational corporations.
3) Find new ways of being connectional.
4) Resist the temptation to build up new theologically “correct” corporations which are infected with the same terminal virus.
5) Find ways to embrace the good things about your faith family and preserve them for the future forms which will emerge.
6) Take social media seriously. Very seriously.
7) Be willing to let people of color and Global South Christians take the lead. It’s their churches that are doing the best. The New African Churches are very post-denominational and organizationally effective.
8) This will take time; perhaps a whole generation. Practice patience.
It’s a brave new world. Let’s watch it emerge, together.
Follow me on Twitter @RobinwoodChurch. Please feel free to forward this (link or full text) to people who love the church, or to post it online.
David Housholder Essays 
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November 24, 2009 at 6:04 pm
harveykate
I completely agree that these national church corporations are dying out due to a fault in bureaucrazational big business structuring. My generation is refusing to take denominational labels, so as those who are denominationally based die, so do their churches. I also agree that Fuller and Bethel train leaders of the future (though I’m slightly biased 😉 )
However, I do question if this is the end of big business structured church or rather just a shift to the latest big business in the midst of the economic crisis… independent, small scale churches. That seems to be the defining mark of history…the churches shaped itself after the culture and by doing so it reinforced culture and thrived (cf. Emile Durkheim). Personally, I think this shift is the same… as people lack trust in big corporations, they lack trust in big (rich) national denominations. Personally, I believe the change may start to begin as people start questioning the latent theological assumptions of ecclesiastical hierarchy instead of merely adapting it to better fit culture.
November 25, 2009 at 12:52 am
Jim
Good read. Still sounds like you may be trying to save Lutheranism. Big challenge. I wonder when the next Josiah type will emerge bringing the Bible to center stage to help this new endeavor. I hope and pray this generation of which I am glad to be part, can take us closer to the ideal.
The Holy Spirit can bring this about and most certainly will. It will most likely come with a remnant. Who is the remnant in todays church culture?
November 25, 2009 at 3:39 am
pdbb
Interesting post. I too have been pondering many of these ideas as a fully employed individual of one of these national corporations (near and dear to both our hearts if my read is correct.) Just wondering what you do with the “three expressions” stuff? I have struggled often with this. It is interesting I do many weddings, and most couples have a loose idea of the brand name, but that isn’t really what they care about, and if they do it is so Grandma doesn’t get upset. Your take on social media is a good one, but in a more rural setting like mine, at 45 I am mostly alone out in this world. I have more, but my daughter just got home from Luther, so it is time to pay attention to one of the greatest gifts God has given me!
November 25, 2009 at 12:52 pm
Kathy Huff
Well written synthesis of US history and current events, however I am left thirsty for data or other supportive evidence from outside the ELCA woes. For example, what increase in number of non-denominational churches has there been in the last decade compared to the prior decade? Or, what other denominations are experiencing high numbers of individual church departures, and what, if any, is a common cause?
November 25, 2009 at 2:19 pm
Jim
I have heard a few times that Charismatic/Pentecostals are the fastest growing segment of the Christian faith. Being one I know it’s not about titles and pedigrees. It’s more about mission, which is what my friend House advocates.
Having left a denomination before attending a Lutheran seminary, The Master’s Institute, I know one thing-there is always a remnant. The Bible says God will do some sorting later (of people). For now it’s time to work in the Kingdom, which any who want to follow Jesus can be part of. There is only one exclusivity in the Kingdom; Jesus said if you love me you will obey my commands. It’s a love revolution in which we love God and everyone else too.
I’m sad for the ELCA, but I think we (edited due to sensitivity to readers).
November 25, 2009 at 6:42 pm
Claire
Your article resonated with me. I have seen the need for a major shift in denominational churches for many years. Although I am nearly 55 and not in a charismatic church, I see an increase in the Holy Spirit working in my giftings and many others open to His work within our rural conservative church, especially in the youth of our area. People are coming together across denominational lines more and more. I believe we will see many exciting things coming up globally as well as in the U.S. that have little to do with denominational issues and more to do with a uniting of the body of Christ to welcome our Savior. I hope I am alive to see it all unfold.
November 25, 2009 at 7:06 pm
Sarah Whittenburg
Words like exciting, challenging, and visionary do not do justice to the
statement. I am reminded of a Brad Paisley song, “Welcome to the Future”. It seems to more than adequately sum up the changes in the world, society, and people as we struggle to understand our faith today and what God is saying to those of us still identified by “brand name” but
confused over recent events and decisions. As for me and my house…we will serve the Lord and eagerly awaiting the unfolding of what He has in mind. Thank you so much
November 25, 2009 at 7:15 pm
Michael
The description of the present seems on target, but the history in this post is a little shaky. Remember that oldest “mainline” Protestant bodies (Reformed, Lutheran, Episcopal) *began* as established national churches, in Europe. That was their basic frame of reference for “being church.”
Because America had no national church, and because some of the groups to settle here — Lutheran Pietists, the Missouri Synod, as well as Methodists — had come here in part because of their disappointment with the established churches of Europe, they experimented with alternative forms of governance, including local ones. But at least among Lutherans, there were from the very beginning efforts at rebuilding the unity they had known (or falsely imagined they had known) in Europe. The obstacle to this was rarely geography so much as language and theology.
Arguably, at least, the creation of national Lutheran churches has less to do with railroads than with the emergence of two competing models of dealing with doctrinal difference: quash it (the LCMS model) or confederate despite it (the ULCA model). Again arguably, the true “national church corporation” you describe emerges, among Lutherans, with the LCA in 1962, which was not content to be a federation, but wanted to be a “true” church, united in doctrine as well as polity. Since then, we have been forced into ever-more-creative intellectual and verbal gymnastics to hold together communities which fundamentally disagree with one another.
The Episcopal Church, meanwhile, always set out to be a national body, tightly connected both by government and doctrine to its European mother church. It largely succeeded, at least until recently. So it is not returning to a past state of fragmentation; it is doing something quite new.
Meanwhile, outside of Protestantism, the Roman Catholic Church seems to function pretty well as the US franchise of a global brand, perhaps because it has more nearly mastered the art of maintaining a coherent identity while tolerating dissent.
None of this means that the national corporations are going to make it. But it may offer some clues about the lines along which we will fracture, and the shape of the emerging coalitions.
November 25, 2009 at 10:49 pm
David Housholder
Great thoughts. But I would still argue for including a heavy geography/transportation factor in the assembly of national churches in the US.
The European nations Lutherans came from were about the size as our states.
The emergence of large annual/regular conventions (church and political) tracks perfectly with the spread of the railroads.
Iowa and Ohio synods (Germans) became the “old” ALC.
The Pennsylvania Ministerium became the core of the ULCA. Slavery hampered attempts at N/S unity eventually leading to full blown rupture.
Augustana (Swedes) were probably the most national in orientation, early on, although probably 80% of them were within reasonable distance of Rock Island. Funny thing is, they spread out to an area about the size of Sweden–but not running N/S.
Missouri and Wisconsin went national.
Your one inaccuracy is that the Germans did not come from national churches, but rather “Landeskirchen” which were from regions larger than counties but smaller than states. There wasn’t even such a thing as Germany until 1871.
And attempts at “concordia” and “fellowship” are different from functioning national bureaucracies. The Augustana synod, as you well know, was run out of an extra roll-top desk in the office of the Sr. Pastor of the biggest church in Rock Island.
Norskies had an easier time (although deeply divided between Pietests [ConcordiaMM and Augsburg Colleges] and State Church [St Olaf and Luther Colleges] supporters) because they were more focused demographically in the Upper Midwest and were more concentrated, tribally.
But there is no denying that the rise of corporate American denominations parallels that of national US secular corporations. And why wouldn’t it?
November 25, 2009 at 8:41 pm
John Alexander
Perfect Hous. This is the kind of explanation I was looking for! Thank you for the strong and concise summary of post-denom. Maybe a book in the future on this topic? We need some visionary INSIDE this topic and OUTSIDE of the whole total destruction of denoms/brand names. Meaning, we get enough books on “that old way sucked so try this new house/vintage/emerging church.” What we need is some visionaries to say let’s honor our heritage, not simply renew, but invent something that combines the good with the good.
It’s painful to totally disassemble, but I feel that what is going to “emerge” (excuse the word emerge! 🙂 is going to be something beautiful and dangerous.
Thanks for leading this charge!!!
January 5, 2010 at 7:29 pm
Chris
Interesting reflections, for sure. Not sure I agree with all your details, but the basic trajectory is right on.
For example, you talk about post-modernism and a rejection of a “theologically correct” rigidity, yet … yet post-modernism run amok can descend into complete relativism, and without theological consensus how do we have order within the church?
I see some Christians that talk an “open” and “post-modern” talk, but once you get under the surface of their language you find a pretty strongly-held consensus on everything from personal salvation (“accepting Jesus Christ”) to morality (a fairly traditional, conservative moral code) to global warming (“it’s all a big fat lie”) to prayer in schools (“the public schools are out to make atheists”) … Many of these folks may have rejected a liturgical purity and may have adopted a more open and welcoming worship and fellowship posture, but they hold tightly to a theological system that is anything but post-modern, and which holds firmly to well-defined, “theologically correct” vision of the church and world. Where I’m from, we call that “window dressing.”
Perhaps I’m just listening to evangelical charlatans, but that’s what I see … and I don’t buy it.
However, with regards to the denominational corporation, social media, new ways of being connectional …. yes, I largely agree with you. I think we need to find new ways of organizing for ministry, but we’ll always have organization, we’ll always have structures, and we’ll always have joys and challenges that come with them.
January 28, 2010 at 2:42 am
Linda Marlett
Has anyone read Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s futuristic comments on the new church in “Letters from Prison?” How does that description jive with what is being discussed?
Thanks for responding.
February 7, 2010 at 4:39 am
David Housholder
800 people have viewed this post. Thanks everyone for your contributions and comments.
I have always tried to get a feel for the climate, not just the daily weather, when it comes to big trends in society.
Sometimes with the church, there is genuine “climate change.” But since we live day-to-day, we miss seeing the forest for the trees.
This is not the first time “climate change” has come to the church–the church is the one of the very most resilient of all human institutions. She is remarkably tough and flexible.
Please go through the above comments and chime in wherever it is helpful.
She (the church) reinvents herself over and over.
Is this one of those times, or not?
Ecclesia semper reformanda.
-Martin Luther
“i.e. the Church perpetually reforms”
May 26, 2010 at 6:59 pm
Allen
Humans have a strong interest to belong to a group; we know there is strength in numbers. Most of us want to belong to groups with a purpose and/or cause we believe in. As part of this search, we assess whether the habits exhibited by the group are well established, trendy, or both.
When one thinks of national and international church organizations, the Catholic Church comes to mind. It seems to me the Catholic religion has retained its strength over the years as a result of its ritualistic nature, allowing its members to pass onto their children ‘the ways of the church.’ The Catholic Church also has a solid hierarchy structure from which to retain its corporate knowledge and viability. However, even the Catholic Church is not immune to erosion given the recent loss-of-trust issues with leadership in that organization.
To estimate where ‘churchdom’ is headed, I think an assessment of where today’s youth eventually wants to invest their ‘faith resources’ can give some insight. In general, I believe today’s youth wants to migrate to where life seems ‘real’, ultimately leading them to places where their faith practice seems practical rather than contrived, where they feel like family not an outsider. I think this reality approach to life puts extreme pressure on church bodies that cannot change with the times, including an insistence on a continual repeat of past faith-demonstration activities; life just moves too fast for today’s youth to bog itself down in liturgical nuances.
However, before casting one’s church lot on a worship environment and structure that is light and airy, I would recommend a consideration back to my initial observation that people like groups and the strength in numbers they represent. Light and airy brings with it both an agility to move, but the risk of being tossed aside in times of turbulence; in particular, turbulence that is caused within. A group can quickly unravel if its core of momentum is dispersed. A light and airy church, with aspirations of longevity, needs to periodically assess if it retains a purpose and/or cause people can believe in regardless of that group’s leadership.
May 27, 2010 at 4:06 am
David Housholder
The Rev. Jim Stuck will be stepping down as bishop of the Indiana-Kentucky Synod on June 6, when the synod assembly will elect his successor.
Here’s an excerpt from the final message that Stuck has asked to be shared with congregatons:
“At our churchwide assembly last August, we also made a decision to allow persons who are in same gender, committed relationships to serve as pastors in our church …
“This decision has caused some people and some congregations to say they can no longer be a part of the ELCA. Our mutual sharing in mission and ministry has been strained by this development and there is much grief being experienced in every part of the church.
“I am one who has felt this grief deeply. At the churchwide assembly I cried for three days. Not because I agreed or disagreed with our decision, but because I knew what this would do to my church. I knew this would tear us apart at every level.
“The last two days of the assembly I could barely worship, not able to even sing the hymns. These last few months have been the most painful of my 37 years in ministry.
“Also, not many days after the assembly, I lost my mother to death. This was a blessing for her, since she had suffered for many months. But for me, it felt like a double loss.
“Not only had I lost my mother whom I loved, but I had lost my mother church which I had grown to love through the years. This church, in which I was nurtured and nourished, in which I had served and for which I had great hopes, was falling apart right before my eyes.
“And as I prayed about this and meditated on what was happening to my church, I began to realize that this death of the church was not something that started with our decision last August.
“The church has been dying for many years. The church that I grew up in the 50’s and 60’s is gone. Our pews are half full. We have fewer and fewer young people. Many congregations no longer have a Sunday School. As our facilities age, the cost per person to maintain and run them is becoming prohibitive.
“It seems that fewer and fewer people are being called upon to do more and more of the work of the church. Many are feeling over worked and under appreciated. How long can we sustain our congregations, our synodical ministries and the wider church with all its ministries?”
August 7, 2010 at 7:40 am
Patrick Cabello Hansel
I think another dynamic in the development of denominations in the US is how immigrants integrated into the nation. For most of us, there is no memory of how much Swedes, Irish, Germans, Italians and everybody else tried to show they were “American”. Assimilation was the standard, some times enforced (for example, my father had the misfortune of going to kindergarten in 1917 speaking only German, when the US was at war with Germany, and teachers hit children for speaking German). I think we have that memory in our “DNA”, although most of it is not conscious.
In some ways, congregations and denominations became a place where immigrants could maintain their roots, while assimilating. It’s no coincidence that Swedish, German, Latvian etc was the language of worship of immigrants for a much longer time than it was the language of work, school and community. A lot of churches also intentionally preserved culture through folk classes, social events that were ethnic specific, etc. I think having the name “Lutheran” added to that sense of belonging to something from the “homeland” while acclimating to the new homeland.
This of course has been a barrier to evangelism and growth, especially in the Lutheran church, because certain worship forms–which were appropriate responses to the life of the people at the point they developed–are now considered normative. We’ve been slow to see how other equally valid worship forms are rising from the people today.
One more thought on what David shared on having people of color lead us. I think that a shift in the immigrant experience in the US today is that many new immigrants, especially Latinos, don’t see assimilation as the goal, but another style of integration, which doesn’t have a name yet. An example of that is that Latinos strive to learn English, gain education, start businesses here, while at the same time keep speaking Spanish and practice at least some of the cultural traditions of their homeland. I think that’s behind some of the furor over immigration and the “English only” movement. It’s not that Latinos don’t learn English–they do, pretty much in the same generational time frame that European immigrants did. It’s that they ALSO speak Spanish. Because many of us descendants of European immigrants have lost that connection to our past, we tend to get anxious. The result often is that we grab onto the more recent past (assimilation) instead of seeing the immigrant experience as our own, especially spiritually.
Note: I am not arguing for cultural expressions for the sake of adding a little “flavor” to our worship or mission. That can be condescending at best, and perpetuates the church as a club that is fun to go to, makes us feel safe, etc. What I’m trying to argue for is a recognition of our cultural captivity, and the gift of new immigrants to break that. Painful, that is, but liberating.
January 4, 2011 at 7:09 pm
Christian Salafia
Interesting points, to be sure, but I would be hesitant to start writing the obituary for national denominations just yet.
A recent story from Barna showed that, from his research, one of the top 6 trends is that Americans are becoming more and more theologically illiterate. My personal belief is that, aside from the growth of an ego-centric culture, is the rise of the non-denominational Megachurches over the last 10-15 years. One only has to look at pastors such as Osteen (no theological education) leading these churches and the inch-deep theology they teach to see why Americans are, well, theologically stupid.
To some degree, I think denominations are needed, particularly those with educational requirements, in order to combat illiteracy. I think that they need to figure out how to hold on to the traditions of the past while adapting to the ‘social media’ world of tomorrow. Oh, and by no means should the church emulate the world….. there’s already plenty of Megachurches around that do that.
My fear is that moving all the way towards non-denominationalism may exacerbate theological illiteracy….. what do you think?
January 4, 2011 at 9:15 pm
David Housholder
I think this trend causes theological education to take a hit.
That’s not all good.
And not all bad.
We may lose some of our grasp on the classics.
But more creativity could be opened up in this most demotic and connected age…