Mainline churches, ideologies and renewal

The United Reformed Church -- not to be confused with this denomination! -- was formed in 1972 with the merger of the Presbyterian and Congregational Churches in England. Since then other church bodies have joined the URC, making it in some respects similar to the United Church of Canada and similar mainline groups. It is a theoretically large composite denomination whose membership is greying and whose pews are gradually emptying. Typically such bodies are readier to make pronouncements on political issues than on even such basic doctrinal issues as the person and work of Christ.

Now I wouldn't wish unduly to impugn the significance of the URC's stance against racism and the British National Party. In fact, it in no way exceeds the mandate of ecclesiastical office to alert parishioners to the dangers to their spiritual health attendant upon accepting idolatrous ideologies. Yet such church bodies tend to be selective in choosing which ideological commitments to declare "incompatible with Christian discipleship." Racism is an easy target. It utterly lacks respectability and it was thoroughly discredited in the last century.

By contrast, it is much more difficult to find a consensus within such bodies against the blandishments of liberalism and its infatuation with the autonomous individual, particularly when this impacts issues of sexuality and the perimeters of life. The URC and similar groups will have more credibility when they take on the late liberal notion that the state exists to subsidize a multiplicity of individual choices irrespective of whether they answer to a normative order upheld by God.

My guess is that, because such composite churches have usually lost their sense of confessional identity, and because they further believe they have to take a stand on something, they are more likely to reach for those issues they believe to be less divisive. The irony is, of course, that, in focussing so heavily on concrete political issues, on which there is legitimate diversity of opinion, these denominations have effectively alienated substantial portions of their own flocks, thus contributing to their diminishing membership roles and their increasing irrelevance.

Is it possible to renew such churches? Absolutely, particularly on the local level. I don't know the URC at all well. But I do know there are vital congregations within the Anglican Church of Canada, the Presbyterian Church in Canada and the Presbyterian Church (USA). Renewing a church at the denominational level is more difficult, I am inclined to think. But, of course, nothing should ever be deemed impossible for the Holy Spirit.