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Splinter groups keep cleaving mainline Protestant churches
T
here’s a popular saying in church- planting circles: It’s easier to make babies than raise the dead. That principle applies to denomi- nations as well, said Paul Detterman, who helped found the Evangelical Covenant Order of Presbyterians in January. “We thought it was easier in the long run to create something new rather than keep on trying to modify existing forms,” he said.
The existing form in his case was the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), which remains the nation’s larg- est Presbyterian denomination fol- lowing a decades-long plunge in membership.
Conservative Presbyterians, upset over the PC(USA)’s vote to lift its ban on partnered gay and lesbian clergy last year, are eyeing the new group. Planning for the ECO, which won’t ordain sexually active gays and les- bians, preceded the PC(USA)’s vote, Detterman said.
Nonetheless, the ECO represents the third mainline Protestant denom- ination since 2008 to split from a national church following votes to permit partnered gay clergy. The Anglican Church in North America formed in late 2008, five years after the Episcopal Church consecrated an openly gay bishop in New Hamp- shire. In 2010, a year after the ELCA voted to allow partnered gay and les- bian clergy, conservatives formed the North American Lutheran Church. Leaders of all three new denomi- nations say the gay clergy issue was only the breaking point for conserva- tives after years of dissatisfaction with bureaucracies, membership losses and theology disputes. In some ways, the rifts are nothing new. American Protestants have been
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splintering since Roger Williams left Plymouth Colony in the 1630s, said Nancy Ammerman, a sociolo- gist of religion at Boston University. Yet the schisms counter a 20th- century trend in which ethnic and regional Protestant groups merged to form big-tent denominations such as the ELCA and PC(USA). “What we may be experiencing
at this point is the limit of that move- ment to draw a lot of diversity under one umbrella,” said Ammerman, author of Pillars of Faith: American Congregations and Their Partners. Some religion scholars say the new denominations are head- ing down a demographic dead end unless they can broaden their appeal beyond conservatives upset over pro-gay church policies. “Public opinion about gays
and lesbians and gay marriage are changing so dramatically that at some point in the future—10 years, let’s say—it’s not going to matter very much,” said Robert Wuthnow, a sociologist and director of the Center for the Study of Religion at Princeton [N.J.] University. The Episcopal Church, ELCA and PC(USA) have lost members for years, as have other conservative and liberal denominations. Still, all three denominations dwarf their splinter groups. The ACNA counts 719 member congregations; the Episcopal Church has more than 7,000. The NALC counts about 300 congregations, compared to the ELCA’s nearly 9,700. The ECO is just getting off the ground, while the PC(USA) has more than 11,000 churches.
© 2012 Religion News Service 9
ation, addressing 1,500 graduates. Bergquist, who served as a mission- ary in India early in his career, is the retired president of Trinity Lutheran College, Seattle (now in Everett, Wash.). For the last 10 years, he has been a visiting professor at seminar- ies in Hong Kong and India.
SBC keeps name
When Southern Baptists gather for their annual meeting in June, they won’t be asked to create a new offi- cial name. Instead they will vote on a recommendation that Southern Bap- tists end the name change discussion but have the option of using the unof- ficial moniker “Great Commission Baptists.” The denomination’s exec- utive committee adopted the recom- mendation on Feb. 21 after a task force deemed a name change imprac- tical. The optional use of Great Com- mission Baptists provides an answer to those troubled by the word “South- ern,” as well as its link to the SBC’s Civil War-era defense of slavery.
LWF aids South Sudan Michael Mading, a Lutheran World Federation worker, helped coordi- nate emergency operations on behalf of ACT Alliance, an LWF partner, after a wave of cattle raids in Jonglei state in South Sudan left hundreds of people dead and thousands more homeless.
Christian state debated Sumoward E. Harris, bishop of the Lutheran Church in Liberia, criti- cized a national campaign to make Liberia a “Christian nation.” It is the act of “a small radical group that does not stand for anything good or orderly,” he said, vowing that the move wouldn’t succeed. Separa- tion of church and state is written into Liberia’s constitution. Change proponents said they had collected more than the 10,000 signatures from
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