COMMENTARY: Denominational loyalty is on the wane

c. 1997 Religion News Service (Tom Ehrich is an Episcopal priest in Winston-Salem, N.C., an author and former Wall Street Journal reporter. E-mail him at journey(at)interpath.com) DAPHNE, Ala. _ Ancient boundaries were missing when eight people gathered at an Episcopal pastor’s table in this booming suburb of Mobile. Three were transfers from a troubled parish […]

c. 1997 Religion News Service

(Tom Ehrich is an Episcopal priest in Winston-Salem, N.C., an author and former Wall Street Journal reporter. E-mail him at journey(at)interpath.com)

DAPHNE, Ala. _ Ancient boundaries were missing when eight people gathered at an Episcopal pastor’s table in this booming suburb of Mobile.


Three were transfers from a troubled parish in the next town. Four came after stays at three other denominations. One remains nominally an Episcopalian but worships at an evangelical Presbyterian church.

All changed churches after a life crisis stirred a need for fresh air. When they talked about church, they said little about traditions, liturgy or theology. They pointed instead to a responsive pastor and an accepting congregation.

The Episcopal pastor, in turn, told of visiting an Assembly of God revival in Pensacola, Fla., which draws several thousand people a night. He went out of curiosity but found himself deeply moved and on his knees at an altar call.

The days of brand loyalty, in other words, are over. So are the days when church members stayed put, even during a congregation’s hard times. People are crossing the lines that once demarcated Christianity, not in rebellion (the 60s are over, too) or anger, but in a search that pushes through ancient suspicions and biases.

Non-denominational megachurches like suburban Chicago’s Willow Creek Community Church saw this coming some time ago. But now it’s the denominations themselves that are blurring historic lines. A new Lutheran congregation in Idaho rarely calls itself Lutheran. An Episcopal parish north of Los Angeles cobbles together its own music resources. A big downtown Southern Baptist church in Winston-Salem, N.C., allies itself with the Willow Creek Association and launches a”seeker’s”service.

Prayer books and hymnals are being put aside, as congregations develop worship forms that speak to their members, especially the new and young. Rather than expecting newcomers to adapt to parish ways, the congregation tries to anticipate arriving needs.

Traditionalists fume. One line-blurring pastor says neighboring clergy of his denomination won’t speak to him. Another found himself the target of slanderous letters from a nearby pastor. An Episcopal bishop warns of”creeping congregationalism.” Within congregations, some traditionalists fight to keep traditional boundaries intact, especially in music.


Nevertheless, the blurring of lines seems to be accelerating. So does the fading of denominational structures. While convention delegates wage holy war over liturgical details and denominational theology, local folks just forge ahead with new music and hybrid liturgies drawn in part from new members’ former experiences.

The key question is this: What works? What enables people sitting in pews today to worship God? One pastor, evaluating his Sunday liturgy, asks not what historic tradition requires, but, was there life today? Why were people not singing with energy? How can we get people’s eyes out of prayer books?

More and more churches, it seems, are focusing on people, rather than traditions.

At an evangelical Presbyterian congregation in Winston-Salem, for example, pastors dutifully lead recitation of 17th-century doctrine, but it’s clearly an interlude between energetic singing and a probing sermon. They allow room for disagreement on hot-button issues like abortion, and rarely mention their denomination.

Traditionalists don’t let go easily. Two decades after the Episcopal Church revised its Book of Common Prayer, the well-funded Prayer Book Society continues to fight for the 1928 book. The next fight will be over the hymnal, last updated in 1982 and already viewed by many Episcopal leaders as out of touch.

Clergy often feel caught between traditionalists, who hold power in many congregations, and newer, younger members who have no stomach for conflict and will move on if their desires aren’t heard.

As a result, some church leaders think the future of denominational churches belongs to the unbound: start-up pastorates, fast-growing suburban congregations, and congregations humbled by conflict or crisis.


Here in Daphne, on the eastern shore of Mobile Bay, a thriving congregation grew out of ashes: a broken, frustrated parish and a new pastor whose career had soured. Open to new life, they draw on familiar elements like the Prayer Book and Eucharist, but use meditations for teaching, a new way of saying prayers, music from several sources, minimal hierarchy in decision-making, and a new building that bears little resemblance to traditional Episcopal architecture.

Sunday attendance has tripled.

MJP END EHRICH

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