Can We Moderate a Politicized Church Without Politics?

“I have been on paid staff at three Baptist churches,” writes Ryan P. Burge in his latest book, The Vanishing Church: How the Hollowing Out of Moderate Congregations Is Hurting Democracy, Faith, and Us. “At this moment,” he continues, “two of the three [churches] have closed their doors and the third is about 80 percent smaller than when I was attending services there two decades ago.” As a seasoned social scientist and former pastor, Burge has spent his career analyzing the critical state of the church in America. But this has been no mere academic exercise; Burge’s work has been part of his personal journey. Many pastors can identify with his struggles. Across America, a great ecclesial restructuring is happening as older mainline congregations are dying and evangelicals are sorting themselves into churches that share their personal convictions. “American religion,” Burge argues, “has become an ‘all or none’ proposition—conservative evangelical religion or none at all.” This zero-sum conservative religious turn has, in his view, pressed evangelical churches to the fringes, leaving “tens of millions of theological and political moderates with no place to find community and spiritual edification, or to work collectively to solve societal problems.” Read Full Article »