Apocalypse Now, Part 6--The New Reformation
I'm going to go out on a limb here, and offer a prediction for what the Christian landscape will look like in the year 2100.
In the year 2100, there will be loose alliance of Christian bodies and churches that we can call, for purposes of these predictions, Team Blue. Team Blue consists of somewhere between one and at most a half dozen churches that see themselves as being heirs to the Apostolic, "high church" tradition--complete with bishops, liturgy, high Eucharistic theology, etc. These entities will have meaningful differences in theology, but will view themselves as being united as part of a broader grouping, and might very well have agreements to share clergy, resources, etc. Also on Team Blue will be a few, maybe a dozen or two dozen, networks of "low" churches and congregations. Some of these networks will be more robust, in the sense that are more like what we think of today as "denominations," than others. The differences between the high churches and the low church networks will be more significant than between each other, but all sides will see themselves as part of the broader Team Blue.
And then there will be loose alliance of Christian bodies and churches that we can call, for purposes of these predictions, Team Red. Team Red consists of somewhere between one and at most a half dozen churches that see themselves as being heirs to the Apostolic, "high church" tradition--complete with bishops, liturgy, high Eucharistic theology, etc. These entities will have meaningful differences in theology, but will view themselves as being united as part of a broader grouping, and might very well have agreements to share clergy, resources, etc. Also on Team Red will be a few, maybe a dozen or two dozen, networks of "low" churches and congregations. Some of these networks will be more robust, in the sense that are more like what we think of today as "denominations," than others. The differences between the high churches and the low church networks will be more significant than between each other, but all sides will see themselves as part of the broader Team Red.
So, you might ask, what is the difference between Team Blue and Team Red? Sexuality. Team Blue, and all of its component bodies, will affirm, indeed celebrate, the full inclusion of all people into the life of the church, including access to marriage and ordination, regardless of gender identity or sexual orientation. This position will flow outward into a broader egalitarian view of relationships and social roles outside of the church context. Team Red will be unwavering on its insistence that ordination is for straight men only, marriage is between straight men and straight women, and that clearly delineated and defined gender roles, as well as the strict regulation of sex and sexual activity, are the foundation of any just social order. Both sides will view their faithfulness to their respective vision of sexuality as a marker of their fidelity to the Gospel. And both sides will view the other as, whether or not the word is used, heretics--perhaps Christians in some technical, taxonomic sense, but having breached their duties to follow Jesus in a way that makes communion and fellowship with them impossible.
And, lest anyone get the wrong idea, this divide will not be limited to the United States, or North America, or Western Europe. The wave may break at different times in different places, but it will break everywhere eventually. In the fullness of time, there will be Team Blue churches and congregations in Africa, in Asia, in Latin America, just as there are in the rest of the world. To think otherwise is to think that women in those places are constitutionally uninterested in full autonomy, or that LGBTQ people are the creation of a Western fever dream, or that men in those areas cannot come to accept these realities, notwithstanding cultural barriers that might exist. And none of that is true.
I suspect that you will find a couple of groups floating in liminal space between Team Red and Team Blue, insisting that they are "centrists" and that everyone else is unreasonable. The politics of 2019 shows us that there are some people who just like centrism for the sake of centrism, because it allows them to feel like they are wiser and more level-headed than everyone else. But it is going to be hard for these centrist outliers to have a coherent position on what everyone else sees as the big issue. I mean, are they going to allow women to be ministers some of the time? Let LGBTQ be members and get married every once in a while? It's hard to see this working very well for very long. If history is any guide, these so-called centrists will really be on Team Red for all practical purposes, but will be eager to keep that on the down-low.
This is also not to say that the only disagreement between Team Blue and Team Red is sexuality. If you dig deeper into the theology of both sides, you will find significant differences on core questions like the approach to Biblical interpretation, how to understand tradition, and questions of atonement, salvation, and sin (especially the idea of "Original Sin"). But the presenting issue will be sexuality, and if you ask people (either members of Team Blue or Red, or non-Christians more generally) what the difference between the two are, the one sentence answer will be "Team Blue has women leaders and marries LGBTQ folks, and Team Red does not."
And, if you think about it, it's not any stranger an issue to cause a split than the previous splits that roiled Christianity. The "Christological controversies" of the fourth through sixth century, while perhaps more explicitly theological, are at the end of the day dealing with some very technical issues of doctrine that don't necessarily translate in a simple way into the everyday lives of people. Ditto with the filioque and the high level political fights between the Roman and Eastern Orthodox churches. The Protestant Reformation was perhaps more broad-based a conflict, but in the end it mostly came down the role of tradition visa ve the Bible in the life of faith. We view that as an absolutely central dispute because the Protestant Reformation framed it as such--you will find very little discussion of it prior to the 1500s.
Whether or not it makes sense in an abstract way, it is clear that sexuality will be the breaking point, because the breaking is occurring right now, all around us. If you watch, or better yet participate in, any of the goings on in organized Christianity, across all denominations, you can clearly see the cracks growing larger and larger. As I write this, the United Methodist Church appears poised to declare itself fully and formally for Team Red, albeit by a narrow margin. In response, in a single night, a petition supporting a plan that would create space for those who follow Team Blue generated over 15,000 signatures from people under 35. It seems to me that a split of some kind is inevitable, leaving only the question of which Team will keep the name and the furniture. If you are reading this today, February 26, 2019, you can watch the proceedings via their website.
Here, the United Methodist Church joins its Mainline colleagues in the Episcopal Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, the Presbyterian Church USA, and others. Unlike with the UMs, Team Blue is keeping the name and the furniture in those other groups, though I don't think that ultimately matters all that much. Having cycled through the Protestant world, we will now see this storm take dead aim at the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches. Here, you might see actual schisms, or you might see the Team Red partisans drive the Team Blue folks out in ones and twos (or maybe bigger, regional chunks). But the end result is the same no matter what.
In each of the circumstances, and I have found it especially obvious in the UM context, if you listen carefully to what people are saying you will hear it very clearly--Team Red and Team Blue are not part of the same religion. They don't talk the same, they don't approach their faith in the same way. The debate is not "schism or no schism?" but about whether you are going to force people who have already split in their minds and in their hearts to stay together "for the good of the children" (or, in this case as often the case, the good of the retirees invested in the pension plan--which, by the way, is something worth taking seriously). The schism already happened long ago, and we are now dealing with the consequences.
So it will be, I think. The die is cast. I know the folks on Team Red think that they will find themselves in the ascendancy when all of this is over, freed of the taint of those who are "conforming to the culture." I think, in the years ahead, that they are going to be in for a rude awakening--and those 15,000 signatures on the petition are a harbinger of that awakening. Team Blue, while a mess in many ways, is I think a bit more sober and clear-eyed about the challenges coming in this Century, and thus better positioned to respond. Either way, both sides will surely be smaller in the aggregate than the current number of professed Christians, perhaps significantly smaller (especially in certain areas). But we can take comfort in the fact that there will likely be a lot less fighting in the middle and later half of the Century that we have seen in the beginning of the Century.
Could it have been different? Could other paths have been chosen? Probably. But maybe not. And, in any event, this is where we are. We are having a Refomation. And this time, if you want, you can watch it on television.
In the year 2100, there will be loose alliance of Christian bodies and churches that we can call, for purposes of these predictions, Team Blue. Team Blue consists of somewhere between one and at most a half dozen churches that see themselves as being heirs to the Apostolic, "high church" tradition--complete with bishops, liturgy, high Eucharistic theology, etc. These entities will have meaningful differences in theology, but will view themselves as being united as part of a broader grouping, and might very well have agreements to share clergy, resources, etc. Also on Team Blue will be a few, maybe a dozen or two dozen, networks of "low" churches and congregations. Some of these networks will be more robust, in the sense that are more like what we think of today as "denominations," than others. The differences between the high churches and the low church networks will be more significant than between each other, but all sides will see themselves as part of the broader Team Blue.
And then there will be loose alliance of Christian bodies and churches that we can call, for purposes of these predictions, Team Red. Team Red consists of somewhere between one and at most a half dozen churches that see themselves as being heirs to the Apostolic, "high church" tradition--complete with bishops, liturgy, high Eucharistic theology, etc. These entities will have meaningful differences in theology, but will view themselves as being united as part of a broader grouping, and might very well have agreements to share clergy, resources, etc. Also on Team Red will be a few, maybe a dozen or two dozen, networks of "low" churches and congregations. Some of these networks will be more robust, in the sense that are more like what we think of today as "denominations," than others. The differences between the high churches and the low church networks will be more significant than between each other, but all sides will see themselves as part of the broader Team Red.
So, you might ask, what is the difference between Team Blue and Team Red? Sexuality. Team Blue, and all of its component bodies, will affirm, indeed celebrate, the full inclusion of all people into the life of the church, including access to marriage and ordination, regardless of gender identity or sexual orientation. This position will flow outward into a broader egalitarian view of relationships and social roles outside of the church context. Team Red will be unwavering on its insistence that ordination is for straight men only, marriage is between straight men and straight women, and that clearly delineated and defined gender roles, as well as the strict regulation of sex and sexual activity, are the foundation of any just social order. Both sides will view their faithfulness to their respective vision of sexuality as a marker of their fidelity to the Gospel. And both sides will view the other as, whether or not the word is used, heretics--perhaps Christians in some technical, taxonomic sense, but having breached their duties to follow Jesus in a way that makes communion and fellowship with them impossible.
And, lest anyone get the wrong idea, this divide will not be limited to the United States, or North America, or Western Europe. The wave may break at different times in different places, but it will break everywhere eventually. In the fullness of time, there will be Team Blue churches and congregations in Africa, in Asia, in Latin America, just as there are in the rest of the world. To think otherwise is to think that women in those places are constitutionally uninterested in full autonomy, or that LGBTQ people are the creation of a Western fever dream, or that men in those areas cannot come to accept these realities, notwithstanding cultural barriers that might exist. And none of that is true.
I suspect that you will find a couple of groups floating in liminal space between Team Red and Team Blue, insisting that they are "centrists" and that everyone else is unreasonable. The politics of 2019 shows us that there are some people who just like centrism for the sake of centrism, because it allows them to feel like they are wiser and more level-headed than everyone else. But it is going to be hard for these centrist outliers to have a coherent position on what everyone else sees as the big issue. I mean, are they going to allow women to be ministers some of the time? Let LGBTQ be members and get married every once in a while? It's hard to see this working very well for very long. If history is any guide, these so-called centrists will really be on Team Red for all practical purposes, but will be eager to keep that on the down-low.
And, if you think about it, it's not any stranger an issue to cause a split than the previous splits that roiled Christianity. The "Christological controversies" of the fourth through sixth century, while perhaps more explicitly theological, are at the end of the day dealing with some very technical issues of doctrine that don't necessarily translate in a simple way into the everyday lives of people. Ditto with the filioque and the high level political fights between the Roman and Eastern Orthodox churches. The Protestant Reformation was perhaps more broad-based a conflict, but in the end it mostly came down the role of tradition visa ve the Bible in the life of faith. We view that as an absolutely central dispute because the Protestant Reformation framed it as such--you will find very little discussion of it prior to the 1500s.
Whether or not it makes sense in an abstract way, it is clear that sexuality will be the breaking point, because the breaking is occurring right now, all around us. If you watch, or better yet participate in, any of the goings on in organized Christianity, across all denominations, you can clearly see the cracks growing larger and larger. As I write this, the United Methodist Church appears poised to declare itself fully and formally for Team Red, albeit by a narrow margin. In response, in a single night, a petition supporting a plan that would create space for those who follow Team Blue generated over 15,000 signatures from people under 35. It seems to me that a split of some kind is inevitable, leaving only the question of which Team will keep the name and the furniture. If you are reading this today, February 26, 2019, you can watch the proceedings via their website.
Here, the United Methodist Church joins its Mainline colleagues in the Episcopal Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, the Presbyterian Church USA, and others. Unlike with the UMs, Team Blue is keeping the name and the furniture in those other groups, though I don't think that ultimately matters all that much. Having cycled through the Protestant world, we will now see this storm take dead aim at the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches. Here, you might see actual schisms, or you might see the Team Red partisans drive the Team Blue folks out in ones and twos (or maybe bigger, regional chunks). But the end result is the same no matter what.
In each of the circumstances, and I have found it especially obvious in the UM context, if you listen carefully to what people are saying you will hear it very clearly--Team Red and Team Blue are not part of the same religion. They don't talk the same, they don't approach their faith in the same way. The debate is not "schism or no schism?" but about whether you are going to force people who have already split in their minds and in their hearts to stay together "for the good of the children" (or, in this case as often the case, the good of the retirees invested in the pension plan--which, by the way, is something worth taking seriously). The schism already happened long ago, and we are now dealing with the consequences.
So it will be, I think. The die is cast. I know the folks on Team Red think that they will find themselves in the ascendancy when all of this is over, freed of the taint of those who are "conforming to the culture." I think, in the years ahead, that they are going to be in for a rude awakening--and those 15,000 signatures on the petition are a harbinger of that awakening. Team Blue, while a mess in many ways, is I think a bit more sober and clear-eyed about the challenges coming in this Century, and thus better positioned to respond. Either way, both sides will surely be smaller in the aggregate than the current number of professed Christians, perhaps significantly smaller (especially in certain areas). But we can take comfort in the fact that there will likely be a lot less fighting in the middle and later half of the Century that we have seen in the beginning of the Century.
Could it have been different? Could other paths have been chosen? Probably. But maybe not. And, in any event, this is where we are. We are having a Refomation. And this time, if you want, you can watch it on television.
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