b. Some comments about the mainstream churches
The growth in number of real members of the Kingdom of God—those who have been born again by the Spirit of God—is very hard to calculate with any accuracy. Indeed, there seems little point trying to work out precisely what proportion of the population they might represent. Whatever the exact number, it is a very small minority. The task before us is to rethink our strategy for reaching Australia with the gospel.
However, one of our first problems is that despite the wholesale exit of the ‘nominals’ over the past 40 years, the residual structures of mainstream, institutional Christianity remain. Support for these structures is mixed. Those, for example, born after the Second World War find very little interest in maintaining any denominational loyalty. It is hard for an older generation to understand this.
Most of the denominations are an expression of European—especially British—Christianity and life. For those born in the Empire, these denominations made sense of their families, their own heritage and their place within society. The Melbourne-based sociologist, Professor Gary Bouma, demonstrated some years ago that social class and voting habits could be correlated to denominational affiliation—not just the Irish Catholics voting Labor, but Salvos, Methodists and Baptists also tending to vote Labor from their more working class background. Add to this the ethnic derivation of some of our denominations—English, Scottish, Greek, Irish, Welsh—and we can understand why an earlier generation, closer to their European roots and culture, would think and act with denominational loyalty.
However post-Gough Whitlam and the 1972 election, the baby boomers, and even more so their children, do not think of themselves as misplaced Europeans, but as Australians. Add to that the migration of peoples from all over the world, and the majority of young Australians are not going to identify with a strictly European expression of religion.
As the only going concern in religion are the mainstream churches, and as they are expressions of yesterday’s European culture and yesterday’s village and suburban community social organization, it is little wonder that ‘no religion’ is the growing census choice of the young. Unfortunately “no religion” has no nominal members; they all practise.
This makes it fairly imperative that we take whatever action is necessary to reach the next generation with the saving news of Jesus. But will the mainstream denominations be able to reform themselves to take up this challenge? Can they break free from their cultural morés and methods of operation to preach the gospel in ways that reflect something of the new reality? Can the denominations ever become as post-denominational as their younger members are?
I must confess to not a little skepticism of this possibility.
You see, the denominations still have many old people who deserve to receive continued Christian ministry in their own cultural forms. These people are growing fewer in number, and increasingly frail, but they need our help and service, not our revolution.
Furthermore, there are still a sufficient number of loyalists of a young enough age to continue to maintain the old traditions in the churches for many years to come. The mainstream denominations also own enough real estate to enable them to sell off the farm for about a century without having to face serious alteration to their ways of operating.
However, there is hope if the denominations will rediscover their roots. If they would turn back to the Bible, a whole new reformation may commence. Indeed, if they would even turn back to their more recent historical roots in Calvin, Wesley, Cranmer, and General Booth, or to some of the great Baptist heroes like Bunyan or Spurgeon, there would be hope for change. For there, in their own traditions, are the evangelical precepts that would lift them out of their now outmoded cultural straitjackets, and allow spiritual reformation to take place.
But still I am not hopeful, for most chief executive officers know that any system that elects them to be at the top must be a good system in fine working order. It may need minor tinkering at the most, but no major overhaul or, in this case, spiritual reformation.
No, I think we can only expect from denominational leadership pathetic pleas for institutional loyalty, unity and harmony. It is bad enough that the boat is sinking; we must not rock it as well. Their hope for the future will lie in their ever-diminishing mainstream place in society, and so they will try to evangelize by being as inclusive as possible and as respectable and domesticated to the growing pagan culture as possible. Money will be spent on public relations and on social welfare programs, in order to justify their place in public opinion and acceptability.
With this fairly bleak picture of mainstream institutional Christianity, let me turn next to what the future might hold for evangelicalism.