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Politics and the Elderly: Toward a Sharing of Resources

Inequities in the distribution of what have come to be called "entitlements" need to receive more attention in American society. The disproportion of public funds paid to the elderly as over against payments and services to children is a scandal, but almost nobody is scandalized. A look at the facts and a little speculation concerning the consequences of the disparity are in order.

In the discussion that follows, my indebtedness to Philip Longman’s Born to Pay: The New Politics of Aging in America (Houghton Mifflin, 1987) is substantial. Longman identifies the key fact by quoting a 1977 study by economists Spencer Spengler and Robert Clark: "Expenditures for the elderly at all levels of government exceed the amount spent on children, age seventeen and under, including the total amount spent on public education, by more than three to one." Noting that "the disparity is much larger today," Longman states that "Social Security pensions and Medicare pensions have become much more generous while welfare and educational programs for the young have been cut. " He adds: "At the federal level, the disproportion is about ten to one. "

Public apathy explains the inadequate emphasis that the presidential candidates gave to education in the recent campaign. Neither candidate acknowledged that the U.S. is falling behind other industrial democracies because our educational standards have slumped, particularly in mathematics and science. Our nation is suffering and will suffer more from our comparative neglect of our children. Neither the public nor the government takes seriously the findings of several national commissions which have deplored this neglect of the younger generation.

Reasons for the disparate treatment of the old and the young include the simple fact that elders vote and children do not. Entitlements for the elderly have become the sacred cow of American politics. Officeholders and candidates threaten entitlements at their peril. One of the most powerful lobbies in Washington is run by the 29-million-member American Association of Retired Persons—which Newsweek recently described as "the big gray money machine."

According to Newsweek, the AARP net earnings in 1987 were $32 million, tax free, on total revenues of $232 million. The AARP’s biggest earnings come from selling health insurance for the Prudential Insurance Company. The organization keeps 4 percent of the premiums, and last year its income from that source alone was $67 million. It also sells automobile insurance for Allstate and promotes travel. Expenses include $70 million for publicity, which covers the cost of producing Modern Maturity magazine. With a circulation of 16 million, the monthly ranks next to among top-selling magazines. A monthly newsletter is also published for AARP members.

The AARP keeps a wary eye on those who think the organization should pay taxes on its profits. So far it has succeeded, with the help of Representative Claude Pepper (D., Fla.) and others, in evading Internal Revenue Service taxes. It would be interesting to know why Newsweek did not mention the organization’s extensive lobbing activity in Washington. It would seem that such activity on the part of the second-largest organization in the United States (the largest being the Roman Catholic Church) would be worthy of some scrutiny.

Another reason for the disproportionate public expenditure on the elderly is the population’s greater longevity. Says Longman: "In 1900 only four percent of Americans had managed to reach the age of sixty-five or older.... In recent years life expectancy among the elderly has been increasing faster than any other age group. " A recent pension fund bulletin states that "in 1950 among those who reached sixty-five and older only one in eight could expect to reach their ninetieth birthday. Today one in four Americans who have reached the age of sixty-five will live to see their ninetieth birthday. In fact, the group of Americans eighty and over is growing five times faster than the rest of the population...In about two decades this segment of the population will double in size."

A hundred years ago when Chancellor Bismarck in Germany established the first social security system, he set the retirement age at 65 because only a small minority reached that age. When President Franklin Roosevelt created the U.S. Social Security System 53 years ago, the median life expectancy was 63.7 years. So it was not expected that the number of people claiming pensions would be large. But now the over-65 contingent is 12 percent of the population and is growing rapidly. The pressure on legislators to keep up the so-called entitlements has become a powerful political force.

A third reason for the skewing of our national financial priorities lies in the peculiar nature of the Social Security System. As of now, workers are taxed 7.15 percent of their salaries, and their employers pay an equal amount. The total of the two halves of this tax is soon to reach 15 percent. The income from it is divided into three funds: 70 percent goes to the Old Age and Survivors Insurance Fund, 20 percent into Medicare and Hospital Assistance and 10 percent into a fund for disabled workers of any age. In 1983 the expenditure on senior citizens over 65 was $217 billion, or about $7,700 per claimant. Wages under $2,000 are not subject to taxes. (People earning over $45,000 are taxed 7.5 percent of their income.) In 1983 monthly checks went out to 34.2 million persons.

What happens to the money collected each year on the payroll tax? According to Philip Rowland, under current law the Social Security Administration must spend the entire sum within the year it is collected. First, the millions of claimants receive their entitlements. All money in excess of their claims must be turned over to the U.S. Treasury. Says Rowland: "The Treasury in turn uses the funds either to reduce the government’s current deficits or to finance the government debt." To recompense the Social Security administration, the Treasury issues long-term government bonds in the amount it borrows. These bonds, which draw interest, are being held by the Social Security administration until they come due in the 21st century. At that time, where will the government find money to redeem its bonds, which in effect are promissory notes? It must be provided by the taxpayers of that distant day—by the children of the babyboomers. So the discrimination in entitlements now imposed on the young will be imposed on them in another form when they become taxpayers.

"Any funds Social Security lends to the Treasury are supposed to be returned with interest," Rowland points out. Even at a low rate of interest, the obligation will double when it accumulates over many years. According to Rowland, it is future taxpayers who will be liable for the IOU’s, "come what may." If Social Security does not receive back the money it lends, along with the agreed interest, the Old Age, Medicare and disability funds will go broke that much sooner. An article in the September 29 issue of the Los Angeles Times predicts that "although tax revenue from workers will continue to exceed payments to retirees until 2030, that will change radically as the baby-boom hordes begin to reach retirement age." The article also notes that the Social Security administration will collect $262 billion in taxes in 1988 from workers and their employers. It will spend $222 billion for entitlements; "the remaining $40 billion will go into a special bond issue legally isolated from other government programs."

American society has enough problems without adding a struggle between generations, but such a struggle will come unless we recognize and deal with what is happening. Whereas 3.2 persons’ payroll taxes now support each elderly pensioner, the decline in the birthrate ensures that for every pensioner only three or perhaps two persons will be paying into Social Security in the years when today’s workers arrive at the age to collect their pensions. While the wage level may continue to rise, that is not at all certain.

Wages depend in the last analysis upon productivity, and productivity depends upon the education and training of the producer. Educational standards in the U.S. have been falling. Many high school graduates cannot read or write at the level needed in an economy dominated by high technology. A situation in which fewer and more poorly educated wage earners are called upon to support a larger number of elderly nonproducers is clearly in prospect. Future taxpayers can carry the load only if they are equipped with a higher level of education. And if we are to have more sophisticated workers, a larger proportion of the nation’s resources must be devoted to improving education.

It also means that the moral question involved in the present inequity must be faced. It is simply not right for today’s elderly to appropriate for themselves resources and prerogatives in a way that discriminates against their own children and grandchildren. It is not right for the young to be born into a situation in which they will be taxed to support their elders at a higher standard of living than they can possibly have when they reach retirement age.

The importance of equal treatment of the young has been raised by several educational and financial groups. In 1981 the National Commission on Excellence in Education was appointed by Secretary of Education T. H. Bell. Eighteen eminent persons studied the problem and reported in 1985 that "our nation is at risk." The commission did not mince words:

Our once unchallenged pre-eminence in commerce, industry, science and technical innovation is being overtaken by competitors throughout the world. . . . The educational foundations of our society are presently being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a nation and a people. What was unimaginable a generation ago has begun to occur—others are matching and surpassing our educational attainments. . . . We have done it to ourselves—squandered the gains made after Sputnik, dismantled our educational support systems.

The tone of grave concern runs throughout the report, yet its impact on our government has been negligible.

This commission, which included the president of Yale University, teachers and officials of leading educational organizations, did not regard our situation as hopeless:

We do not believe that public commitment to excellence in educational reform must be made at the expense of a strong public commitment to the equitable treatment of our diverse population. The twin goals of equity and high-quality scholarship have profound and practical meaning for our economy and society, and we cannot permit one to yield to the other in principle or in practice. To do so would deprive young people of their chance to live and learn according to their aspirations and abilities. It also would lead to an accommodation to mediocrity in our society or to the creation of an undemocratic elitism.

The commission’s conclusion made one point of special relevance to the elderly: "The search for solutions for our educational problems must also include commitment to life-long learning." The dynamic nature of modern society requires nothing less. The report notes that education must prepare the 1.5 million young people who graduate each year from some level of schooling to join their elders in continuous striving for new attainments. This applies to the "seventy-five per cent of the work force now employed [who] will still be working in 2000 A.D. All will need further education and retraining if we as a nation are to achieve and prosper. The goal is a learning society—learning more as the world itself changes."

Commitment to lifelong learning does not exclude the elderly. The old dream of retirement as a period of purposeless drifting or obsessive pursuit of little white golf balls is giving way to more creative energy. After they retire, businesspeople often help younger people to start businesses or to solve problems. Ministers volunteer to serve churches or social organizations. Some lawyers serve as reconcilers or arbitrators to keep disputes out of court. Colleges and universities find many older people in classes. Women are often more successful than men in making constructive use of their time, which may help explain why they generally live longer than men. With so many women joining the work force, the wide spectrum of volunteer organizations is increasingly dependent on older citizens for service as well as support.

Commitment to lifelong learning exists, but it could be stronger among the elderly—and it will be stronger when we elderly discover and employ better ways to share our resources and power with the children of America. We know how to use political processes for our own advantage. Now we must learn how to use political power to bring equal advantages to our children’s children. The Social Security Act should be amended to include provisions for children’s health and welfare. A cutback in Social Security’s cost-of-living adjustment would save $5 to $10 billion a year, says Roger Strauss, cochair of a bipartisan commission seeking ways to reduce the national budget deficit. Stopping Social Security payments to the rich would save more. Raising the retirement age would also help. Such steps would free funds which could be used to lift the level of excellence in the education of the young, thereby restoring balance and establishing equity. Reordering priorities would only begin with Social Security. For us, the aged, the question is: Do we care enough to share?

Economics for the Earth

A Review of The Earthist Challenge to Economism: A Theological Critique of the World Bank, by John B.Cobb Jr., St. Martin's, l92 pp. $65.00

Since the World Bank affects poor people around the globe more directly than any other social institution, John Cobb's exploration is important for anyone concerned about how Christians can creatively engage economic issues and trends. Cobb thinks the pursuit of continued economic growth within an integrated, liberalizing, market-based global economy will lead to increased social injustice and ecological destruction. Only through a fundamental shift to an environmental theology of "earthism" and a rejection of global economic integration in favor of more self-sufficient local economies can we avert this doom. The World Bank could be an important agent in that conversion.

Cobb views history as a series of epochs, each ordered by a dominant social institution. Each epoch moves through a dialectical period of development and demise, of fruitful construction and self-aggrandizing destruction. In each period the dominant institution -- church, government or the economy -- develops an ideology that functions as that society's "shared religion." The excesses of this ideology lead to the demise of the dominant institution and the rise of another.

During the medieval period, the church's dominance developed into the inordinately self-serving ideology of "Christianism." Christianists devoted themselves to "the advancement of Christianity as the one, most perfect way of serving God." At its extreme, this ideology deprived believers of ordinary human enjoyments and freedoms and resulted in the persecution of unbelievers.

As social power and authority shifted from the church to the state, nationalism developed its own self-aggrandizing tendencies and even assumed the ideological role of religion. When the evils of rampant nationalism threatened civilization, most markedly in the excesses of fascism, power shifted to economic institutions. The creation of the United Nations marked this shift, as did the emergence of institutions for economic integration, most notably the European Economic Community (now the European Union). Most important of all was the establishment of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (the World Bank) and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (now the World Trade Organization) at the 1944 Bretton Woods Conference in New Hampshire.

According to Cobb, these multilateral economic institutions were created "to further trade throughout the world and, thereby, economic prosperity. This involves reducing the ability of national governments to regulate their own economies. The assumption is that all people will be better off if market forces replace national policies as the primary determinants of international trade." A primary consequence of this paradigm shift is that private sector corporations, especially global ones, have become the dominant social institution.

"Economism," the "belief that primary devotion should be directed to the expansion of the economy," has become the ideology ordering our thought and action. This theory holds that "large markets allow for greater specialization and economies of scale along with adequate competition to establish optimum prices. The ideal is a global market." Government's role is to encourage competition, reduce the barriers to economic activity between nation-states, and provide the appropriate infrastructure to enable business to prosper. The creed of economism is that "economic growth improves the general economic well-being of people."

According to Cobb's dialectical view of history, "economism" will bring about its own ideological and institutional demise because of its inherent inability to meet the needs of society. Its gradual destruction not only of human communities but also of the environment will cause it to fail. This ideological and institutional failure will then generate the movement toward a new epoch, which Cobb characterizes as "earthist."

Earthists "see the health of the Earth, including its human inhabitants, as of supreme importance." Thus, "instead of dominating the Earth, the economy should serve the well-being of the system as a whole. Doing so certainly includes meeting human needs. But the goal is to meet those needs in ways that disrupt and degrade the overall system as little as possible." Cobb argues that an earthist position will move us toward smaller-scale, decentralized, localized and self-reliant economic activities. We will move from ecologically damaging practices toward a "sustainable development" that minimizes, if not halts, ecological harm and reduces levels of material consumption.

Cobb's deep interest in the work and prospects of the World Bank is shaped in large part by his hope that it will "lead the world beyond economism to earthism." He argues that the bank's "economist" mission and practices have made it both a problematic participant in and a hopeful transformer of our epochs dangerous and misguided ideology. He is evenhanded in acknowledging the positive and negative consequences of World Bank lending on its loan recipients.

Initially, the bank's program for alleviating global poverty was dominated by a strategy of economic growth, measured primarily in terms of GDP and channeled largely through big projects aimed at infrastructure development that benefited the rich more than the poor. But as early as the '70s, when Robert McNamara was its president, the bank began to depart from this approach. It began to focus on "moral considerations" that included, for instance, an emphasis on rural development and programs aimed directly at the poor. During the global debt crisis of the '70s, Cobb claims, the World Bank's lending prevented net capital flows from shifting from the South to the North. But at the same time the bank's lending criteria tended to be so soft that they did not generally result in the capital expansion that would permit less developed countries to pay back those loans. Hence, over time, increased levels of debt only exacerbated the poverty they were meant to alleviate.

Similarly, Cobb interprets the IMF-initiated structural adjustment plans (SAPs) that swept across the world in the '80s and early '90s as yet another chapter in the Bretton Woods institutions' efforts to further a generally unhealthy global economism. These plans promoted "a definite economic agenda, that of neoliberalism, with strong political implications." They typically emphasized such measures as reducing the size of public sector employment, tightening money supplies to control inflation, and reducing trade barriers to stimulate cross-border competition. Through such measures they tried to create the macroeconomic conditions deemed essential to economic growth in a liberalized, market-based global economy. The goal of SAPs, then, is not to reduce poverty in less developed countries (instead, poverty typically has increased), but "to maintain the global system of trade and finance as the orderly basis for economic growth everywhere."

At the same time, gradual but morally significant modifications began to find their way into the mission and funding priorities of the World Bank. More attention was given to the poor and their needs and to environmental protection. Much of this change resulted from the pressure applied to the World Bank by various nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) during the past 20 years. NGOs became "convinced that large-scale, top-down development concentrates wealth in fewer hands, transfers power to TNC's {transnational corporations], destroys traditional communities rather than developing them, disempowers the poor, and degrades the environment."

NGOs operate with at a more broadly conceived idea of human well-being. "The health of human and natural communities is more important to such well-being than the amount of average consumption of goods and services by individuals. The people to be helped are especially the poor, and they are helped best by empowering them to help themselves. Although governments are often corrupt, there is a better chance of popular concerns being expressed through them than through TNC's; so power should not be transferred to the latter."

Cobb, then, presents us with two starkly different conceptual models of economic development for the poor, one primarily economistic, one primarily earthist. The choice, as he presents it, is obvious. If economism implies that economic life ought to be arranged so that the poor get poorer and the natural environment continues to be degraded, and if earthism affirms that we should try to organize economic life so that global poverty is ameliorated and the health of the natural environment is protected and sustained for future generations, then we all ought to become earthists and so ought the World Bank.

Concern for the poor and for the earth indeed must be fundamental both to Christian faith and to the ordering of economic institutions as we move into 21st century. Yet this concern need not lead one to accept all of Cobb's particular prescriptions for either the World Bank or for global economic life. Cobb's own description of the bank's substantial modifications and transformations in recent years (e.g., a shift to poverty-focused projects, to grassroots public participation in its projects, and to environmental considerations) sometimes makes his discussion of paradigm shifts seem excessively abstract and contrived. His evenhanded and clear presentation of evidence allows readers to form conclusions that counter his. Perhaps the World Bank has changed so much that it no longer deserves the economist label. Indeed, Cobb applauds the bank's current president, James Wolfensohn, for espousing the kinds of values and pushing the bank to embody the kinds of funding priorities that could demonstrate "an earthist paradigm for development."

Cobb and others have not offered sufficient and compelling evidence that a more decentralized, localized, self-sufficient world economy would lead to less poverty and environmental destruction. Indeed, growing evidence suggests that a more globally integrated, market-based economic order, coupled with well-functioning democratic governments that effectively regulate the social and ecological impact of private behavior, can create a social order that will more effectively alleviate poverty and protect the environment. Some would argue that current trends toward "sustainable development" are becoming so prominent and pervasive within both government and corporate practices as to suggest that the global market economy, at least in democratic, industrialized countries, itself could be in the midst of a pervasive paradigm shift.

For instance, as technological innovations become more able to create economic benefits while minimizing, if not eliminating, environmental harm, the integrated web of global economic relationships may help to hasten the process of global "greening." Some large industrializing nations such as China might, through the adoption of environment-friendly technologies, be able at least partially to avoid the environmental degradation that accompanied Western industrial development.

Some of us will continue to risk being labeled "economistic" in our hopes for an effectively regulated, ecologically sustainable, global market economy. At the same time, all of us can be enriched and inspired by central aspects of Cobb's "earthist" theology and ethics, most notably his central claim that "the Earth is a far more inclusive and suitable object of devotion than Christianity, a nation, or economic growth." Cobb's concluding doxology is that "Jesus points us to the God who is the God of all creatures and who is served through the service of all creatures. For practical purposes this directs us to the Earth with all its inhabitants, especially the human ones, as the locus of our Christian service." .

Connecting Ministry with the Corporate World

For some people religious life and business practice are integrally related in a creative tension. For others-both clergy and business professionals-the worlds of church and corporate life are galaxies apart, separated by ignorance, hostility, apathy, language, interests, values. But to profess Christ and participate in the Christian community requires us to affirm a connection between faith and economic life. The faith of the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures is that God is ruler of all creation and all realms of human life-economic, political, cultural and personal. To assert otherwise is to suggest that the God of the Scriptures is but a god among gods with competing spheres of sovereignty.

To profess Christ as Lord of all is to suggest that God's kingdom penetrates all of life and that the moral demands of discipleship-love, justice, faithfulness-reach into every system and institutional arrangement. To affirm such a universalism of faith requires us to denounce dichotomies like "sacred and secular," which can provide conceptual crutches for the artificial compartmentalization of faith and various spheres of life. Whatever our occupation, each of us is called to a vocation of service to neighbor and community, be we priest or hangman, as Luther said. The U.S. Catholic bishops affirm the connection eloquently in Economic Justice for All when they write, "To worship and pray to the God of the universe is to acknowledge that the healing love of God extends to all persons and to every part of existence, including work, leisure, money, economic and political power and their use, and to all those practical policies that either lead to justice or impede it."

Neither church nor business is monolithic. The pluralism of theologies and ecclesiologies makes it difficult to generalize about ministry. The multifaceted texture of American corporate life and practice and the enormous diversity of people's experiences within business make it difficult also to generalize about ministry to the business world. Our different foundational notions of God and church as well as our various empirical impressions of the corporate world inform our models of ministry to business.

When the primary posture of the church's ministry to the corporate world is a critical, prophetic one of denouncing corporations for their alleged ills and failings, business can seem utterly godless. The other extreme is an uncritical accommodation to corporate culture, assuming its practices are fully consistent with God's intentions for the world. Business becomes a god.

Both attitudes are theologically and descriptively unsatisfactory. As we are both saints and sinners, so our social institutions embody both good and evil-at the same time. Somewhere in between these two extreme approaches lies a proper connection between the church and the world of business, a relationship of critical, healthy, lively tension that is both prophetic and supportive, critical and constructive, challenging and affirming. Such ministry embraces both the radical transformative demands of love and the prudent recognition of the permanence of sin in the human heart and in the structures of society.

At the Center for Ethics and Corporate Policy we have sponsored an annual clergy education project that attempts to enhance clergy sensitivity to economic and workplace realities. For part of the program, clergy spend a day in the workplaces of one or two congregants. This permits clergy to see how faith might connect to work in practical ways and also to gain insight into the ethical dilemmas inherent in corporate life. In all cases, the executives claim that this is the first time their clergy have visited them at work. In most cases, clergy say this is the first time they have set foot in their congregants' workplaces. In all cases, clergy say the experience heightens their own understanding of the realities laity face as they attempt to be Christians in the corporate world.

We try to operate with certain principles about the nature of ministry to the corporate world. First, one should engage in such ministry with humility and open-mindedness. While Scripture and the Christian tradition have much to say about discipleship, they provide neither a blueprint for the rapidly changing, increasingly global economic order nor easy answers to the myriad of ethical issues in modern corporate practice: work force reductions, plant closings and corporate restructuring, corporate governance, the role of women and minorities within organizations, concern for sustainable ecosystems, relationships with local communities, business-government relations and the reality of multinational businesses. Scriptural norms, principles and visions of life are often articulated in highly poetic, paradigmatic, allegorical, even cryptic language that does not lend itself to easy application. Scripture articulates general norms of love, justice and community, often conveyed in concrete narrative illustrations, but rarely provides the systemic and institutional strategies and tactics to accomplish those ends in a complicated technological age.

Second, one should engage in ministry with businesspeople as a listener and mutual learner. Church professionals have much to learn from laity in the corporate world who profess allegiance to both the church and the corporation. Countless people in the private sector struggle every day to relate faith to work and to embody within their occupations a larger sense of religious vocation and calling. Often, though, they feel that their concerns and experiences are not primary to the agendas of their congregations. Likewise, the laity have much to learn from church professionals-both clergy and educators. Clergy can increase effective lay ministry in the workplace by nurturing members of congregations in the basic fundamentals of the faith-literacy in Scripture and Christian traditions and participation in liturgy and the rhythms of the church year. Seminaries can function as creative centers for the continuing education of the laity in the workplace.

Listening and mutual learning are essential given the partial nature of knowledge and experience. We know less than the full truth; we see less than the whole of reality. When people generalize from their own partial experience and vision of the world, they run the risk of falsely characterizing the whole-an easy pitfall when reflecting on the religious and moral character of business. It is easy, for instance, to generalize from a particular corporate takeover and conclude that all mergers and acquisitions are bad. Anecdotal evidence is usually insufficient for moral conclusions.

Rarely are there sustained opportunities within communities of faith to reflect upon the ethical dimensions of work in light of faith. Congregations must become, to use James Gustafson's expression, "communities of moral discourse" where congregants debate in a spirit of civility and openness social issues of the day in light of their faith. Faith communities and religious traditions, by themselves, cannot provide answers to all moral questions of modern corporate life. But they can become seedbeds of creative thought and action for church members who desire to embody the vision and norms of faith in the policies and practices of their corporations.

Third, the church must seek links between its language and values and those of the corporate world. The language of faith-prophetic, narrative, symbolic, allegorical, unconditional- often stands in contrast to the language of business-strategic, operational, quantitative, measurable, conditional. Churches must work to find common words and values that permit more explicit connections between faith and work, thereby giving clarity and substance to the ministry of participants and shapers within business organizations. The corporate trend toward articulating mission, corporate values and ethics statements, as well as attending to corporate culture and external constituencies, points to areas laden with notions of purpose, value, obligation and community-notions inherent in faith communities. Similarities and distinctions can be probed between the economic value of efficiency and the religious value of stewardship. The corporate push for quality, excellence and customer satisfaction can have religious dimensions-analogues to service and servanthood. Demographic trends are forcing employers to take greater account of growing numbers of women and minorities in the workplace in such areas as recruitment, career development, employee benefits and family policy.

Fourth, faith communities must be discerning and strategic about the use of prophetic, pastoral and other expressions of ministry. Ideally, a prophetic ministry allows people to recognize sin and calls them to the ideals of the kingdom-justice in the workplace, the diminishing of racism and sexism, and the support and building up of people. But clergy must engage in a more tenuous and ambiguous constructive task as well. Critical denunciations of systemic and institutional practices can prompt recognition of social and personal sin and unmet human needs. But they can also function narcissistically and irresponsibly, unnecessarily alienating others and avoiding the more difficult, messy task of reform and transformation. Prophetic denunciation is often of little moral assistance to the manager seeking to discern what is morally possible within the bounds of

circumstances, resources and competing claims. It is not helpful, for instance, for the manager to hear the preacher offer wholesale denunciation of workforce reductions and plant closings as a symptom of corporate greed and the triumph of profits over people. Causal factors are rarely so simplistic.

It is more helpful, and more difficult, to ask how biblically informed norms might be sustained and embodied in a rapidly changing global economy. Decisions within the corporate world are shaped not merely by ethical ideals but also by economic, social, political and legal constraints. Christian ethics, for most people, becomes the art of discerning the morally "more or less," the less than perfect "better or worse," in the myriad of trade-offs among competing values and interests. As the reform movements sweeping through Eastern Europe are learning, denunciation of evil and corruption is a necessary first step toward social change, but constructing new institutional arrangements is by far the more arduous task.

Fifth, the church's efforts at ministry with the corporate world must begin with self-reflection and evaluation. Churches are themselves corporations. As the U.S. Catholic bishops acknowledge, churches must judge themselves by moral standards that are at least as rigorous as those to which they would hold other corporations accountable. As churches model their own convictions and norms in their institutional policies and practices, their capacity to influence the corporate world will strengthen. Does it matter that the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America asks its Board of Pensions to divest itself of all securities of companies doing business in South Africa but at the same time signs a multimillion-dollar contract to purchase IBM computers for its entire headquarters? How rigorous and pure must the church be?

Finally, churches must let the very categories and frameworks by which they construct ministry to the corporate world adapt to the larger political and economic trends that are revolutionizing the globe. In past decades, larger debates about the merits of capitalist and socialist systems colored visions of ministry. As the ills of capitalism became apparent in the late 19th century and as various forms of socialism -- Soviet, democratic, Chinese-developed in the 20th century, notable Christian theologians -- Tillich, the early Reinhold Niebuhr, the early Brunner and, more recently, liberation theologians-have advocated the wedding of Christian ethics with socialist economic practice. With such an intellectual heritage within the church, it is no wonder that helping to formulate business ethics policies and ministry to the corporate world has been low on the agendas of many churches and church professionals. But if recent events in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe are any indication, single-party politics joined with centrally controlled economies are no longer viable experiments in political economy. Capitalism, consisting of heavy doses of free markets and private capital, coupled with a pluralistic democratic political order, may be the only game in town for creating wealth in ways that satisfy the masses. If this trend is indeed the case, the need for the church's ministry to the corporate world is only magnified.

Theologians throughout Christian history have envisioned the church as a community of believers not separate from the ambiguities of a sinful yet graced world but fully immersed in that world. That vision is also one for Christians in a corporate world that will be called upon to make even greater contributions to the well-being of peoples across the globe. The church must be a critical and constructive partner.

Socialism’s Obituary Is Premature

The new conventional wisdom has pronounced socialism dead. Economists of the Austrian and Chicago schools (von Mises, Hayek, Friedman) long ago announced that it would and should die. In the 1970s a number of influential neoconservatives embraced capitalism with the enthusiasm of new converts. Now even committed socialists like Robert Heilbroner have conceded defeat. In a celebrated New Yorker article, Heilbroner put it dramatically: "Less than seventy-five years after it officially began, the contest between capitalism and socialism is over; capitalism has won" (January 23, 1989). The experience of the socialist countries, he acknowledged, makes clear that the marketplace distributes goods better than "the queues of a planned economy." While Heilbroner issued somber warnings about the possible effects of the apparent victory of capitalism, his remarks helped symbolize the intellectual disarray of the socialist movement.

The revolutionary changes of 1989-90 in Eastern Europe, and their echoes on other continents, have helped provoke the speculation about the bankruptcy of socialism. In more and more Eastern European countries, freely elected legislatures are initiating economic reforms based on free-market principles. The scope of this development dawned on me last fall while I participated in a Christian-Marxist dialogue in Washington, D.C., with visitors from Hungary, Yugoslavia and East Germany. Most of the Eastern Europeans were ostensibly Marxist, but it quickly became evident that they were distancing themselves from previous ideological commitments. In an effort to draw their views out further, I asked whether we were likely to see something like the "socialism with a human face" to which the 1968 Czech reform movement had aspired. "It is already too late for that," one of them replied. The movement toward capitalism would go much further. Others agreed.

In the West, Reaganites and Thatcherites—whether old conservatives or neoconservatives—think they are entitled to dance a bit on the grave of socialism. Economic recovery is in full swing here; socialism is dead there. It only remains to be seen how quickly and how well the whole world can be transformed in accordance with free-market principles.

Nevertheless, we do well to pause for a moment before joining the celebration. Things have a way of reversing themselves, particularly ideological perspectives. We may, ironically, be instructed by the extraordinary comeback of laissez-faire capitalism itself. I must acknowledge that I never expected this. Indeed, when writing a book on comparative economic ideologies in the 1970s I seriously considered eliminating laissez-faire capitalism as wholly obsolete. That would have been quite a mistake. It would be a similar error to eliminate socialism from such a study today.

Though the Eastern European situation will remain in flux for some time, ordinary citizens in East Germany and elsewhere are objecting to the abandonment of such socialist protections as guaranteed employment and medical care. Even in the West, economists are nervous about the vulnerability of the economic recovery of the 1980s and about the economic marginalization of many people. So to the extent that repudiation of socialism entails confidence in the virtues of laissez-faire capitalism, we do well to pause before accepting the new conventional wisdom. We need, at least, to know what we are abandoning and what the consequences of doing so might be.

The history of Christian thought on socialism can shed light on the question. There are. as many varieties of socialism as there are of capitalism, and Christian socialism is among the most difficult to catalog. F. D. Maurice’s mid-19th-century British movement may have been the first to use the name. He adopted it apparently to respond head-on to the critics who considered any movement in behalf of working people to be socialist. Some (though not all) of the leaders of the American Social Gospel movement were socialists—including W. D. P. Bliss, George D. Herron and Walter Rauschenbusch. In Europe, religious socialists Christoph Blumhardt and Leonhard Ragaz influenced Karl Barth and Paul Tillich. Tillich’s interwar "religious socialism" is particularly noteworthy. Today a number of liberation, black and feminist theologians are socialists.

No precise economic conception holds these various forms of Christian socialism together. Maurice aimed to engage the "unsocial Christians and the unchristian Socialists." A measure of his success is the recognition his movement gained in The Communist Manifesto, in which Marx and Engels announce that "Christian Socialism is but the holy water with which the priest consecrates the heart-burnings of the aristocrat." Marx and Engels would, no doubt, have rendered the same judgment on the Social Gospel socialists’ vague formulations. Tillich’s religious socialism, which took class struggle more seriously, was also more precise in its criticism of capitalism—though he also accepted a limited place for a regulated free-market mechanism. The liberation theologians also vary in the degree of their economic precision, though a number of their leaders have been substantially influenced by variants of Marxism.

Taken as a whole, the legacy of Christian socialism may appear too ambiguous to be useful, especially in what appears to be a postsocialist world. But a consensus among Christian socialists endures in three emphases. First, they have all cared about socially and economically marginalized people. The phrase "preferential option for the poor" is the recent invention of the Latin Americans, but the idea is characteristic of all Christian socialisms. They believe that Christians have a special responsibility to those who have been excluded from decision-making in the economic sphere. Second, they all have criticized the notion of the "invisible hand"—that the unrestrained market can be trusted to care best for the public good and the well-being of the poor. Third, they have affirmed the collective responsibility of society to deal with economic problems. Human life in society is not simply the intersection of producing, consuming, trading and competing individuals. Life is more communal than that. People can work together to provide for the common good.

The fact that the Christian socialist vision has generally been theologically well grounded may have contributed to its ideological vagueness—for all ideological commitments are relativized by the element of religious transcendence. The idea of transcendence has also influenced the democratic political commitments of most Christian socialists. Christian socialist formulations of economic norms have had to be provisional and pragmatic, but their pragmatism has usually been informed by human caring and by commitments to unity and justice within the community.

Obviously, the collapse of Eastern European socialism—if indeed it is collapsing—cannot be taken as a judgment upon Christian socialism. That collapse is, if anything, precisely what many Christian socialists would have wanted and expected. The Christian socialist vision was not of an atheistic, paternalistic, totalitarian state that does not uphold the creative dignity of every person as an accepted member of the community. Christian socialists have generally understood that there cannot be genuine community without freedom, just as there can be no genuine community without transcendent responsibility.

The ultimate irony could be that the "last socialists" to remain in Eastern Europe and the U.S.S.R. might be Christians. Conceivably, the only socialism that could work would be that which develops in a society deeply bonded by religious values. By that standard, Marxist-Leninist "scientific socialism," whatever its past usefulness as a vehicle for maintaining totalitarian power, could not endure.

But what about the economic consequences of Christian socialism? Though capitalism now appears to be more productive, Christian socialists would remind us that an economy exists for more than production. Economics must be the servant of the good community, not its master. The market principle can be incorporated within socialism (as the socialist economists Oskar Lange and Ota Sik noted years ago) if its subordinate role is maintained. But even the best gross national product cannot compensate for social demoralization and the exclusion of the poor from economic benefits.

These emphases prevent a facile dismissal of the recurring Christian socialist criticism of bourgeois civilization. Unrestrained laissez-faire capitalism has predictably yielded a class-divided society with vast gulfs between rich and poor. Recent figures on the growing gap between rich and poor in America offer disquieting confirmation of this point. In such a society, the market mechanism (or "discipline") has also tended to reward unethical attempts to secure competitive advantage. It has overemphasized materialistic values and subordinated public goods to private consumption. It has thus demoralized the people, rich and poor alike, and disintegrated the community. It is no accident that we in the West face the social breakdowns represented by drug abuse, murder, unethical business practices, family breakups and homelessness. Such pathologies bespeak self-centeredness and the loss of common values and purposes.

Some argue that only capitalism harnesses humanity’s inherent greed to social purposes in such a way that one advances one’s own desires by serving others. Thus, economist Walter E. Williams argues that "to get along with and serve one another doesn’t require caring about each other." Williams illustrates his point forcefully:

Take Texas ranchers who trek through the snow and blizzards each winter herding cattle just so we in Cincinnati, New York, or Detroit will have beef. Does anybody think they make these sacrifices because they care about you and me? I suspect they don’t give a damn about us; they only care about themselves. But, in the process of caring about themselves (earning money), they provide for us. I shudder to think how much beef would get to market if it depended only on love and human kindness [Frazer Forum, March 1990].

But the Christian socialists would remind us that a system that harnesses greed this way also has great power to destroy. Recalling the Wall Street and the savings and loan scandals of the 1980s, they might also question its economic credentials. It seems that even capitalism cannot be made to function in the human interest without a little love and human kindness. Can any system allow us to put our moral sensitivities on hold and automatically confer needed benefits?

The question remains, however, whether any form of socialism can be made to work economically. I have avoided designating myself a socialist, largely because that term is so often taken to mean monolithic public ownership and operation of the means of production. I am not persuaded that government on a large scale can be sensitive enough to human freedom, creativity and needs to justify a public monopoly over economic institutions. Many self-styled Christian or religious socialists express the same concern. This may, finally, come down to a question of agreeing upon labels. But it also suggests a possible point of convergence between Christian socialists and those who prefer to call themselves capitalists in the mixed-economy or social-welfare capitalist sense.

Clearly, such a convergence requires overall public accountability of whatever market institutions are desired, in a society where government is itself democratically responsible. The market system should serve the community, not vice versa. Government has a redistributive responsibility, ensuring that class differences do not become too great and protecting the more vulnerable members of the community. Government is also responsible for the creation of many of the public goods that serve the community.

One of my concerns about capitalist triumphalism is that in rejecting socialist totalitarianism people may reject useful public enterprises of various kinds. By arguing that socialism doesn’t work, free-market ideologues may enforce the misguided notion that no publicly owned and operated venture can possibly succeed.

If an all-encompassing socialism has proved too cumbersome, inefficient and corruptible, that does not mean that disaggregated forms of socialism are unworkable. There is a long history of successful governmental ownership and operation of enterprises delivering goods and services. Our own country pioneered the development of the vast socialistic enterprise of public education from kindergarten through college. In Britain the national health service is sufficiently successful that even the deeply capitalistic Thatcher government could not muster enough support to privatize it. (Meanwhile, our own system of health care delivery is in crisis.)

Public institutions are not necessarily corrupt or inefficient. That ideological assertion is outrageously unfair to the dedicated teachers, public health nurses and doctors, foresters, highway engineers and other public servants who work creatively, competently and with devotion to the common good. We have a Christian responsibility to pray for such public servants and help in whatever way we can to sustain them in their calling.

Thus, it is premature to dismiss Christian socialism. Its critique of the excesses and brutalities and idolatries of the free market still needs to be heard. Its reminder that human beings can work together for the common good is still compelling. Its insistence that no economic system is good enough to be workable without reference to moral values remains true. Its endorsement of specific ventures in "disaggregated socialism" will continue to merit serious debate.

 

 

Revisioning the Future of Oldline Protestantism

The two questions have been asked most often since American Mainline Religion was published are, "Are you hopeful about the future of the oldline churches?" and "What can be done to turn things around?" I hesitate to make predictions, but I'll risk this one: a major mission funding crisis is on the horizon, the result of individuals wanting greater say in how their contributions are spent. This is the institutional counterpart of what Wade Clark Roof and I call the new religious voluntarism. In much the same way that denominations can no longer assume that people will take on the religious loyalties of their parents, they can no longer assume that today's church leaders will continue the funding patterns of previous generations.

Other reasons for the funding crisis include rising costs. For the most part, local churches have done a remarkable job of keeping up with inflation, and with increased local mission needs resulting from government cutbacks. Lurking beneath the surface, however, is the problem of deferred maintenance. My own 400-member church in Hartford, Connecticut, just spent over $300,000 to repair a boiler, downspouts and a third of a roof. We barely raised the money we needed. Next time it will be more difficult -- and there will be a next time.

Membership decline will also hurt mission funds. A couple of oldline denominations are about to observe the 25th straight year of declining membership. Such churches cannot expect forever to cover costs by asking fewer people to dig even deeper.

The short-term future will bring even more talk of what the corporate world calls "downsizing," through staff cuts, closing offices and discontinuing programs. It's a tough time to be a national church executive, and the situation may well get worse.

However, the more interesting question about mainline Protestantism relates not to size but to the impulse that brought its institutions into being. Sidney E. Mead was among the first to note that for the most part, American denominational organizations came into being not so much to maintain the integrity of church doctrine or ecclesiastical procedures as to achieve specific goals, to get things done. They were purposive organizations born out of an activist impulse. It's an important point to keep in mind -- perhaps some of those purposes have been met.

We need also to remember that the institutions were created by people who had a pretty clear sense of who they were and where they fit in the culture. And they did fit in the culture. Most of the major oldline Protestant institutions we know today were founded in a period when Protestantism still enjoyed established status. They may have seemed almost invisible, but they had the power to influence society in a significant way. The people who built liberal Protestant institutions such as national mission agencies, local churches, colleges, universities, social reform agencies and public libraries in the rural heartland were people secure in their social position who assumed a leadership role in society and whose sense of social responsibility was born of religious conviction.

The impulse out of which oldline Protestantism's key institutions arose was nicely captured in the words of a New Yorker editor describing Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the 1970s. Though writing about a town and a university, he captured something important about oldline Protestantism's past. Noting a "certain tone," a "certain mood," he observed that the completeness of the mood "suggests a 19th-century belief in an innate hierarchy in which social values, values of taste, moral values and intellectual values all combine in a self-evident pattern. It's a 19th-century feeling of being right and open-minded at the same time, of being at once well-bred and progressive." During the time of the oldline churches' greatest cultural influence, a sense of tone, a mood and an ethos, combined with a sense of activism born of confidence in one's intellectual and moral righteousness, powerfully shaped the religious and mission institutions that remain.

That impulse is not dead. When President Bush talks of a "kinder and gentler" America, he is hearkening back to that complex hierarchy of social, moral and intellectual values and symbols that were once very powerful in this culture, particularly in the churches. That impulse belonged not to Protestantism alone, although those churches were its principal guardians and custodians. In preserving and protecting the intellectual and moral hierarchy, oldline Protestantism found a sense of special identity and mission. This role gave legitimacy to Protestantism's special place in the culture, even after it lost much of its formal power.

Oldline Protestantism is not dead, but it is being disestablished. This is occurring not because the churches are weaker than they once were, but because a pluralistic society cannot and will not tolerate a single religious establishment. Corporate America won't accept that. Jerry Falwell won't accept that. Feminists won't accept that. Blacks won't accept that. And even liberal Protestants won't accept that anymore, having recognized how easily their own sense of mission can be translated into the idolatry of race, class and nation, and how the transmission of a particular cultural tradition can be equated with the extension of God's realm.

The social and cultural matrix out of which oldline Protestant institutions arose was different from what we experience today. Oldline Protestantism is no longer established, culturally or institutionally, in the way it once was. We would not today found an interchurch organization of Protestant and Orthodox churches and call it the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America -- at least, not without a certain sense of irony.

This past, however, leaves Protestantism with certain difficulties. For most of their history, the oldline churches were spared the difficult task of defining themselves theologically or justifying their place in the culture. That they knew what they stood for and that they belonged could be assumed. Today, that's not enough. Suddenly the oldline churches must learn how to think and act as one religious tradition among many. How can they maintain institutions and programs that were born out of an establishmentarian impulse when they no longer enjoy the dominant position in culture and society? Am I hopeful about the future of liberal Protestantism? Yes, but for hopes to be realized we need to rethink the way we look at our identity and mission. The problems are deeper than institutional; changing personnel or moving headquarters will not solve them.

I see five tough issues oldline leaders will have to face in the 1990s. First, they need to consider what kinds of denominational and ecumenical mission agencies they really want and need at the. national level. Personally, I don't lose a lot of sleep worrying about the future of such agencies. Churches can, after all, survive without large national bureaucracies. The Roman Catholic Church does fine without one. The black churches do OK with very lean national structures. Most of the evangelical denominations -- the Southern Baptists are an exception -- get along pretty well without elaborate national and international bureaucracies.

Questioning the structure of existing agencies is risky. Hartford Seminary took that chance 20 years ago when it decided it could be a theological seminary without full-time residential students preparing for ordained ministry in Protestant churches. We are still learning what that project means. Though we have made strides, weekly someone pulls me aside to say, "I can remember when Hartford Seminary was a real seminary" or to mourn the fact that "Hartford Seminary had to close." Hartford Seminary is different, but it is very much alive: our programs of research and continuing education make an impact on our hometown and around the world.

Church leaders must ask what kind of programs they really need and want. Does every regional judicatory need its own camping program, for instance? Can denominations afford to provide free consulting services in education, stewardship, evangelism, conflict resolution and pastoral placement? Can they continue to provide chaplains for hospitals and college campuses? How many local churches can a denomination support with mission funds, and for how long? How many large national meetings does a denomination or ecumenical agency need? Denominational leaders must face these tough questions, even at the risk of upsetting some of their constituents.

A second issue is how churches are going to pay their bills. It seems heretical even to suggest it, but it may be time to return to the earlier, essentially free-market model of mission support -- encouraging individuals and churches to support the specific mission efforts they choose. While funding of regional, national and international mission activity varies among denominations, most rely heavily on asking individuals to set aside a portion of their income for their congregation, which in turn is encouraged to forward a portion to the denomination's mission fund.

Unified mission funding was designed to bring order to the proliferation of mission agencies with independent fund-raising appeals and to express the conviction that, while it takes various forms in different settings, there is one mission. It also shifted attention from the church's missions to its mission; it carried with it the implication that Christian giving is more an expression of moral commitment than of calculation. In an earlier era, denominations emphasized the efficiency and effectiveness of their work; now they stress the continuity between the individual's commitment to God and to the church as God's principal agent in the world.

But local church participation in unified funding is faltering. Individuals and congregations are shifting resources from "basic support" of the denomination's general mission fund to "designated giving"–funding specific denominational activities or church-related or independent agencies. Denominations have responded by increasing their efforts to link Christian commitment to local church and denominational support, but also by developing all-church offerings, planned giving and special capital campaigns. The first approach assumes that members give because they are committed; the second assumes they give because they are convinced.

It is increasingly clear that even committed people want to be convinced. It may be time again to encourage individuals and congregations to support the mission efforts they believe in. That's what they are doing now anyway, and it is unlikely that denominational-level actions will change that.

Third, oldine denominations must identify creative ways to support congregations in their ministry. Flawed and impossible though they may be at times, congregations are the most powerful antidote we have to the radical individualism that pervades American secular and religious culture.

I am not arguing for more programs to help local churches grow, worship, serve, spend or teach more efficiently. Instead leaders should assert the central role of the gathered community in the life of faith and the church. At a minimum, taking congregations seriously means asking what will be the impact of a denominational action (or inaction) on local churches. It also means rethinking key denominational programs. For example, when planning for theological education, denominational leaders should ask what kind of leaders -- lay and clergy -- churches need. When developing Christian education to help us transmit the Christian faith across generations, planners should examine how communities learn. When promoting evangelism programs to assimilate new members, denominations should consider how to create new communities that blend the interests of old and new members.

A fourth step is to pay more attention to denominational culture. Denominations exist as both a scandal and a promise. They are a scandal because they witness, in H. Richard Niebuhr's words, to the "ethical failure of a divided Christendom." They offer promise because being a people of God takes diverse forms among different groups in different places and times. We learn something about the nature of God when we take seriously the cultures that take shape in God's name.

To take denominational cultures seriously is to look beyond what denominations do, how they are organized, what their demographics are or even what they say they believe, to what members take for granted together. When regional and national assemblies meet to establish budgets, elect officers and vote on pronouncements, they are also doing something far more important: they are reasserting (and reinterpreting) their denominational culture. These and other gatherings, including summer camps, youth rallies and special-interest caucuses, tell the world who these churches are and how they define the boundaries between themselves and the wider culture. Cultures persist over time not because they are especially well managed but because they have a sense of identity and can generate the moral and symbolic energy that maintains a sense of peoplehood. Church leaders must help the church discover and articulate a sense of peoplehood, to see, touch, taste and feel the things we take for granted.

Fifth, the churches should take a serious look at the ways other oldline institutions are coping with the loss of establishment status. The future of liberal Protestantism is inseparable from the future of liberal arts colleges and private caregiving institutions. It's time to find common ground.

All these issues need the attention of oldline Protestant decision-makers. But resolving them won't turn things around. Restoration is not in the cards, and it shouldn't be.

A few years ago, a major in the Salvation Army described his congregation's move from an old building on the edge of town to a new building at the town's center. The congregation processed into the new building singing a song written for the occasion:

Up on Main Street, Up on Main Street,

Up on Main Street we will be.

And the whole world will see.

Oh yes! Oh yes! The world will see,

'Cause it's up on Main Street we will be.

The oldline churches were up on Main Street for a long time, and they know what that little Salvation Army congregation will discover or may have already discovered: that Main Street is not all it's cracked up to be. The greatest challenge for us is to give up the dream of returning, and to ask what it means to be faithful people of God a block or two from the center of town.

Transmitting a Vision: Religion in Independent Schools

In an independent school in Tennessee, a class on world religions gets sidetracked when a tenth grader mentions the controversial movie The Last Temptation of Christ. Two Southern Baptist students insist that they would never go to see the movie because of how the screenplay may have distorted the New Testament portrayal of Jesus. Their classmates are stunned. "I can’t believe you really mean that," one student exclaims, doubtless never having encountered a conservative Christian perspective. As the class breaks up, one of the Baptist students remarks, "My heart was really pounding during that discussion!"

During a faculty meeting at a venerable Roman Catholic girls’ school in California, teachers struggle with what it means to be a Roman Catholic high school today. "Look at our student body," one teacher complains. "Nearly half of our students are non-Catholic, and many are non-Christian. How do we be true to our Catholic heritage, given those circumstances?"

At a workshop in the Midwest, faculty from secular and religious institutions discuss the moral climate (or lack of it) in their respective schools. One teacher from a secular school points to a colleague from an evangelical Christian school as he talks about problems of cheating. "Of course, you’re a religious school. You don’t have moral problems such as these." "Are you kidding?" the Christian school teacher responds. "We have as much of it as you do."

Finally, the head of a thoroughly nonsectarian school answers one of my questions this way: "What is the most important goal I have for my students? While I rarely mention the word ‘religion’ in our thoroughly secular setting, I would have to say that I wish, above all, for my students to obtain a vision of God. Pure and simple."

These vignettes form a fascinating somewhat uplifting, somewhat disturbing picture of religion in independent schools across the country, and of the way schools understand themselves as religious (or non-religious) institutions in relation to a rapidly changing society. They also help to tell the story of how some families in this country -- mostly affluent, highly ambitious, well-educated families -- want independent schools to provide a religious or moral context for their children.

The Council for Religion in Independent Schools works with some 500 schools across the country, kindergarten through grade 12, of varying denominations or of no denominational tradition, and of different educational philosophies, as they seek to develop the religious and ethical dimensions of education. Most of these schools refer to themselves as "independent," meaning free from any direct control by church, diocese, synod or parochial board. However, over half have some form (in many cases quite a revered tradition) of religious emphasis. CRIS also has contact with Roman Catholic parochial schools, evangelical Christian schools and Episcopal parish day schools. In all of the schools, head-masters, faculty and chaplains are grappling with the spiritual and moral dimension of their programs in light of the changing, diverse, demanding and ambivalent character of the constituencies they serve.

Walker Percy once wrote, "I am trying to ask a serious question -- that is a difficult thing to do these days!" The school that feels it is important to raise serious questions with young people and their families may be discouraged by prevalent modes of relativism, hedonism and pragmatism, not to mention an individualism that puts free expression above the needs of the community and seems frequently surprised that people still hold to a belief in God.

At the same time, schools are playing an increasingly custodial role. Whether it be providing extended day-care programs, parental support groups and increased education in the areas of substance abuse and human sexuality, or responding to the clarion call to return to traditional values in the classroom, schools are being asked to provide new kinds of care and guidance.

In the midst of such needs and expectations, what is the place of religion in a school’s life? Does the spiritual have any voice (save that of one crying in the wilderness) in schools, which are accused of being increasingly secular, of compromising on their religious traditions and oftentimes being the starting blocks for the fast track? On these questions, I can discern some nationwide patterns of response.

First, schools increasingly view their religious function in terms of the climate or ethos they foster. While in many cases independent schools have expanded their offerings in religious studies, the focus is increasingly on how they teach and what they teach, through example, through the establishment of a humane environment, and through, as one teacher put it, the "atmosphere of expectation" they promote.

A school is religious no longer simply in terms of courses offered or instructional areas covered. Its spiritual dimension is fostered and gleaned through the interplay of relationships in the school, how people treat each other, and the ritual gatherings that evoke a sense of continuity with the past and give a community its identity.

One headmaster proudly reported an observation made by a visiting committee during his school’s ten-year accreditation evaluation. Members of the committee stopped students in the hallways and asked them, "What’s this school’s principal purpose?" Almost every reply was a variation on the theme, "This school cares, most of all, about what kind of person I am." That is eloquent testimony regarding a climate many schools wish to foster.

Sadly, schools that cherish a religious emphasis find themselves battling religious illiteracy on all fronts. Religion teachers in highly competitive, academically elite institutions, where students possess considerable knowledge of history, science and computers, find themselves doing remedial work in the study of religion. "When I teach the Bible to 11th graders," says one chaplain, "I don’t assume my students know anything, and they usually don’t. So I begin at square one: this is a Bible. Why are the pages thin? Why is it divided into two parts?"

In my days as a school chaplain I remember a shocked English teacher reporting: "Do you know that today I asked my sophomores if they knew who Job was, and only one student raised her hand?" Countless numbers of our brightest young people have had no prior training in Bible, ethics or world religions. As one chaplain at an academically strong, prestigious school remarked about her students’ religious training and awareness, "These students don’t come from very much."

With little experience of church or synagogue, many students have no knowledge of what it means to sit and listen to a speaker or to a musical offering. Similarly, school chaplains report that they are frequently the only religious authority figure families in that school will know. "Some of these socially adept people don’t even know how to talk to a person in my profession," says one school chaplain.

Religious illiteracy inevitably carries over into moral illiteracy and the increasing reluctance of students (and their parents) to take principled stands on school policy or student behavior. One boarding school counselor remarked, "They [the students] know so much about English and geometry, but so little about what it means to be a good person, or even that it’s okay to be a good person." Few other intellectual disciplines in our modern, technological world go as unattended as moral and spiritual awareness.

Parents seem desperate to provide a secure haven for their children in an increasingly dangerous, uncertain world. One parent explained, "I am looking for a sense of protectiveness and watchfulness that I fear may be lacking in the public school." The religious dimension of a school is perceived by increasing numbers of non-Christians and non-churchgoers as adding to the aura of security. But families do not necessarily want the substance of that religious emphasis.

This situation poses enormous challenges for the religious school. Students and parents sometimes express shock over requirements for chapel attendance or courses once the student has enrolled, or oppose the moral posture of a school on an issue of academic or social integrity. A school is often caught defending the content of its spiritual and moral philosophy to an audience attracted increasingly to an image of stability, the by-product which that philosophy projects.

Given the increasingly diverse character of school communities, the temptation is to emphasize ethical values as opposed to religious principles. Schools have to deal with the dissonance created by the blending of a religiously diverse constituency with the school’s particular religious tradition. How can the Quaker school be true to its roots when most of its students have had no prior acquaintance with the Society of Friends? Can the Christian Science school keep up with the competition when its pool of Christian Science applicants diminishes each year? What does the Roman Catholic school do when non-Westerners constitute a substantial portion of its population? Here the religious values of a school can clash with the hidden (or not so hidden) values of schools today: the need to market the school, stay competitive, attract good students, or simply survive.

The solution for many schools has been to assert values, such as honesty, loyalty, respect, compassion, justice and responsibility, that presumably all traditions can adhere to and derive meaning from. Does such emphasis, however, dilute the richness of a school’s particular tradition? Is worship compromised, are church-school relations strained and the school’s philosophy diminished by stressing only ethical values?

In spite of the enormous challenges and ambiguities schools face, tremendous hope lies in the ministry of chaplains and teachers. Whether it be ordained clergy on the staff or teachers who embody the life and vision of a school, adults in schools are engaging in a tremendous, pioneering ministry. They give human shape to the philosophy behind the school. In many cases they are the only representatives of a school’s religious tradition, and in some cases they are the only individuals a young person will encounter who will say proudly (albeit subtly) that they believe in God. If the young person is drawn to that adult, they will also be curious about what that adult believes.

In many ways, the school chaplain or the religion teacher is doing much of what the church should be doing with young people -- namely, taking them seriously, reflecting with them on their moral priorities, sometime challenging their values, offering them a greater perspective in which to deal with their pain, their hopes, their questioning. Chaplains are seeing the firsthand results of materialism, secularism and interfaith marriages and are dealing with young people where they spend most of their time and energy -- in school.

Most significant, perhaps, such an adult is frequently able to bind this diverse group of young people together through narrative, the telling of stories from the tradition. Narrative ministry, so to speak, finds no more receptive audience than a group of young people, particularly a group of high-powered, pressured children and adolescents who have not frequently experienced the joy and luxury of having stories told to them.

Developmental psychologist Erik Erikson wrote:

We adults are rarely aware of our essential function in conveying to young people -- deliberately or inadvertently -- that they do (or do not) make sense. Without knowing it, or indeed, appreciating it, we may find ourselves in a strategic role as uncles or family friends, as teachers or physicians, as neighbors or significant strangers. Now and again a quotation comes back to us of something which, for all we remember we may or may not have said, and which nevertheless remained a memorable judgment -- for good or bad -- in a young person’s life.

In an age when so many young people have minimal contact with adults, yet clearly are in need of the care and presence of adults, those of us in churches have not caught on to the need for ministry to take place in the arenas where young people live, move and have their being. A blessed exception is the adult who holds to a conviction of faith, and to whom the young can look in hope and trust. Increasingly, that individual is found in school.

No doubt the head of the secular school knew that fact when he wished for his students a vision of God. The ambiguities, diversities and conflicts of modern life do not necessarily preclude the transmission of that vision.

Adolescents’ Moral Compass, Adults’ Moral Presence

While Christianity is increasingly reticent to masquerade as sociology or psychology, the finding of these disciplines still remain significant for the church. A recent example is the Girl Scouts Survey, a nationwide sampling of the moral and spiritual perspectives of some 5,000 children and adolescents in grades 4-12. It provides some revealing and at times disturbing portraits of how American young people think and act and view the world.

Sponsored by the Girl Scouts of America, the Lilly Endowment and the C. S. Mott Foundation, the survey was conducted by Harvard psychiatrist Robert Coles, sociologist James Davidson Hunter of the University of Virginia, John Seel of the Williamsburg Charter Foundation, and pollsters from Louis Harris and Associates. The survey spanned various racial, ethnic, religious and socioeconomic groups, and was conducted among public, private and parochial school students.

Perhaps the most significant and distinctive feature of the survey is its notion of a "moral compass--the assumptions that prompt people to choose and behave in certain ways. The survey shows that young people rely on these compasses and make constant use of them. Those who use a "theistic" compass, for instance, base moral decisions and perspectives on religious belief scripture, the teaching of a religious group, or the prevailing norms of a believing community. Sixteen percent of those surveyed appeared to utilize a theistic compass. African-American children and those from lower socioeconomic levels tended more than others to make their decisions from a theistic foundation. According to the survey, 61 percent of children from a theistic orientation claimed they would not cheat on a major test or examination in school, as compared with only 37 percent who used a "utilitarian" compass; 75 percent from a theistic perspective would refuse a drink at a party, as opposed to 50 percent with a "conventionalist" compass (based on accepted social practice) or 33 percent from an "expressivist" ("do what makes me feel good") or utilitarian perspective.

Overall, children who held to a theistic perspective showed greater altruism than those from expressivist or utilitarian orientations. For example, 49 percent of theistic children would set aside their own plans to help a classmate in need, as opposed to 22 percent of utilitarian and 32 percent of expressivist children. Only 6 percent of theistic children would tell a homeless person to get a job, compared to 16 percent of expressivists.

Some other news about young people: 57 percent said that the primary reason they helped others was that it "makes them feel good personally"; 19 percent would not fight for their country under any circumstances, 24 percent were uncertain and 60 percent would not be willing to volunteer one year to serve their country; 17 percent could think of no famous person or celebrity they admired (only 1 percent admired Mother Teresa, and Donald Trump received a similar vote--indicating that religious and business leaders are among the least admired adults); 65 percent would cheat on a major exam in school, while 36 percent would lie to protect a friend who vandalized; 53 percent claimed that growing up for them is harder than it was for their parents (minority young people were more likely to say it was easier).

Affluent children showed the greatest uncertainty about what to do and how to act in given circumstances. They were three times more likely not to know how to respond when offered a drink at a party, and far less likely to know how or where to begin to advise a friend who became pregnant. Apparently, the greater the wealth, the more extensive the choices and the more perplexing the world seems to be.

In short, young people's moral perspectives seem to be increasingly diverse and based more on personal experience than on the influence of role models or civic expectations. These figures bear out what we learned from Habits of the Heart: we are a highly individualistic people, more in tune with our own experiences and ambitions than a common mission or sense of duty. Children and adolescents mirror the adult world.

Two findings merit special mention. One is the conclusion that what adults perceive to be crucial issues facing young people are not necessarily deemed crucial by the youths themselves. Young people worry most about fulfilling adult expectations (80 percent about obeying parents, 78 percent about getting good grades, 69 percent about preparing for the future, 62 percent about earning money), instead of what adults routinely perceive to be the big crisis in growing up--sex, substance abuse, peer pressure. Perhaps we adults are the ones fascinated with sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll, while youth carry an adultlike burden of worries.

Second, the survey bears out the work of Carol Gilligan by indicating that girls' moral perspective is different from boys'. Girls demonstrate a greater commitment to altruism and service and are more likely to protect a friend who has cheated than boys. They are more likely to opt for choosing a job primarily because of personal satisfaction, or helping others, while boys are more concerned with career advancement or making money. Such conclusions accord with Gilligan's assertion that female morality is grounded more in relationships and interpersonal connections, while male morality stems more from a goal-oriented or principle perspective.

Some of the most challenging implications of the survey concern religion. Among these young people, religious belief is strong--82 percent believe in God, one third have had a religious experience that changed their lives, and 40 percent pray every day. Yet for most a profound discrepancy exists between religious belief and everyday practice. For instance, while 23 percent see religious leaders caring for them, and 34 percent see these leaders as important influences, only 3 percent would seek their help. Coles refers to these statistics as the "wallpaper factor"–religious leaders are "present, but decorative"; significant at a distance, but not of much practical value. Religious leaders are not alone in this regard. Only 7 percent seek help from teachers or coaches. Sixteen percent go to grandparents and 43 percent go first to a friend for help. Adults, in general, are marginal to these young people.

The survey suggests that a substantial number of young people believe in God, yet morally stand on their own or see little connection between faith and character. Rather than accept this as part of an individualistic society where secularism and the primacy of personal experience abound, we need to rethink our ministry to young people.

First, we must reclaim a moral vocabulary with the young. (All we usually focus on, in the moral sphere, is sexuality.) We must talk about practical, tangible moral dilemmas, realities and virtues, and we must focus on developing character in the midst of religious belief. Just as our denominations are reclaiming liturgical roots and sensitivities, so must we reclaim morality.

Christians proclaim that there is no morality without theology, yet are reticent to talk about the implications and demands of this morality cum theology. Every day young people confront issues of integrity, honesty, fairness and compassion: How should I treat people? How and , when should I be honest? What are my obligations and duties, as a Christian, in being kind? Such questions may sound trivial to Christians who understand morality in terms of pressing social issues or who fear sounding judgmental, conservative or prohibitive. But these issues occupy the heads and hearts of young people, and may very well be the key to a closer connection between religious belief and morality, as well as an avenue to greater involvement in larger social issues.

We in mainline denominations are often governed too much by what we don't want to be. We can't want to be prudish, Victorian or evangelical-sounding. Consequently we don't often make the connection between what it means to be a Christian and what it means to be honest, or between what it means to believe in God and what it means to treat our neighbor with care and equity. The results of that rupture are beginning to show.

Churches need to foster discussions of character by using films or case studies that present difficult choices in work or relationships, situations in which people must ask themselves, "What does it mean to do the honest, decent thing here?" "What qualities of human character are at stake in this situation?" Moral reflection requires a certain level of competence and capacity to see the subtleties at work in a given situation (a competence, the survey tells us, our young people seem to lack).

Many adults remember moral discussions and dialogue taking place at the dinner table. This type of context for dialogue is clearly missing from many young people's lives today. With some effort and imagination, the church can fill this vacuum.

The survey also clearly points out that churches must rethink their style of ministry with young people. Our clergy are not being taught about or encouraged to value direct experience and conversation with young people. Too many see youth ministry as beneath them, relegated to the seminarian or a rotating system of lay leaders. It is not surprising that young people see little relationship between talking with religious leaders and their own religious life. Few religious leaders actually talk with young people.

We have used some of our most sophisticated models of ministry to support our fear of young people. We eschew the role of "pied piper" in youth work, and the new model trains laypeople to do the "frontline" ministry. Clergy thereby train themselves out of much direct connection with youth. This is as dangerous and misleading a model for working with youth as a parent's rationalization, "I don't spend a lot of time with my children, but what time I do spend is quality time." To assume such a distanced position is to misread what young people need: direct and frequent contact with religious leaders.

Many church youth programs, out of necessity, find themselves operating a ministry with a rotating system of adult volunteers who struggle to keep a program going. The young people who do show up, week after week, see little in the way of continuity in the adults who run the program, something all too familiar to many of them in their experience of home and school. The adult volunteers do not know the young people well, nor do they know how to start getting to know them. The youth program that can thrive in the midst of those circumstances is the exception rather than the rule. Parishes that seriously wish to strengthen their ministry to youth should examine the mode of adult presence in that ministry.

A few years ago I spoke to a large youth group at a sizable church. Their pastor was an effective preacher, spent a large amount of time in administrative work, and had a large counseling load. Still, he made a commitment to be with that youth group every Wednesday evening. The many lay leaders did most of the detail work, but he was there--not as pied piper or charismatic group leader, but as an adult religious presence and conversationalist. "I guess there is a part of me [as with almost all of us I would add] that is stuck back there in adolescence, and so I have a soft spot for these kids," he, observed. I could see, as the students had dinner and held discussions on moral and spiritual issues, that that soft spot and that presence went a long way toward strengthening the program. His style was similar to that of other clergy who relate successfully to young people: he took them seriously, he didn't talk down to them or send out the message that he felt uncomfortable around them; he offered a regular presence they could count on.

In John Irving's novel A Prayer for Owen Meany, Lewis Merrill, the local Congregational minister, begins to teach religion classes at Gravesend Academy. He is confronted there with both crude language and outlandish theological questions. Though he struggles in this new role, Irving writes, Merrill seems for the first time to be enjoying himself The interactions and the challenges perk him up, and he becomes less meek. Would that many young people have the opportunity, in the context of church, to see adults enlivened, not intimidated, by their presence.

A Modest Proposal

Introduction

On Monday mornings, ten or twelve of us meet to reflect on our faith in light of the pastoral challenges we face here and now. We are women and men, lay people and ordained ministers, some with and some without university training.

Recently we have worked on the pastoral tasks that derive from the Peace Accords and the process of national reconciliation in Guatemala.

To encourage you and your faith community in your own pilgrimage, we asked one of our number to prepare this summary of our actions and reflections.

Our thanks to the Evangelical Center for Pastoral Studies in Central America -CEDEPCA- for giving us space in which to assess our actions and cultivate new ideas. If what follows smacks of heresy, we are the only ones responsible for the ideas expressed here. . .

 

Pastoral Reflection Group, Guatemala City,

Guatemala, Central America

 

A Modest Proposal

 

God did not give us a spirit of cowardice,

but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline. (2 Tim. 1:7)

  

We live in fear

of death,

of life,

whatever. . .

 

In fear, they kill us.

In fear, we withdraw into ourselves.

In fear, we lash out at others.

In fear, we have them killed.

 

(So insidious, our fear

so secret,

so nameless,

skeletal specters corroding our consciences)

 

Why so much fear?

Little by little,

confronted with so much pain,

so much abuse, so many empty words,

so many crushed dreams, so much fraud,

so much corruption,

a bit of us has died,

our spirits stagnated.

 

It’s as if deep inside us

we had flicked off

(little by little)

the switch marked "human sensitivity"

 

Flicking on

(at the same time)

the switch marked "cruelty"

 

Cruelty of rich kids mocking

peasants who stand,

terrified,

needing to cross Sixth Avenue.

 

Cruelty of the activist mocking

the kidnapped girl’s family:

"It’s about time those rich s.o.b.s

suffer what we have always suffered!"

 

Cruelty of the matron selling

liquor at the corner store,

leech living off shattered lives.

 

Cruelty of the functionary,

"public servant",

vocation gone,

haughtily serving himself at the expense of others.

 

Cruelty of the armed man living,

now,

off threats, assaults, arrogance.

 

Cruelty of we who refuse to see,

hear,

feel,

reach out to others.

Cruelty of we who refuse to be.

 

Then the Lord said to Cain, "Where is your brother Abel?"

He said, "I do not know; am I my brother’s keeper?" (Gen. 4:9)

 

But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus,

"And who is my neighbor?" (Luke 10:29)

One supposes

(once upon a time)

that in our churches and our schools,

in the arms of our grandmothers,

we learned

how to open ourselves to others,

how to open ourselves to all of human history.

 

We learned

(one supposes)

how to share,

how to live together,

how to love,

how to assume and alleviate the pain of others.

 

Existed

(once upon a time)

courtesy.

 

(What is impunity

if not the institutionalized absence of courtesy?)

 

All of this

(one supposes)

we learned from Jesus.

 

You have sown much, and harvested little;

you eat, but you never have enough;

you drink, but you never have your fill;

you clothe yourselves, but no one is warm;

and you that earn wages earn wages to put them into a bag with holes. (Haggai 1:6)

 

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!

For you cross sea and land to make a single convert,

and you make the new convert twice as much a child of hell as yourselves. (Matthew 23:15)

There are

(always have been)

other gospels.

Today they wrap their venom

in shiny packages:

Consume!

Be satisfied!

Success!

Power!

They proclaim the sanctity of greed,

the "right" of the powerful

to crush others,

Selling spiritual nostrums

to calm inner clamor,

dispensing sacramental drugs

to assuage all fear.

 

Thus,

life becomes mechanical gestures,

silent desperation,

smothered screams. . .

 

Jesus answered him, "Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born anew." (John 3:3)

 To be born anew

is to find oneself,

to be born for others.

 

To have been changed

lets us exchange "exclude" for "include".

 

To have been forgiven

lets us forgive.

 

The life of others is our concern.

 

So Jesus called them and said to them,

"You know that among the Gentiles

those whom they recognize as their rulers

lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them.

But it is not so among you;

but whoever wishes to become great among you

must be your servant,

and whoever wishes to become first among you

must be slave of all. (Mark 10:42-44)

 

She

(Spirit of God)

blows where she wills,

has not abandoned us,

is present here, now.

Signs there are. Fragrance, murmurs.

Those who have ears to hear, let them hear.

Those who have eyes to see, let them see.

 

Murmur:

A group of believers

arrives at the emergency room,

leaves behind their tracts,

Bibles,

evangelistic zeal;

takes along their humanity

and a jug of coffee

to share with those who wait.

They get to know other human beings.

Accompany them.

Hear their stories,

share their tears, their pain.

Human warmth,

fragrance.

 

Sign:

Women who say NO!

All violence against any woman

-wherever, whenever, however-

is violence against God’s own self.

Women who say YES!

She has called us to shepherd the flock,

and so we will.

Dignity, affirmation, ministry:

Fragrance.

 

Murmur:

Pentecostals praise God exuberantly.

Now, to fervent hearts,

add a measure of calculation,

combine spirit with truth, roots, identity

(even Sociology of Religion!).

Fervor considered

is still fervent.

Fragrance.

Sign:

We understand that alone,

we are incomplete.

So we gather

for action and reflection.

Women and men,

academic and not,

Evangelicals, Catholics, others.

People of good will

capable of proclaiming dependence,

of coming to belong to others.

Common union,

fragrance.

 

We have known and believe the love

that God has for us.

God is love,

and those who abide in love abide in God,

and God abides in them. . .

There is no fear in love,

but perfect love casts out fear,

and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. . .

The commandment we have from him is this;

those who love God

must love their brothers and sisters also. (I John 4: 16, 18, 21)

 

A New Creed for a New Millennium

(nothing new about it)

 

The time has come to depose

the identity pushers,

the merchants of hope.

 

The time has come to tell them:

"Jig’s up; show’s over."

The time has come to cultivate

the quality of being.

 

We are fragile,

splintered of spirit,

but graced with gravity.

 

Why?

Because in life and death

we belong to God.

 

Thus,

confronted with real, personal, institutionalized pain:

 

We propose

real, personal and institutionalized love.

 

We propose

the practice of tenderness,

sagacity,

perseverence,

transparency.

 

We propose

to celebrate life,

to grieve disgrace,

without apology.

 

We propose

to extend hands and hearts to others,

without fear.

 

We propose

to laugh at ourselves

heartily.

 

We propose

humility, honesty, sobriety.

 

We propose

to defend the dignity of each person.

 

We propose

forgiveness, and to accept having been forgiven.

 

We propose

to celebrate truth,

wherever it might be found.

 

We propose

not to confuse our truths

with the Truth.

 

We propose

to hear, to see, to feel,

to reflect, to do,

to be.

 

We propose

to follow the Way

of the Carpenter of Nazareth.

 

 

- Dennis A. Smith

Guatemala City

January, 1998

Reinventing the Church

A cartoon portrays two young men sitting in the sun, wearing their baseball caps backward. One bright young man remarks to the other: "Somebody ought to invent a cap that would give a guy some shade."

When we think about the challenges of the present and future church, we may want to contemplate this image. Like baseball cap that has been reversed, the church's structure remains but often it seems to have lost its original purpose. A new style sometimes means forgetting cardinal values and forsaking critical vision. For example, a church that abandons its youth programs, abolishes its campus ministry, and abrogates its commitment to higher education probably shouldn't be surprised when young people don't find the church useful in providing shade or substance to their lives.

In what ways does the church have its cap on backwards? What needs to be done to put it right? In this brochure, I am going to suggest some ways for thinking about these questions so that we can move the church towards a future where it once again meets the needs and the purpose it was created to fulfill.

 A Theme Park Church

Many people feel that when they enter most churches they are experiencing a time warp similar to that imagined in Michael Crichton's book and Stephen Spielberg's movie, Jurassic Park. For them it is like hearing a fanfare of trumpets followed by a sonorous voice announcing: 

Welcome to Jurassic Park Denomination. You are now entering the lost world of the pre-historic past. Our tour begins in the board library. Here we notice two rare species. First the board member always pushing for more exegetical sermons from the Old Testament, the bron-Torah-saurus. Next to him you can see this creature's rival, the board member who likes lighter sermons, the triceratopical. On the right you can see the board member who loves to study the end times, velocirapture. Next, we proceed to the church kitchen. Here we find a board member who loves grazing at potlucks, socials, and outdoor picnics, the barbequesaurus.(1) 

Add to this "lost world of the prehistoric past" some of the dinosaur-type thinking by which we in the church sometimes address contemporary personal, church, and social issues, and you can understand why predictions flourish about the decline of the church and the demise of denominationalism. What Bill Easum has written about local congregations can be paraphrased to apply to the church at every level.

  Like the dinosaur, they have a voracious appetite. Much of their time, energy, and money is spent foraging for food, so that little time is left to feed the unchurched. . . . Food is everywhere. But many refuse to change their methods and structures to minister to people where they are in ways they can understand. Like the dinosaur, their necks are too stiff or their eyes too nearsighted. . . . Congregations must deal with their stiff necks or their nearsightedness, or go the way of the dinosaur.(2) 

We continually may need to ask ourselves whether the church needs to be reinvented or whether it is simply a matter of rediscovering the church's original purpose, mission, and ministry. Or more likely, is it a matter of creatively blending rediscovery and reengineering so the church can meet the urgent personal and social concerns of the 21st century? 

Trends in the Present and Future Church

  We have to be realistic about the state of the contemporary church, even as we hope toward a revitalized relationship in the future. For purposes of stimulating discussion, let me suggest eight trends evident in the present and future church, with particular attention to the United States.

  First, clearly the church in the United States has been disestablished. Initially, the churches lost legal establishment with the U.S. constitution. In response they attempted to "Christianize" American culture. But by the 1920s such cultural establishment had failed. And, finally, the third disestablishment became evident since the 1960s when Puritan culture was shattered and the mainstream Protestant churches continued to lose their religious dominance.(3) Martin Marty comments that "the old dreams of renewing old Christendom, which means gaining or regaining power to run the show in the 'my kingdom is of this world' fashion, have largely passed from Orthodoxy and Catholicism and Anglicanism and Mainstreamism to the kinds of evangelicals whose foreparents were opposed to Christendominion."(4)

The right-wing Christian Coalition currently is flexing its political muscles. Roman Catholic bishops exercise influence on certain issues, but not in relation to welfare and capital punishment. Mainline Protestants seem to be apathetically powerless in contemporary political processes. We seem to be in retreat from public life and witness.

Second, "brand name loyalty" certainly has diminished in the United States. People don't automatically purchase Fords and Chevrolets like they once did. Their commitment to political parties--Republican and Democrat--tends to be thin. Likewise sticking with the family "brand name" denominations has also disappeared dramatically. Studies cited by Robert Wuthnow "show that 1 in 5 persons switches denominations at least twice, and 1 in 10 persons switches thrice or more." (5)

  Third, a new ecumenism, therefore, has been emerging at a local congregational level. The ecumenical movement as defined by merging denominations and the work and witness of the National Council of Churches has been floundering, but ecumenism at the local level has flourished. Denominational "brand name" identity has been slipping from the horizon while local church communities of mixed denominational heritages has been dawning. The ecumenical movement has further reason to celebrate, since one of their goals has been to remove old hatreds and antipathies. Relatively little negative feelings toward persons of other denominations are revealed through contemporary polling.

  Fourth, denominations, however, are not disappearing. The vast majority of Americans still use denominational labels to help define their religious identity. Many churches, of course, especially of the "tall steeple" variety wave their denominational flag only rarely! One pastor described the weakening ties between the large membership church and the denomination in these terms:

  The relationship of the large church to the denomination may be described as a commonwealth status. We bear the name, but in small letters; we fly the flag, but not too high; we give allegiance to the crown, but not unequivocally; we respect its laws, but observe some with benign neglect.(6)

Fifth, national church hierarchies and bureaucracies are less than powerful and influential in relation to local churches. Illustrative is how the percentage of funds actually going to national church agencies has declined. The decline of support for the Presbyterian Church, U.S.A., for example, has been dramatic. In 1946, 11 percent of all denominational giving went to central boards and agencies. By 1969 it had declined to just less than 10 percent and by 1982 it was down to only 5 percent. News stories in recent years indicated further sharp cuts in the Presbyterian funding of national agencies, resulting in a $7 million budget slash and staff reduction of 25 percent at the denomination's Louisville headquarters.(8) United Methodists keep 80.8 cents of every dollar for their local church, 14.5 cents to their jurisdictions and annual conferences, and send only 4.7 cents to the national and international church. This trend is shared by most other denominations.

  Sixth, local churches are increasingly in danger of becoming the object of mission rather than the agents of mission. National agencies, originally created to do ministry on the frontiers no one local congregation could touch, are now being asked with their limited resources to provide services to local churches. A turn to a new form of congregationalism even among connectional churches means limiting funds available to extension ministries, such as those previously provided through campus ministries, scholarship programs, and so forth.

  Seventh, denominations are nearly paralyzed by internal theological and political polarization. The division of so-called "evangelicals" and "liberals" appears so pronounced and profound as to prohibit progress in many areas of the church's life and work. National studies reveal that the "population divides itself almost evenly between these two categories, with various gradations of extremity and moderation in each. . . . Lutherans, Baptists, Methodists, and Roman Catholics all have about equal numbers of religious liberals and religious conservatives among their members." Increasingly, Christians within denominations no longer can communicate or tolerate one another.

Eighth, the future ain't what it used to be. Cataclysmic change has swept the globe in recent years, as the Cold War has subsided, new technologies of communication have been developed, and a global economy has emerged. A hundred years ago, 34 percent of the world's population was Christian. In the year 2000 it is anticipated that 34 percent of the population will still be Christian, but the center of gravity has shifted from the so-called "First World" to the "Two-Third's World."

People of other major religious persuasions no longer live in distant countries, but are literally our neighbors in a shrinking global village. A new age of globalism and pluralism has dawned and the canons or norms of culture have indeed changed. Unfortunately, instead of embracing this new racial and gender inclusiveness, and endorsing the richness of gifts God has given every people, culture, and religion, communities of faith often retreat into homogeneous and seemingly safe havens. The church must prophetically teach and preach a global theology that will swim against the tribal tides of our time. The future ain't what it used to be!(10)

Rediscovering the Church's Purpose

 

If the future is that dramatically different, then do we need to reinvent the purpose of the church, or, like the baseball cap, do we simply need to readjust it so we can discover anew its fundamental purpose? Over time, many definitions of the church have been expounded and experienced, but I believe we need to rediscover that the purpose of the church is to increase the love of God and neighbor. As H. Richard Niebuhr told us 40 years ago:

  When all is said and done the increase of this love of God and neighbor remains the purpose and the hope of our preaching of the gospel, of all our church organization and activity, of all our ministry, of all our efforts to train persons for the ministry, of Christianity itself.(11

Multiplying and magnifying the love of God and neighbor remains the fundamental challenge of the present and future church.

Pentecostalism, for example, is sweeping the world much faster than any other brand of Christianity. Its focus on praising and loving God, however, often does not seem to result in more love and justice for neighbor. In countries like Guatemala where Pentecostalism has displaced Catholicism in political power circles, the oppression of the indigenous peoples and others has only increased. Motifs of individual success and miraculous events permeate reports from Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

Love of neighbor seems to be highly selective in the contemporary church. Love of enemy appears almost non-existent. Often we prefer people most like ourselves. Sometimes we are particularly hostile to certain groups. World-wide, when the gap between the rich North and the poor South has never been greater, both evangelical and mainline churches seem to have turned in on themselves.

Mission programs and missionary outreach have suffered declines in giving, often in the name of doing more in the local neighborhoods. While loving your neighborhood certainly needs to be commended, what often happens is less giving outside one's own faith community and a maintenance, rather than a mission, mentality prevails. Even the Southern Baptists are cutting back on their world-wide mission programs. What one Southern Baptist leader said could be echoed in almost every mainline Protestant denomination: "People and pastors who never wanted to give beyond their local church now use optional giving as an excuse for cutting back their commitments to global mission and ministry."

Though both mainline and evangelical faith communities in the United States claim to be encouraging a love of neighbor, neither side rarely speaks to the other, much less do they demonstrate any love for each other. The street signs along the avenue populated by evangelicals and ecumenicals most often read "Intolerance Boulevard."

An unmistakable challenge to the church remains how to encourage this love of God and neighbor in such a way as to be sensitive to all the voices within the community of faith, yet to speak the "truth in love" to all parties, right and left. Tough questions must be asked if we are to discern and determine whether we have become ideological captives of one type of political correctness or other.

A renowned liberal scholar of world religions, Houston Smith, recently challenged mainline churches. He claims that "it's been a long time since I've heard the words `supernatural,' `miracle,' or even `revelation' in a mainline church or theological colloquium." Smith challenges us by asking:

  If churches do not present people with a momentous alternative reality to the one that bombards them every day, why should people complicate their already harried and fragmented lives with another institution? Mainline churches are good at good works and social action, and pretty good on community formation, but parishioners can fill these needs in other ways. (12)

Responding to this inquiry, Randolph Nugent, General Secretary of the United Methodist General Board of Global Ministries, suggests:

  There is truth in Professor Smith's words. Nevertheless, on matters of social justice, the performance of good works, caring for the abused, the focus of the church is to work with the least and those who are less able to care for themselves. . . . But no one else has the specific command of the Great Commission, or the awesome responsibility of embodying God's saving Word and the redeeming grace of God in Christ. That is our mission and ours alone, and . . . [we must] make that crystal clear to all whom we touch . . . (13).

Reinventing the Church's Mission

Another challenge facing the present and future church is how to rediscover or reinvent our mission and ministry. What needs to happen in the remaining years of the 20th century, if Protestant "mainline" churches are not simply to be "sideline" communities of faith in the future? Or worse yet, to go the way of the dinosaurs?

Reinvention language reflects much management theory and church jargon. Restructuring efforts dominate many a church agenda. Everybody seems to love talking about paradigm shifts. Trust of all institutions and their leaders--be they governmental, business, or religious, appears exceptionally low in the United States. People are demanding change and accountability and leaders are responding by attempts to reinvent or reengineer our institutions.

It may be helpful to discern our mission and ministry by, at least, investigating some of the theory propounded by reengineering theorists. Two questions, in particular, jumped out at me while reading about reengineering.

Question one was "if I were recreating this company today, given what I know and given current technology, what would it look like?" If we were in charge of recreating our denomination today, how would we change it? More specifically, how would we change our own small part of the church's organization? Many of us, I fear, are so acculturated in our systems, or are so dependent on its benefits, that our imaginations are crippled beyond our own realization.

The second question that leaped out of my reading was "why do we do what we do at all?" (14) This key question can easily be overlooked in our attempts to restructure. Faster, better, and more cost efficient tend to be the watchwords of remaking a church organization, seeking to survive with fewer resources. Probing the query "why do we do what we do at all?" presses deeper theological questions. By asking "why do we do what we do at all?" we prompt the possibility of demanding new beginnings and searches for new models of organizing our mission and ministry.

Two Tools for Reinventing the Church

There are two tools which come in handy when reengineering any institution: a "case for action" and a "statement of vision." These serve as a wedge to help persons "get unstuck" from where they are, and as a magnet to attract them to a new idea for the future.

A case for action

The action case should be a "concise, comprehensible, and compelling" argument that persuades people why an institution must be changed or reinvented.

If I were for a moment to imagine what my own denomination--United Methodism--might include in a case for action, I think it should incorporate into its declaration that:

We are alarmed that our denomination has been losing 245 members a day for more than 20 years, an aggregate of 2 million persons.

  We are distressed that our church is neither evangelistically reaching out to new persons or nurturing our own youth and friends, as evidenced by the fact that 42% of churches have no constituency rolls, 60% no confirmation or membership training classes, and 38% did not receive a single new member by profession of faith last year.

  We are shocked to discover our church has lost a sense of mission and seems unwilling to financially support long-term missionaries or adequately undergird the work of reaching "the last, the lost, and the least" in Christ's name.

  We are appalled at the church's retreat from social justice activism, its withdrawal of funds for ecumenical witness and work, its diminished commitment to higher education ministries, and its dwindling stewardship.

  We are aware of other religious groups that are growing in numbers and influence, both in the United States and around the world. But we are convinced that our understanding of the Gospel is more comprehensive and in the long run more beneficial to people than what more zealous missionary merchants are offering in Christ's name.

  Unless we change quickly and decisively our beloved denomination will slowly die and we shall be remembered as the pallbearers, if not the executioners, of United Methodism.

Now that scenario may be too overstated, and is certainly not comprehensive, but it provides at least a sample of what a case for action might look and sound like.

 A statement of vision

  For reengineering theorists, the vision statement must identify "what we want to be," thereby depicting what we seek to become, how we intend to operate, and what kind of results we hope to achieve. This requires a degree of "artistry, because a vision is an image without great detail."(15) A familiar yet powerful example of an vision statement is John Fitzgerald Kennedy's, "We will put a man on the moon in the next decade."

My hunch is that there would be greater consensus within most denominations about how the church is broken than on how it should be fixed. Thus the possibilities for reaching agreement on a case for action remain higher than the probabilities at this time for us to create a vision statement. Both, however, are imperative and indispensable. Formulating both a "case for action" and a "statement of vision" are continuing challenges if we are to increase effectively the love of God and neighbor in the world.

 Three Models for Reinventing the Church

  The work of creating both a case for action and a statement of vision for the future has already begun in earnest. Persons, caucuses, and various conferences have diagnosed the "dis-ease" of the denomination in various ways and spelled out their remedies for restoration of health, if not for life everlasting. As I have suggested, there is the growing possibility for finding some consensus on a statement for action, but many denominations are rather strongly, if not bitterly, divided in terms of a common vision, which makes genuine reengineering nearly impossible. Running the risk of being over-simplistic, let me sketch at least three emerging models for reinventing the church, using my own United Methodism to illustrate this typology.

  Revitalization. The champions of revitalizing the status quo believe what is wrong can be corrected and what is good could become better. Not everyone is convinced of a crisis. Oh, sure, some change is needed but nothing dramatic or drastic.

Advocates of this position sometimes argue that it is simply a matter of getting better stewardship results. Or they focus on the ills of the clergy and suggest that if seminaries produced better pastors, all would be well. Sometimes the blame is placed on the pastor saying they need to "sacrifice" more.

Champions of the status quo typically have too much to lose if the system is changed. Some local churches prefer a chaplain that will minister to them in the hospital or at funeral services; they really are not interested in dynamic programs that might attract new and diverse members from the community. Likewise, persons serving beyond the local church may fear the consequences to their authority and influence if major change were to occur. All of us, I suppose, are somewhat hesitant about endorsing radical change, since we don't know where the Holy Spirit might lead us. It is always easier to image what we might lose than to envision what we might gain. Thus the seduction of the status quo may become our "fatal attraction"!

Reformation. A second stance of renewal or reformation argues for major improvements in the denomination. Champions of this position are persuaded of the genius of United Methodism, agree that it is broken but are confident it can be fixed, if only the system is appropriately managed. Reform, not revolution, and renewal, not reinvention, are the key perspectives of this model.

Traditionally this has been the approach of the United Methodist Council of Bishops. The Episcopal Addresses at each General Conference reflect both their assessment of the problems facing the denomination and their plans and hopes for addressing these dilemmas.

The total quality management (TQM) movement within the church also falls within this second category of reform and renewal. It presumes that the general character and structure of the denomination is valuable, viable, and vital. It needs reformation and renewal, but certainly the demise of denominationalism and the crisis facing our congregations don't justify radical revolution or reinventing the church. Total quality management advocates within the church believe TQM provides "breakthrough thinking", but generally it supports incremental improvement.

Thus to argue for reengineering United Methodism is somewhat different from arguing for total quality improvement within United Methodism. The former could be far more revolutionary, while the latter reflects more of the spirit of reformation.

The question which must be faced, however, is whether God is calling us to reengineer the church, or whether reform and renewal are more in keeping with God's will.

Reengineering. Complicating our efforts at reinvention of United Methodism is our deep division regarding a common vision as expressed through various polarized positions. The case for action and the vision statement as envisioned and enunciated by the "conservative" Confessing Movement and the "liberal" Methodist Federation for Social Action do not exactly converge in consensus, except that both are strong advocates for revolutionary reengineering, in contrast to those arguing for revitalizing the status quo or renewal by making incremental quality improvements. One reengineering pattern embraces the devolution philosophy that believes power ought to be returned to state and local levels. In American political life, devolutionists like Newt Gingrich and the Republican Congress have sought to dismantle government agencies, return welfare to the state, reduce taxes, abolish affirmative action, etc. Religious devotees of devolution now are convinced that national agencies should be reduced or abolished, board membership quota systems for gender and race eliminated, apportionments made optional, itineracy changed, and more power be returned to the local level.

Another reengineering model favors significant change, but tends to believe that the devolution model ultimately will be destructive to the mission and ministry of the church. Instead of championing a more inclusive church, it will lead to more exclusiveness. National agencies need to be reengineered for effectiveness and efficiency, but not destroyed because the global mission of the church cannot be accomplished solely by independent local entities. Unnecessary structures and costs need to be eradicated, not in order to reduce apportionments, but to ensure greater funding for urgent missional and educational endeavors of the church throughout the world. Changes at the local church level and in itineracy are imperative.

All three of these models--revitalization, reform, and reengineering--tend to overlap in actual discussions about how national or local churches should be reinvented. Efforts at reinventing the church, however, can never be simply a management discussion. Fundamentally, it must be transformed into a theological discussion, because we are talking about God's church and our task is not simply to organize it in any way we please, but for us as a church to join in God's liberating and loving initiatives in the world. We seek to reinvent the church so we may be more responsive to God's way and will in the world.

 Our Vocational Challenge

  Our vocational challenge is to join in God's liberative and loving mission and ministry in the world.(16) Instead of reminiscing about a nostalgic "good old days" in the life of a particular congregation or denomination, let us think affirmatively about what the future holds for the church.

St. Augustine once said that "hope has two beautiful daughters. Their names are anger and courage; anger at the way things are, and the courage to see that they do not remain the way they are."(17) Christians need to go beyond acrimony and anger about what is wrong with our churches by demonstrating creativity and courage in envisioning a new future.

In the same Augustinian spirit, George Bernard Shaw once declared that "some [people] see things as they are and say why. I dream things that never were and say why not."(18) Visionary church leaders focus not primarily on the issue of why, but on the possibilities of why not. Therefore, may the children of hope--anger and courage--serve as catalysts for change as we explore new alternatives for the church in the years ahead.

Faithfulness to the historic traditions, scripture, theology, and experience of the Christian Church calls us to be pathfinders in the twenty-first century, sharing a vision of what the future of the church should be, and what values should triumph. Remember the words of Robert Frost, who wrote:

  Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--

I took the one less traveled by,

and that has made all the difference.(19)

  Our challenge is to reach beyond the past and present and choose the road "less traveled by," hopefully making "all the difference" in the next millennium.

 

 

NOTES

 

  1. "The Jurassic Church Comes of Age," by Eutychus, Christianity Today (Fall 1993.
  2. William Easum, Dancing with Dinosaure: Ministry in a Hostile and Hurting World (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1993) p. 15.
  3. "Series Foreword," by Milton J. Coalter, John M. Mulder, and Louis B. Weeks, editors, The Presbyterian Predicament: Six Perspectives (Louisville: Westminister/John Knox Press, 1990), p. 9.
  4. Martin Marty, "An Apology is in Order," Context, October 15, 1995, pp. 2-3.
  5. Robert Wuthnow, The Restructuring of American Religion (Princeton University Press, 1998), pp. 88-89.
  6. Cited by Virgil V. Bjork in an unpublished document entitled "Large Membership Church Issues," August 5-7, 1986.
  7. Wuthnow, pp. 98-99.
  8. "Time to Tighten Purse Strings," Christianity Today, October 4, 1993, p. 48.
  9. Robert Wuthnow as quoted in Coalter, et al., editors, p. 35.
  10. See Donald E. Messer, Calling Church and Seminary Into the 21st Century (Nashville: Abingdon, 1995), esp. pp. 53 - 71.
  11. H. Richard Niebuhr, The Purpose of the Church and its Ministry: Reflections on the Aims of Theological Education (New York: Harper and Row, 1956), p. 39. Niebuhr actually said "men" not "persons," but for the sake of his intent and inclusiveness I have made the substitution.
  12. Huston Smith in Trinity News, from Trinity Church, New York City, quoted by Martin Marty in Context, October 15, 1995, p. 5.
  13. Randolph Nugent, "21st Century Mission," 1995 Annual Meeting, General Board of Global Ministries, October 16, 1995.
  14. Michael Hammel and James Champy, Reengineering the Corporation: A Manifesto for Business Revolution (New York: HarperCollins 1993), p. 31.
  15. Ibid., p. 154.
  16. See Messer, pp. 124-125.
  17. Augustine quoted by Robert McAfee Brown in Context, vol. 24 no. 3 February 1, 1992), p. 3.
  18. This quotation is often attributed to Robert F. Kennedy. In fact it was said by Shaw.
  19. From "The Road Not Taken," in The Poetry of Robert Frost, ed. Edward Connery Lathem (Orlando, Fl.: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1979).

An Ecumenical Vision For the Year 2000

Not since the year 787 has the Christian world gathered in an assembly to which the whole church, or something close to that, eventually granted the status of “ecumenical council.” In that year, the bishops of East and West gathered at the Second Council of Nicaea: a meeting which, apart from its importance for other reasons, is remembered as the last occasion on which Christian faith, as a lived reality recognized throughout the then-known world, found expression in a universally representative gathering.

Now, with unseemly haste, the year 2000 rushes toward us, and with it what many sense to be the end of modernity as we have known it and the beginning of a world whose character we have yet fully to discern. The second millennium is ending and with it, at the very least, the hegemony in Christian thought of the distinctive intellectus of Europe and North America. Much else, too, is coming to an end: our isolation from one another, our sense of ease in our respective social and economic settings, our satisfaction to remain as we are.

What New Vision?

Other things, less clearly seen, are beginning. An ecumenical age has been brewing for a century at least. The missionary enterprise has flowed into the struggle for decolonialization and social justice. Visions of the possibility of theological reflection beyond confessional barriers have turned into accomplished fact. Surely this is an epoch in which the ecumenical idea should once again come into its own. In place of the oikoumene of a declining Roman Empire, we live in the emerging aikoumene of an interdependent global civilization.

Yet, for the past decade; the organized ecumenical movement has been viewed with indifference, if not suspicion, by Christians who have preferred to cultivate their personal spiritual gardens, to pursue various sorts of denominational consolidation and reorganization, or to wrestle with the relation of faith to social issues in abstraction from the struggle for the integrity of the social reality of the church. Meanwhile, the World and National councils of churches, myriad regional and local councils, the many bilateral conversations, and unity efforts like the Consultation on Church Union have continued to do their work largely out of the public eye except for occasional moments of media-orchestrated controversy.

Ecumenical organizations, of course, are too often only inept expressions of the ecumenical movement. They have on occasion deserved their bad press. But none of this should divert us from the fundamental question: To what vision of ecumenical opportunity does this historical moment call us?

Unity and the Human Struggle

The theological challenge is clear. It is to link, unmistakably, two things: (1) the effort to recover unity in a reinvigorated faith and (2) Christian engagement in the struggle of peoples the world over for realization of their hopes for full self-expression and full participation in the human family. These concerns are repeatedly driven apart by those determined to turn a theologically promising dialectic into a politicized ecclesiastical struggle. The essence of ecumenical thinking today is to see these two concerns as one.

The relationship between the search for unity in faith and the engagement in the human struggle lies through an insight as old as Isaiah 42:6 -- that God’s people are called to be in the world as a covenantal sign of the yet-to-come unity and fulfillment of humankind. The church is called to be a presence that chastens idolatrous hopes and strengthens true ones. The faith question with which the churches then grapple as they seek unity is that of the ground of human hope. If we say that the ultimate ground of all human hope lies in Jesus Christ, what does that mean for our life together as God’s people? What is required of us to bear witness to that faith?

Critical and supportive engagement with human expectation is not a new experience for the church. Our present denominational and confessional institutions are products of past involvements -- of attempts to engage the aspirations of given nations, classes or epochs with the gospel. The Reformation was an indigenization of the gospel in northern Europe, an interaction of already ancient tradition with the expectations of rising classes in Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Britain and elsewhere. Another indigenization occurred when Christian faith, in Protestant, Roman Catholic and Orthodox forms, jumped the Atlantic to North America and began to interact with -- indeed, to co-create -- novel social and cultural milieus.

Now, after a century or more in which European and North American forms of Christian faith were exported to “mission lands,” we are receiving back the waves of an indigenization process that may either buoy us up or engulf us. These waves are products of an engagement between the gospel and the newly awakened hopes of women and minorities, of oppressed people and nations.

Living Out the Vision

Such engagement is generating new expressions of the gospel, some of which threaten to create chasms between Christians more serious than the familiar divisions between denominations. We may continue to love and help one another, but can we continue to understand one another? If my hope as a Christian investor in America is the despair of a black brother or sister in South Africa, can the gospel unite us through a deeper articulation of our common faith? If my hope as pastor of a suburban North American congregation is the despair of a revolutionary priest in Latin America, can the gospel unite us by chastening both our hopes, placing them in the perspective of the hope we have in Jesus Christ?

The search for unity has thus become a dialogue not only of ecclesiologies but of cultures -- of fundamental forms of human experience. Can human beings find a unity in the gospel which preserves their diversity, their distinctive qualities, but overcomes their idolatries? Are theological interpretations of the hopes implied in diverse cultures and social experiences devices for the self-perpetuation and self-glorification of these forms of life, or do they succeed in placing conflicting hopes in a transcendent perspective such that the authentically human reality is disclosed?

Ecumenism has been misunderstood partly because the vision that generates such questions is hard to grasp concretely. The local congregation rarely helps people see it because the church as world reality is not tangibly present there. Furthermore, it is difficult to see what decisions by the churches as they are today could institutionalize the vision adequately. Yet the only way the vision, with the theological insights that energize it, can become the permanent possession of the church is by being somehow lived. The next generation, not to speak of countless contemporaries, will not see what we have seen unless we act it out.

The traditional ecumenical goal, “organic unity” among the churches, has fallen on bad days, largely because it is thought to call for a needless suppression of diversity achieved through a generation or more of ecclesiastical self-preoccupation. Thus understood, the search for “organic unity” would indeed be a retreat from the vision of a dialogue of the hopes implied in the whole range of human cultures and experiences. But can we not seek unity in a way that will help us transcend our particular North American problems, that will deliver us from decades of tinkering with boards, agencies, jurisdictions and pension funds?

A Conciliar Fellowship

Several new terms that have entered the conversation in recent years suggest that some shift of the ecumenical goal is afoot. At the Nairobi Assembly of the World Council of Churches in 1975, the goal of unitive efforts was described as a “conciliar fellowship.” Some ecumenists have began to use the expression “reconciled diversity,” and others the notion of a “community of communities.” It is not yet clear whether the usage of the latter two terms will make them synonyms of “conciliar fellowship” or establish them as denoting important variants or even rival understandings.

Let it be noted that the WCC’s Commission on Faith and Order has said clearly that “conciliar fellowship” does not refer to a goal different from that of “organic unity.” It is a way of talking about organic unity designed to dislodge our stuck imaginations by making reference to the ancient idea of conciliarity. These ancient councils (at least as now seen by the church bodies to which they are of central importance) were expressions of full unity in the faith, full communion in ministry and sacraments, and agreement about lines of authority and responsibility. In a “conciliar fellowship” every national or regional body represented would be a unified and inclusive expression of the church “in each place.” Considerable literature has erupted about what “each place” means here. But the churches united in such a council would not be our familiar “denominations.” The emphasis on conciliarity does not substitute an easier, less ambitious goal for a harder one. It is an attempt to articulate that difficult goal more imaginatively.

But this effort raises the question whether the idea of “conciliar fellowship” has application to present union efforts in particular nations involving particular groups of churches. We do not necessarily advance toward conciliar fellowship at the world level by trying to create what amounts to larger, more inclusive denominations at the national level. Should there not be a certain homology between the final goal and the form of penultimate and ante-penultimate efforts to get there?

Let us ask, for example, whether the word “place” in the 1961 New Delhi statement about “all in each place . . .” is a purely geographical term mandating one ecclesiastical organization at each set of coordinates on the map. In our mobile society, people are not confined to one place. “Place” may mean cultural as well as geographical location. It may even mean a state of mind.

Or, to reverse the thrust of the argument, why should geographical particularism be honored in the church while all other specificities of human experience are relativized in the light of the gospel? Can the conciliar idea be extended, without loss of the essential goal of church unity, to refer to the creation in each place of an ecclesial reality, a council, within which faith, ministry, sacraments and authority are mutually recognized, in which justice is diligently sought, but in which great diversity of expression and organization continues to obtain?

Episcopal Realities

There is need, at this moment, for a kind of ecumenical brainstorming. Thoughts that might be judged idle, idiosyncratic or diversionary in a period of greater clarity and agreement concerning the way forward may contribute just now to a general sorting-out of possibilities, a reforming of our common mind. The suggestions that follow are offered in the spirit of this kairos. They pursue some journeys of the imagination set in motion by the notion of “conciliar fellowship.”

A council of the church has traditionally been a conference of bishops: that is to say, a meeting of the persons who exercise direct pastoral oversight of the church’s mission. The episcopal conference is not a meeting of bureaucrats, board secretaries, curial personnel or the like. It is a meeting of persons who represent the reality of the church as a believing, sacramental, ministering community. If we speak of “conciliar fellowship” as the model for the unity of the church, our thought turns to the idea of councils recognized by all as having episcopal functions. (We are not speaking of councils in the sense of the present National or World Council of Churches.) How can we create, in towns, regions, the nation, and eventually in the world, councils of episcopé that re-present the one reality of the church in the midst of its diversity?

To put the question this way would seem to leave churches without individual bishops, such as the United Presbyterian Church, out in the cold. But follow with me another line of argument which, while it applies in its present form to Presbyterians, is valid in analogous forms for other “nonepiscopal” bodies. Presbyterians have always said that the presbytery is its “episcopal” reality. The presbytery has responsibility for maintenance of the faith, deployment of the church’s resources for mission, oversight of that mission, ordination of ministers and the like. Some of my Episcopal friends tell me that episcopacy is not a name for a particular kind of church constitution (as Presbyterians might suppose), but rather an understanding of representative authority and responsibility in ministry vested in a college of “sacramental persons” -- an understanding compatible with a wide range of constitutional theories and structures. Presbyterians have consistently said that they possess a form of episcopacy in the presbytery. Why could Episcopalians not agree?

If so, could not a way be found for a representative or representatives of the presbytery to represent, in a bishops’ conference, the episcopal reality that the presbytery is? Could not an episcopal conference include persons with titles other than “bishop” (such as moderator, conference minister, or even executive presbyter) if it were clear that these persons were commissioned to represent the episcopal reality and function in their respective churches? A presbytery or district or conference could explicitly commission a person or persons for this duty.

The episcopal council needed to bring this vision of unity into being would have to be such as to represent the wholeness of the church. Thus, while it would be “episcopal” in the sense of joining together those from every participating body who represented the reality and continuity of apostolic faith, ministry and sacraments in that body, the council should include representatives of all participating ministries: presbyteral, diaconal and lay. The resulting council “in each place” would be commissioned to carry out, as its first formal act, a rite ensuring full mutual recognition of ministries, and therefore of sacraments, in the participating church bodies. It would be important that this recognition be achieved as an act of the council, not as a series of acts of recognition of the various separated church bodies. Different participants would be free to believe what they wished about the act of unification of ministries. In its outward form, however, it would be an act by the council of episcopé representing the coming-into-being of a new ecclesial reality possessing the fullness of apostolicity and catholicity. Implied in such an act would be a relativizing, for the future, of the ecclesiastical character of the different denominational judicatories. A presbytery would henceforth ordain not in its own right but by virtue of its participation in a larger reality. At future ordinations in each participating body, the council of episcopé would be formally represented.

Continuing Diversity

Meanwhile, the machinery of the denominations, along with the whole range of customs or practices, could continue changed or unchanged as desired. The form of union envisaged here would not need to involve wholesale reorganization, a 20-year process of merging everything from seminaries to pension boards to trust funds. One might expect that in the name of efficiency and stewardship many consolidations would be made, but the thrust of the effort would not be in matters of organization. Instead it would be in local deployment of ministry for the pastoral work and mission of the church.

The churches would continue in such a plan to have much diversity, but with freer passage back and forth for both ministers and members, a far higher consciousness of Christians representing traditions other than one’s own, an arena for mutuality in mission. One advantage would accrue prom the maintenance of diversity: the institution of a “conciliar” form of church authority, indeed a corporate episcopate, as the preferred form of ecumenical fulfillment.

It is clear as well that what we would have here is not a larger, albeit more progressive, denomination. We would have, rather, a strategy council for the deployment of ministry and mission in whose hands would also be placed ordaining authority, responsibility for maintaining the truth of the faith, and so on. While the image of the large homogenized denomination is of little use in modeling the unity of the church on a world scale, this version of conciliarity has, I think, considerable potential as a model for what we might eventually seek at the global level.

It would be desirable to build such a union from below. But there would be no inherent obstacle to creating a national council of episcopé on the same basis. We could move toward an understanding whereby the continuing “denominational” assemblies and conventions (now deriving ecclesial authority from their conciliar commitment) would endeavor to meet in the same city at the same time (and hence at the same intervals) the episcopal council met, thereby creating a uni- and multicameral structure graphically expressing both unity and diversity.

The conciliar gathering called into being at every level in some such way as this should be free enough from organizational housekeeping to give first priority to thinking about, and leading the church in, mission. Such councils should be free to explore the meaning of engagement between the gospel and the hopes of human beings in the geographical place and the many other “places” within their pastoral care. They should be free to call on the participating bodies to stride beyond the usual boundaries of their imaginations in service to humankind. A direct link between the conciliar expression of church unity and the ministry of justice, compassion and concern in the midst of the world is of the essence of this proposal.

Exploiting New Possibilities

What chance is there that it might work out this way? Who would the persons participating in the conciliar episcopate be likely to be? The different denominational traditions, to be crass about it, would no doubt throw up different “types,” from accomplished managers to parliamentary tacticians to theoreticians to saints. Some would have far greater administrative responsibilities in their own shops than would others. Some would be accustomed to command, others to dialogue. Should we expect farsighted, theologically literate, creative dialogue on the mission of the church, not to speak of leadership, from such a group?

The only meaningful answer is that the conciliar body would not be expected to do everything itself. It would, rather, with the best possible staffing, stimulate and coordinate creative ministry, exploiting the new possibilities opened up by the crumbling of denominational walls. Pursued vigorously, this process could eventually begin to meld the still-separate boards, agencies and other resources of the denominations into structures determined not by national organization charts but by the requirements of mission. Surely this would be the best way, over time, to get these structures together. Then we would not only be one ecclesiastically, but also begin to act like one church in the stewardship of our gifts.

To what fulfillment might the idea of “conciliar fellowship” eventually lead? The WCC Commission on Faith and Order, meeting at Bristol, England, in i967, said: “In working toward the time when the churches, in spite of their existing differences, could accept each other in eucharistic fellowship, the ecumenical movement also works toward the time when a true Ecumenical Council can become an event.”

How likely is this to happen and how soon? Some say that an ecumenical council can take place only if unity in faith, ministry and sacraments already exists. Others believe that a council could be constituted in a way that would bring such unity into being. It may even be that a council of sorts could be convened on the basis of a covenant among the churches to work toward making it in the full sense “ecumenical.” The goal of a council that is representative of the whole Christian church remains a focal point of ecumenical vision, although no one knows whether such an event is possible within the lifetimes of those now seeking Christian unity.

The approach of the year 2000 undoubtedly serves to focus the imagination. Surely that great symbolic turning point will be marked in a variety of ways, not all of which will be pleasing to us if millennial sects succeed in capturing major attention. At the very least, it will be a moment for retrospective and prospective analyses: “2,000 Years of Christianity, But How Many More?” the headlines will ask. Surely the churches should plan now to seize what initiative they can. Moreover, they should endeavor to accomplish something together by the year 2000 that would be genuinely worth celebrating. What could possibly be more appropriate than to create the conditions for the first truly universal council since the year 787?

Considering the infinite complexities of the problem, a covenant to accomplish conciliar unity rather than the actual realization of the goal might be the most likely accomplishment of a “council” only 31 years away. Such a conciliar assembly would know its own fulfillment to lie in the future, but still, it could meet as a sign to the world that hope in Christ is alive. Will Pope John Paul II himself call us to Jerusalem?