Fighting for the Soul of New England
October 30th, 2009 by Peter
“Evangelical churches target New England” is the scary-sounding headline of an AP story that appeared in yesterday’s papers. Readers of FIC Blog are by now familiar with the decline in religious faith nationally as well as in New England. How did our region go from the cradle of Christianity in the U.S. to the least churched region of the country? Here’s one possible reason:
Several groups trying to re-ignite New England’s faith are theologically conservative, such as the Southern Baptists, Presbyterian Church in America and the Conservative Baptists’ Mission Northeast. They say a reason for the region’s hollowed-out faith is a pervasive theology that departs from traditional Biblical interpretation on issues such as the divinity of Jesus, the exclusivity of Christianity as a path to salvation and homosexuality.
The Rev. Wes Pastor, head of the NETS Institute for Church Planting in Williston, Vt., said New England’s liberal mainline denominations, such as the United Church of Christ and the Episcopal Church, have been practicing a “different religion.”
“I’m not saying it to be snooty, but they have a different belief system and that belief system … is a profound departure from historic Christianity,” said Pastor, whose group trained Bass and supports his Baptist church.
Will this theory get any serious attention in the next Trinity study on religion? Don’t hold your breath.
To suggest that thesis can accurately explain the sharp declines in religious devotion over the last 20 years is ridiculous. You could attempt to make the argument if the UCC and Episcopal church made up anywhere near the majority of New England residents, but in reality the Catholic Church is most dominant in the region, at one point having 50% of the residents of New England. That not number has dropped to 36% for a number of factors, but not because the Catholic Church hasn’t been Conservative enough. It has only gotten more conservative over the last decade. In fact, I think the real problem is that the Catholic Church, along with the Evangelical Churches, have been letting bedroom issues and political dabblings overshadow their message of social justice. No longer do people associate the Catholic Church with helping the poor, or educating children, or caring for the elderly, they associate it with opposition to abortion, birth control, and Gays.
We have reached a point where people want the Church out of political life and out of the bedroom. If you sin in the bedroom it should be sin, not a crime. As long as the church is seen crossing that line religion becomes offensive, and the main message becomes not what you are for but what you are against. People like being part an institution that is for something positive, something that makes people’s lives better, that is not the message the church has been spreading.
[…] Fighting for the Soul of New England […]
Unfortunately people often hear what they want to hear, Adam. For the committed cynics, nothing we do will ever be good enough. On several occasions when I have tried to inform people of the good things my own Catholic communities have done, I have gotten shut down immediately and ridiculed for, basically, not being able to single-handedly solve all the world’s problems in the blink of an eye. There are wonderful Catholic writings that I come back to over and over for their beauty and fullness of joy, and recommend when appropriate, but I can’t make the horse drink, so to speak.