Theology,
as a function of the Christian Church, must serve the needs of the church. A
theological system is supposed to satisfy two basic needs: the statement of the
truth of the Christian message and the interpretation of this truth for every
new generation. Theology moves back and forth between two poles, the eternal
truth of its foundation and the temporal situation in which the eternal truth
must be received.
Paul
Tillich
Systematic Theology, vol. 1, p. 3
Paul Tillich begins his three-volume
Systematic Theology with the three
sentences which I have quoted above. The
content of what he says has to do with the simple idea of message and
situation. The Christian message is eternal (the gospel is unchanging); the
situation in which it is preached is always in flux, i.e. changing! This is the
problem which faces the Church today, i.e. how to go about effectively [emphasis mine] meeting these two needs. In the roughly
two thousand year existence of the Christian Church, I would venture to say that
in no other time has this problem of hermeneutics (interpretation) been so
difficult and yet so crucial as in the time in which we are presently living.
I am currently reading a history of
the period prior to what is called The Great War (WWI) which began in 1914. It
is entitled The War That Ended Peace: The
Road To 1914. The author, Margaret McMillan, makes this statement about the
situation in Russia
in the early 1900’s: “Modernity was challenging the old certainties in both the
rural and urban areas.” That observation could be made in spades about American
society in the 1950’s and 1960’s! That is the point which I have been
developing in my series of reflections grouped under the heading of A Different World. The challenge of
modernity! Of course the real issue is how institutions like the Church have
reacted to this challenge. I have been asking the question of why the Episcopal
and other Mainline Protestant churches seemed to be so poorly prepared when
great change arrived in the anti-authoritarian 1960’s.
********************************
It is natural for a person of my
age to be nostalgic about the church remembered from one’s formative years.
Marcel Proust, in the first volume of his famous novel Remembrance of Things Past described a village which he used to
visit as a boy:
“Those Combray streets – existing
in a remote corner of my memory,
are painted in colours very
different from those in which the world
is decked for me today.”
Marcel
Proust, Swann’s Way
Amen! I understand what Proust meant when he wrote those
lines! In my own personal experience, memories of an earlier, simpler world are
more vivid than the chaotic picture presented by the modernity (secularity) of
today. It is the contrast between then and now and an inner yearning to not
lose the meaning of that earlier time which makes our personal “remembrance of
things past” so compelling.
*********************************
In the first three installments of A Different World, I have set the stage
for this, the final piece. I have talked about my experiences – the church as I
remember it – in the relatively calm and stable years of the 1950’s. I have
also related the observations of three very astute German theologians
forecasting the impending secular crisis in the Church. I have talked about the
meteoric career of Bishop James Pike of the Diocese of California (where else?)
who was an abrasive messenger of change in the 1960’s. Finally, I have reported
in some detail the content of a 1962 book written by a Church of England Bishop
named John A.T. Robinson who also talked about secular change and the demands
with which it confronts the Church. Message
and Situation! Was the church listening when John Robinson came forward
with his message which in effect was: change or perish? I think that there is
scant evidence that it was.
I feel compelled to reveal part of
my hand at this point. When I ask the question about the church’s response to
the challenge of escalating change which began in the 1960’s, I have a
particular issue in which I am deeply interested. The church should have based
a plan of action on the awareness that whatever was done was going to greatly impact
the stability of the individual parish church. One of the major factors to be
considered should have been this question: Is this going to contribute to or
detract from the strength and success of the parish church. It is one thing to
issue statements from New York City;
it is quite another to be conscious of the effect of those statements and attendant
policies on parish churches in the Midwest and
elsewhere.
I remember hearing about a day in
the late 60’s or early 70’s which was called Black Friday. That was the fateful
day on which half of the employees at 815 Second Ave
in New York City (national
Episcopal Church headquarters) received pink slips. The people in the pews had
spoken (voted); the money had dried up! I am also reminded of that famous March
29, 1976 New Yorker cover by Saul Steinberg titled “New Yorker’s View of the
World” which depicted the known civilized world as ending at the Hudson
River. That picture said it all!
Perhaps these observations are too
cynical. I don’t think so! The statistics tell a depressing story. In 1958, the
United States
had a population of 180 million people and the Episcopal Church reported a
membership of over 3 million members. Today our country has in excess of 315
million people and some estimates of Episcopal Church membership place it at
less than 2 million. At any rate, it would seem that since the turmoil of the
1960’s our church has lost about 1/3 of its membership. I have heard all the
talk about these losses being “systemic” and always wondered whether those
putting forth that explanation of church membership decline had completely thought
through the implications. I still maintain that different policies could have
made a great difference in stemming these losses.
Let’s talk about the word
“systemic.” It is an important concept in the life of the Church. The
dictionary defines its root word “system” as being “an organized set of
doctrines, ideas, or principles usually intended to explain the arrangement or
working of a systematic whole.” Therefore, if we say that something is
“systematic,” it means that that ‘something’ (the church) is presented as a
coherent body of ideas or principles. What I see in the church today is far
from a clear picture of “a coherent body of ideas or principles.” Ambiguity is
more often the case. Perhaps coherence
is an impossibility today in what could easily be described as fragmented times.
Yet, possessing or, more importantly, being a system that is able to function
effectively would seem to be a absolute necessity for all institutions and
especially the church.
As an example, I would point to the
current uproar about the disorder and ineffectiveness of the hospitals being
operated by the Veterans Administration. Everyone has agreed that this
inability to function properly is a systemic problem and there is a hue and cry
demanding that the broken system be fixed. I would say the same thing about the
church. If we have a systemic problem which appeared in the 1960’s and led to
membership decline - as so many have claimed – what was proposed to fix it?
I have thought a great deal about
this. In thirty-six years of parish ministry in three dioceses, I cannot
remember a clergy gathering at which systemic failure was seriously discussed
or even admitted. I also have to say that, much to my surprise, no bishop
making a yearly parish visitation during my parish years ever broached this
subject and suggested that changes needed to be made in the way the church did
business if the church was going to be effective in its mission, preaching the
gospel. (Remember Bishop Robinson’s thesis in Honest to God!) I wish a bishop would have sat down with me in one
of my parishes and said, “Rich, here’s the plan. This is what I want the face
of the Episcopal Church to be in your community. We will periodically review
your progress in developing this program.” (This statement will probably
surprise people but Episcopal Seminaries, in my time, had no courses in parish
administration or program development.)
I attended three General
Conventions as a deputy. Were there serious discussions about addressing the
message & situation issue? I don’t remember any. A measure of triumphalism
is always a part of general convention. The revision of the Book of Common
Prayer in 1979 and the Hymnal 1982 were attempts to modernize the liturgy.
These changes had little or no positive effect on membership numbers. There
were people who left the church over the revision of the prayer book.
In the late 1980’s, the church, recognizing that
it had a declining membership problem, instituted the Decade of Evangelism to
run throughout the 1990’s and an Evangelism office was set up to assist the
effort. Some wag at the time observed
that for the church to have a department of evangelism was like the Penn
Central having a department of railroads. Nothing happened with the Decade of
Evangelism. For some inexplicable reason, the church has had little modern experience
or even familiarity with one of the
central concepts of Christianity, evangelism. Another unrealistic attempt to
address the problem was made at the turn of the millennium with the 20/20
program which had the goal of doubling church membership by 2020. I haven’t
heard anything about that for many years?
I have always preached and advanced
the proposition that the church, by design, presents the face of a different
culture to the world. There is secularity and there is sacredness, to put it
another way. That difference needs to be maintained. The church (to quote
Dietrich Bonhoeffer) cannot just be an easy extension of secularity! The church
needs to offer an alternative life style to people. This is an important
mission and it happens for the most part in the parish church. This is the crucial
part of the system which in my mind needs to be redesigned.
The Parish Church
Since the individual parish (or mission) is
the basic unit of
the Church’s life, it is clear that the health
of the Church
depends upon the health of this unit. It is at the parish level
that the
great battle of the Church’s life is fought. If we
succeed here, developing strong and
thriving parishes, we
succeed everywhere; if we fail here we fail everywhere.
The
Rt. Rev. Richard S.M. Emrich
Diocese
of Michigan
The
paragraph quoted above is the beginning of an address delivered in the
mid-1950’s by Bishop Richard Emrich to wardens and Bishop’s Committee chairmen
of the Diocese of Michigan. The entire address was so popular that it was
published in booklet form in 1956 with the title the five marks of a healthy parish. I consider the opening
sentences to be prophetic words which should have been taken more to heart by
the church.
I believe
that people need the experience of living their lives in a healthy parish
church which draws them deeper and deeper into the life of Christ. As a part of
that experience, the people have the right to expect stimulating liturgy and
good preaching. These two elements are essential. They also have the right to
expect that their parish will have a well rounded program of activity designed
to draw them deeper into the common life of the parish. We used to use the
SWEEPS acronym to describe these activities: Service, Worship, Education,
Evangelism, Pastoral Care, & Stewardship.
At this
point I propose to develop an analogy. Everywhere we go in the United
States we see the same stores and the same
restaurants. They are franchises. During the 20th century, the idea
to duplicate successful marketing outlets really captured the public
imagination, particularly in the fast food business. One can drive down streets
in cities all over our country and they all look the same. There’s a Burger
King, there’s McDonalds, there’s an Olive Garden, there’s Wendy’s, there’s a
Dairy Queen, there’s a Pizza Hut and on and on ad infinitum. All of these companies sell a food product which has
proven to be successful in the market place. When you enter one of these
stores, one knows what to expect.
I would suggest that one way to
look at the organization of the Episcopal Church is to consider the individual
parish churches as local franchises operating because they are licensed by
their regional authority (the diocese) to do so. They are given the opportunity
to market a product (the gospel). Part of their obligation as a franchisee is
to pay an annual licensing fee called an assessment. When you visit a local
Episcopal franchise, can you expect that there is a uniformity of product
offered similar to what one would expect when you walked into a McDonalds? I
think that here we are on shaky ground. There isn’t much uniformity and that is
something of a problem.
During my thirty-six year career in parish
ministry, I was associated with four parishes of varying sizes. One was a
corporate sized church, two were pastoral size, and one was a family church. I
am using the sizing criteria developed by Arlin J. Rothauge. It is described in
a pamphlet titled Sizing Up A
Congregation for New Member Ministry. He also wrote a follow up piece
titled Reshaping a Congregation for a New
Future. A smart guy!
During all my time in parish
ministry, no bishop making an annual visitation ever asked me for a realistic
assessment about how things were going and about our progress in important
common church life areas like the children’s Sunday school, adult education,
pastoral care, home visitation, liturgy, and annual fund raising campaigns to
name a few. No bishop ever heard me preach a sermon. How did they know that any
of this was going on and how did they know the quality of the product being
offered to the people. Each parish by canonical requirement fills out
an annual parochial statistical report and submits it to the diocesan office
which then forwards it to the national church offices. No one ever called me to
talk about those statistics which included both financial and attendance &
participation numbers. My point is this.
Where were the standards to hold me and the parish accountable for the
mission of the church? There should have been a clearer defined system to
regulate and direct how we were doing business. I am certainly sensitive to the
idea that it is always convenient & easy to be critical of the bishops. However, they
as a group are stuck with one problem. The Greek word “episcopas” means
oversight. It’s defines their responsability! Can you imagine a regional supervisor for McDonald’s
visiting one of their stores and not looking at the books, inspecting the
premises, evaluating the quality of management, and then giving the place a
grade?
Having mentioned McDonald’s, I will
expand the franchise analogy a bit. The story of the history of this
corporation is well worth reading. It is contained in a book titled McDonald’s: Behind the Golden Arches by John F. Love. Most people should have
some familiarity with the story. Most of us have been in countless McDonald’s
store over the years.
McDonald’s
In the early 1950’s a pair of
brothers opened a restaurant in Southern California
offering inexpensive “fast” food. The place was called McDonald’s. It did a
land office business day and night and it eventually came to the attention of a
milk shake mixer salesman named Ray Kroc who very quickly saw in the McDonald
brothers’ success the business opportunity which he had been looking for all
his life. To make a long story short, he bought the franchising rights from the
McDonald brothers and set out to change the eating habits of the American
public who, he was convinced, would just love the idea of going to a
McDonald’s. He was right! Today there are over 35,000 McDonald’s franchises
worldwide. When Ray Kroc died in January of 1984 at the age of 81, his personal
estate was worth over 600 million dollars. However, the road to that kind of
success was not easy.
Ray Kroc had his own ideas about
the correct way to run a restaurant and he always insisted that things be done
a certain way, i.e. his way. The McDonald’s franchise philosophy was different
than their competitors in the field. Other franchisers were mainly interested
in the franchise fees paid by the local owners. They were committed to making
money off of those selling their products. Kroc had a different idea of
success. He felt that his corporation had a personal stake in the success of
each and every store. He went out of his way to help the local franchises reach
the level of success that he knew was possible for them and he would often
waive franchise fees until that success level was reached. Ray Kroc insisted
that every store be run the same way and present an identical face to the
public. There was no local option. It was the McDonald’s way or the highway. There
were always individuals who thought that they knew better than Ray Kroc and
wanted to change the menu by adding additional items. They wanted to buck the
system. He got rid of the mavericks by not renewing their leases or buying them
out. If Ray Kroc visited a McDonald’s and found it dirty, the wrath of God
descended upon the franchisee.
Kroc was not a restaurant person
and really knew nothing about hamburgers. He was a marketing genius. He knew
how to sell a product and he did it with an established system. Ray Kroc
instituted severe operating standards and he was intense about enforcing them.
He had a formula which was used to evaluate McDonald’s stores. It was called
QSC and it has become the universal symbol of performance in the fast food
business. It stands for Quality – Service – Cleanliness. Every franchise was
evaluated once a year by being subjected to a performance audit in which they
were given a grade of A, B, C, D or F in these categories. I wonder what would
happen in Episcopal parishes if such an audit were made. I would make the
observation half in jest/half in seriousness that parishes in the Episcopal
Church would be a lot better off if Ray Kroc (or someone like him) would have
been the presiding bishop in the 1970’s. Why do I say this? Because he
understood the changes in American society which began to emerge in the 1950’s
and he could sense what the American public wanted. They wanted inexpensive
good tasting food served quickly in a clean, family oriented restaurant. He
gave the American public exactly that. Ray Kroc had a formula for success and
he did not and would not compromise his operating principles! What does the
American public want in a parish church. Do we know?
Perhaps using an analogy of
McDonald’s and the Episcopal Church offends some people, but the church is also
in the business of selling ideas, beliefs & values and a way of life. We
could have used a marketing expert. The reason the church could have used that
expert is the fact that during the second half of the twentieth century,
American society changed dramatically around the issue of personal choice. Old
loyalties (like generational church membership) went out the window. For me
this change is epitomized in the Burger King commercial which promises: “Have
it your way!” Today Americans do want it their way. It is a difficult
proposition to convince them otherwise. Indeed! The hardest sell in the church
today is getting people to accept an authority other than their own needs and
wants.
Conclusion
I began this reflection by quoting Paul Tillich. I will
close with a quote from Wolfhart Pannenberg, another eminent 20th
century German theologian. In a small book titled An Introduction to Systematic Theology he states:
The
fundamental question in the history of Christianity is
why a person
should commit themselves to be a member of
the Christian Church?
This is an especially difficult question to answer today
because of the strong and aggressive modern challenges to Christian doctrine.
Those “challenges” are: 1) the rise of modern science as a secular
interpretation of reality, human life, and history; 2) the modern criticism of
all forms of arguing by recourse to authority (authority & reason in
opposition). The Church is still left with the responsibility of developing a
systematic theology presenting a coherent model of the world as God’s creation.
I have in these reflections attempted to take a long look at the world of my
experience and make some observations about how the church has handled the
modern challenges during my lifetime.
I will
readily admit that it is easy with the benefit of hindsight to look back at the
past fifty years in the church and be critical of action or inaction. The
question of what should have been done, what decisions should have been made is
still difficult. I think that a starting point could have been to break the
problem into a dichotomy: 1) the church should have stood fast on its beliefs
and defended its doctrine (Here I stand, I can do no other) or, 2) the church
should have completely modernized and secularized itself (If you can’t beat
them, join them). The answer to this either/or probably lies somewhere in the
middle which has been, since the Protestant Reformation, a comfortable and
convenient position for Anglicans (the Middle Way).
But is that way effective today? That is the important question! What is
effective today? What will people buy? What will being them back to the Church and
compel them to make meaningful commitments to Jesus?
