Is the Church Exhausted?

This is based entirely on a sense of things that I have, not on any hard numbers, so it may be way off base. However, I think that some things can be sensed ‘in the air’ as opposed to being known empirically. An example of this is the Obama win. You could sense doom and defeat in the air for Republicans months before it actually happened. There was an air of opression and discouragement that I think you could sense in your spirit that said McCain was doomed.

I have the same feeling about the Church these days, or at least many sectors of it in America. Now, no one will accuse me of being an optimist. I am habitually a pessimist, and more so as I see the nation completely enveloped in what I would term a New Dark Age. But I don’t think my sense of the Church is based entirely on my own pessimism. My feeling is that the Church is in a spiritual Autumn, about to enter Winter.

I feel like things are creaking and listing to port, about to collapse. Many of us sense that things are wrong, often badly wrong, but we assume that we can muddle on and it will get sorted out at some point. But I’m starting to think that the problems we see are systemic and indicate a catastrophe on the horizon. By collapse, I mean people staying home in droves, children not inheriting the faith, and churches closing down as people die off.

As I said, I don’t have statistical trends to prove this thesis, it’s more of a feeling in my bones. I see factors like:

* People who quit church because they are tired of trying.
* People who attend, but only very sporadically because it’s obviously not a priority in their lives.
* Church growth seems to occur mainly through Christians changing churches, not from conversions.
* Our morality and way of life looks almost identical to the that of the world around us.
* Unfriendly churches. I’ve mentioned this before, but the cold shoulder that seems to be the norm at many, many churches when it comes to having people over or caring enough to talk to them tells me that church life is unsustainable.
* Theological infants. Even after decades of trying new approaches to getting people to be better disciples, it seems that the vast majority of Christians in America don’t want to get any deeper than Prayer of Jabez or Best Life Now. Christians are largely illiterate theologically and thus easily fall prey to all kinds of absurd and evil systems of thought.
* The age gap. It seems like most church-attenders are kids who have to go or adults who have always gone. Young families with kids are often hard to find. Young singles can also be very hard to find. Llikewise, the old seem to be missing from most Protestant churches, perhaps because they are church plants and don’t reach out to the elderly.
* A sheer lack of time to contribue meaningfully. In cities people drive a lot and have very little time with their family, much less free time to devote to church.

Add to this our slavish consumerism, hostile thought systems, church infighting, hypocritical leaders with huge moral failings and the opposition of principalities and powers and I think you have a Church that is in huge trouble.

No brand of systematic theology or liturgical choice can avert this crisis in my opinion. It is something that is coming from so many sides and in so many forms that it is hard to nail down and harder to fight. It feels like when the Shekinah presence of God departed the Temple in Jerusalem. The Temple stood, but the glory had departed. Remember a few short years ago when the housing boom was at its peak? You looked around and wondered how it could be sustainable, how could things keep going up? But you assumed that everyone knew what they were doing, so things would keep on keeping on. But some folks had a sense of foreboding about the future. They knew that implosion was coming. I have that same feeling in my heart about Protestant Church in the USA. Maybe it’s the same for Catholics and Orthodox, though I doubt it due to cultural factors.

I fear that in 20-30 years we will have far, far fewer churches. Orthodox (small o) churches will be few and far between. Our position in the world will be one of preserving and holding on to the faith. We will be in an America that resembles post-Christian Europe, where anything goes except God.

I hope I am wrong. I hope we will see a new evangelism and a strong faith that is advancing on every front. But that’s not what I sense right now.

UPDATE: not long after I posted this, the iMonk came out with something very similar, though in the form of a question, read it here. Reading the comments on his post just confirmed what I was thinking – the gnawing ennui out there is killing Church in the USA.