{"id":1777,"date":"2011-12-29T11:41:48","date_gmt":"2011-12-29T16:41:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/flunkingsainthood\/?p=1777"},"modified":"2011-12-28T22:00:16","modified_gmt":"2011-12-29T03:00:16","slug":"what-the-christian-centurys-top-stories-of-the-year-can-tell-us-about-protestant-anxiety","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flunkingsainthood\/2011\/12\/what-the-christian-centurys-top-stories-of-the-year-can-tell-us-about-protestant-anxiety.html","title":{"rendered":"What the Christian Century’s Top Stories of the Year Say about Protestant Anxiety"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I just found out that my autumn Christian Century story on “The Mormon Moment” <\/a>was the magazine’s second-most popular article of 2011.<\/a> But this isn’t because the article was particularly well-written or insightful; it wasn’t. I tried to do too much in too little space, a common problem with the disappearance of long-form journalism. No, the article’s popularity has little to do with the piece’s merits and everything to do with what anxieties keep Protestants awake at night.<\/p>\n

In fact, most of the top ten are like that. Here is the list:<\/p>\n

    \n
      \n
    1. “You can’t make this up: The limits of self-made religion<\/a>,” by Lillian Daniel:<\/strong> “If we got all these spiritual-not-religious people together, they might find out that most of America agrees with them. But getting them together would be way too much like church.”<\/strong><\/li>\n
    2. “Normal Mormons: A ‘model minority’ blends in<\/a>,” by Jana Riess:<\/strong> “Mormons are in the familiar situation of being on the defensive theologically and politically. But they are also in terra incognita: they are viewed as leading the way in preserving family values.”<\/strong><\/li>\n
    3. “Loose connections: What’s happening to church membership?<\/a>” by Amy Frykholm:<\/strong> “Most churches still approach membership the way they did in the 1960s. But if new modes of affiliation are appearing, churches will need new ways of thinking about membership.”<\/strong><\/li>\n
    4. “Voice lessons: Learning to preach<\/a>,” by William H. Willimon:<\/strong> “King George was terrified to be in front of a microphone. That’s nothing compared to going head to head with the average North American congregation with nothing but three points and a poem.”<\/strong><\/li>\n
    5. “Why do men stay away?<\/a>” by Thomas G. Long:<\/strong> “Men and the church are often at odds. Sadly, many of the reasons researchers give for this are as insulting as they are misguided.”<\/li>\n
    6. “Same-sex complementarity: A theology of marriage<\/a>,” by Eugene F. Rogers Jr.:<\/strong> “Marriage is a means by which God draws a couple close by turning their limits to their good. And no conservative I know has seriously argued that same-sex couples need sanctification any less than opposite-sex couples do.”
      \n<\/strong><\/li>\n
    7. “New harmonies: Music and identity at four congregations<\/a>,” by Steve Thorngate: <\/strong>“Some post-worship-war churches revel in musical eclecticism. Others have a singular approach and sound, rendering the terms traditional <\/em>and contemporary <\/em>irrelevant.”
      \n<\/strong><\/li>\n
    8. “And Jesus sang<\/a>,” by Barbara Brown Taylor:<\/strong> “After Jesus shared his last supper with his friends, they sang a hymn together. There is every reason to believe it was the Hallel, Psalms 113 through 118. How have I missed this before?”<\/strong><\/li>\n
    9. “Why sermons bore us<\/a>,” by Thomas G. Long:<\/strong> “Much of the snickering about boring sermons comes not because we expect so little but because we have hoped for so much. A hunger persists for a word from the Lord\u2014without which we are left to our boring selves.”<\/strong><\/li>\n
    10. “Advice and consent: Monogamy in the age of Dan Savage<\/a>,”<\/strong> by Benjamin J. Dueholm:<\/strong> “While Dan Savage, an atheist, wouldn’t put it this way, the popular sex columnist exegetes rules about relationships with the precision of a rabbi or canon lawyer. Pastors should pay attention.”<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/ol>\n

       <\/p>\n

      There’s not a single story in there about what is going right in mainline Protestantism, but that’s not unusual: the most widely circulated articles and blog posts are always the ones that are most controversial, as I know from sad experience. But it’s interesting that in one way or another, almost every one of these articles is about the fear of Protestant obsolescence.<\/p>\n

      In some instances it’s obvious, like Amy Frykholm’s outstanding piece (#3) on “loose connections” and the trend toward disaffiliation in American religious life, or Lillian Daniel’s deliciously snarky thoughts on SBNRs (“spiritual but not religious, #1). Tom Long’s take on why men stay away (#5) tackles the perennial issue that a majority of men “feel bored, alienated and disengaged from church.” (His last two paragraphs are amazing. Be sure to read to the end.)<\/p>\n

      Even the articles that are clearly aimed for clergy — Long again (#9) and Will Willimon on preaching (#4), or Steve Thorngate on the musical “worship wars” that afflict many mainline congregations (#7) — have a bit of an edge to them: if people don’t like the sermons or music, they can and will walk away. If they disagree about homosexuality or same-sex marriage (#6), they can disappear, either drifting into total disaffiliation or flirting with some energetic religious movement that may or may not be a cult (#2).<\/p>\n

      \"\"<\/a>What’s missing from this list are the kinds of triumphalist pieces that I — perhaps naively — imagine might have filled the Century’s most-popular list in the 1950s (a decade that Frykholm rightly points out represented an aberrative uptick in American religiosity, but there it is). Not one of these articles is about a hyper-successful mainline church that is beating the odds, like the ones featured in Diana Butler Bass’s Christianity for the Rest of Us<\/a> <\/em>(the book that helped my husband find his amazing Episcopal congregation in Cincinnati<\/a>). Not one article is about church growth or widespread cultural impact. There’s nothing here about thriving Christian educational institutions or major endowments (for comparison, check out the headline above of a CC cover of old).<\/p>\n

      Instead, these are assertions of continuing relevance in a rapidly changing and somewhat bewildering religious landscape. And thank God they are. Mainline Protestantism sits at a crossroads of opportunity, its financial and membership challenges an unprecedented occasion for big-R Reformation. Not being Protestant, I envy that. Necessity will prove the mother of reinvention.<\/p>\n

       <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      I just found out that my autumn Christian Century story on “The Mormon Moment” was the magazine’s second-most popular article of 2011. But this isn’t because the article was particularly well-written or insightful; it wasn’t. I tried to do too much in too little space, a common problem with the disappearance of long-form journalism. 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