In decline, churches can find their true mission

By Karmel Puzzuoli, Communications Assistant to the Bishop.

The Episcopal Church made news again this summer for its inclusion of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered (LGBT) people at its General Convention in Indianapolis. Shortly thereafter, I received an email link from a friend (a proclaimed atheist) titled: “The Collapse of the Liberal Church.”

Oh, joy.

Margaret Wente of the Toronto Globe and Mail, wrote, “In the 1960s, liberal churches bet their future on becoming more open, more inclusive, more egalitarian and more progressive. They figured that was the way to reach out to a new generation of worshippers. It was a colossal flop.”

Other critics of the Episcopal Church cite a 25 percent drop in membership in the past decade because of its progressive approach to typical Christian outsiders.

While a decline in the size of the church is unfortunate, I’m fairly certain that truly liberal Christians are unconcerned.

Many liberal churches, even conservative churches that fall under traditional denominational labels (Methodist, Baptist, Presbyterian, Lutheran) have seen declines in membership. Bloggers and commentators are scrambling to figure it out. Can we blame the sexual revolution?  Busy, two-career families that have no time for church? Consumerism, materialism, multiculturalism and relativism? Mega-churches?

But in decline, and perhaps only in decline, can churches re-discover the true ministry and mission of Jesus, which was to be radically tolerant and helpful to those who are poor, sick, outcast and marginalized.

Today, Christian churches divide themselves by their own Biblical focus, some tending toward the Gospel teachings of service, while others lean into the epistles which emphasized more personal and societal living standards in a tenuous time of spreading Christianity throughout the ancient world.

Conflicts are there whether we address them or not, and there is tension in the Christian community over scriptural interpretation and integrity, which can be debated endlessly. Many liberal churches have come to believe that church growth depends on a mission-driven model that includes service to humankind as a guiding ethic with on-the-ground ministries that reach the underserved.

Churches have far too long been places of cultural and socioeconomic sameness, where people go to preserve their own comfort zone and worldview. Even liberal Christians, comprised primarily of well-educated whites, need to be careful of exclusivity and elitism in their ranks. (That was one point I’ll concede to Wente).

Gene Robinson, our first openly gay bishop, said in his sermon at General Convention, “[The Episcopal Church] will be asked to move on, because even LGBT work can’t be a tent that we live in forever. As soon as we get a real leg up on this thing, God is going to point out somebody else that we haven’t been paying attention to.”

The Episcopal Church has addressed LGBT concerns openly, to the detriment of some of its membership. Let’s hope that the time has come, or is near, to put the issue to rest, to take for granted that our LGBT brothers and sisters are welcome at the table.

But while we’ve been wringing our hands over LGBT issues, the poor are getting poorer, the sick are getting sicker, and the most marginalized members of society still await signs of hope. As the mother of an autistic child, I can tell you one of the most marginalized groups is people with developmental disabilities and cognitive impairments. Disabled people aren’t at the top of anyone’s list of priorities. There are a lot of people who need help whom we simply do not see.

Theologians and religious scholars sometimes debate whether Jesus came to establish a new religion, or to bring forth a new way of life to suffering people in a desperate and oppressive time. Christian history is larger than our present-day disagreements on  sexual orientation and gender identity. And I think the only reference we really need is that whenever Jesus was confronted with bigotry, sexism, classism, labels and prejudices, he used them as a teachable moment to reflect our own fallibility. It just makes sense, to me, to keep our feet on the ground, as he did.

This column ran in The Battle Creek Enquirer, the Kalamazoo Gazette, and was published in other newspapers' online editions.