Measuring Success - An Appraisal

Commentary by Robin G. Jordan

In his article Measuring Success (Daily Episcopalian, May 31, 2007) economist John B. Chilton initially appears to be offering an explanation of why the Episcopal Church is not successful at reaching the spiritually disconnected and unchurched and evangelizing them. But it soon becomes clear that Chilton has a hobbyhorse to ride. The article is long on ideological views but short on statements of fact.

In the second paragraph of his article Chilton claims that membership and Sunday attendance in the colonial churches was poor in part because the colonists resented the “establishment church” and the involuntary taxes that supported that church. He goes on to asserts that “the colonialists were, to put it mildly, not particularly religious”. However, Chilton offers no documentation from primary or secondary sources to support his very sweeping statements.

Chilton goes on to write:

“With the advent of freedom of religion after the Revolution the established churches did not compete successfully with the newer sects like the Baptists and the Methodists. Neither the clergy nor the organizational structures nor the theology of the Congregationalists, Presbyterians and Episcopalians were well adapted to a competitive religious economy in a frontier country. It was not so much that the established churches declined in membership but that they did not grow at the pace of the upstarts. In market share terms the established churches declined dramatically.”

The history of the Congregationalists and Presbyterians on the frontier does not support the assertions that Chilton makes. They did much better than Chilton claims. As the frontier moved westward, the Congregationalists and Presbyterians moved with it. They may have rode in wagons and stagecoaches when the Baptists walked and the Methodists rode on horseback. However, they did not lag behind like the Episcopalians and wait for the steamboat and the railroad. The Episcopalians also tended to confine their membership recruitment efforts to the wealthier, more educated segments of the unchurched population to those living in centers of commerce and other prosperous communities – a tendency that they continue to exhibit to this day. The growth of the Congregationalists and the Presbyterians would be impeded by an agreement between the two denominations under the terms of which, if Congregationalists planted a church in a community, the Presbyterians would not plant a church in that community and visa versa.

Among Episcopalians the increasing influence and growth of the High Church Tractarian movement would have the same effect upon that denomination in some parts of the United States. The Anglo-Catholic theology and worship of the Episcopal churches in these areas would create cultural barriers between these churches and a large segment of the unchurched population. The spread of Anglo-Catholicism in the Episcopal Church would eventually precipitate a split in the denomination. A substantial number of Evangelical Episcopalians would succeed from the Episcopal Church and form the Reformed Episcopal Church. Those who did not leave abandoned their Evangelical principles and joined the Broad Church movement. For more than sixty years the Episcopal Church would have no Evangelical wing and would develop collective amnesias about its Evangelical heritage.

Chilton dismisses a very important movement in the Church of England with another one of his sweeping statements:

“Ironically , in Britain the inheritors of the Wesleys’ Methodism – faced down by the established church – became conformist in evangelism methods, and never had the same success as their American counterparts.”

Chilton fails to mention that the great Anglican field preachers George Whitefield and John Wesley who sparked the Great Awakening in the United States were a part of the Evangelical Revival that swept through the Church of England and which influences the Church of England to this day. He makes no mention of Charles Simeon and his strategy for advancing the cause of the gospel in the British Isles and how Simeon established the Simeon Trust which purchased the patronage of livings in the Church of England and appointed Evangelicals to these livings. Nor does he say anything about the independent evangelical churches that the Evangelicals started in Church of England parishes where the incumbent did not preach the gospel and for which they were unable to purchase the patronage of the benefice. He also makes no mention of the Church Missionary Society which was sending missionaries and chaplains to Oregon and Washington forty years after the founding of the Episcopal Church. John West and the Red River Mission would play a major role in bringing the gospel to the Nez Pearce Indians. The Church Missionary Society would also send missionaries to Africa. The work of these missionaries would eventually bear fruit in the form of the numerically largest Anglican church in the world – the Church of Nigeria.

In his analysis of why the Methodists are no longer as successful in evangelism as they once were, Chilton does not take into account the influence of liberal theology. Indeed he ignores – one is tempted to suspect deliberately – this factor. While such factors as ecclesiastical organization, evangelistic methodology, low demands upon membership and insistence and overdependence upon a professional seminary-trained clergy can affect success in evangelistic outreach, liberal theology has been insidious in undermining in mainline churches the belief in the need to engage in evangelism and their resolution to do so. Most theological liberals implicitly if not explicitly embrace the tenets of universalism and therefore see no need to spread the gospel.

Chilton misrepresents the core beliefs that distinguish Evangelicals from other Christians. Anglican theologian Alister McGrath, himself an Evangelical, in his book A Passion for Truth: The Intellectual Coherence of Evangelicalism gives this working definition of Evangelicalism.

· A focus, both devotional and theological, on the person of Jesus Christ, especially his death
on the cross.
· The identification of Scripture as the ultimate authority in matters of spirituality, doctrine
and ethics;
· An emphasis upon conversion or a “new birth” as a life-changing religious experience;
· A concern for sharing faith, especially through evangelism.

During the 20th century the Episcopal Church in part due to the influence of Anglo-Catholicism, the Broad Church movement, and theological liberalism developed an identity that was a rejection of everything that Episcopalians perceived as “Evangelical”. Southern Baptists were viewed as the embodiment of Evangelicalism so that whatever Southern Baptists believed or did was avoided. Since Southern Baptists emphasized the need for personal conversion, Episcopalians minimized that need or dismissed it altogether. The antipathy of Episcopalians that became so evident during the Decade of Evangelism in the last century is traceable to this phenomenon. Being evangelistic was equated with being Evangelical and therefore was viewed as un-Episcopalian.

Typical of liberal Episcopalians Chilton asserts that the views of liberal Episcopalians are the views of the majority of Episcopalians. Such an assertion appeals to the notion that if the majority of Episcopalians embrace a particular view, that view must be right. Being in the majority, however, does not make one right. While liberal Episcopalians have established enough critical mass to control the decision-making processes of the Episcopal Church, it is doubtful that they represent a majority of all Episcopalians. Chilton does not provide any research findings to back his claim.

The views that Chilton claims are that of “the majority in the Episcopal Church and in its leadership,” are those that are preached from liberal pulpits. Such views are what are sapping the Episcopal Church’s will to reach the spiritually disconnected and unchurched and to evangelism them. They do not need to be held by the majority of Episcopalians to have this effect. They need to be held only by those in key positions.

Chilton points to his readers’ attention that the Episcopal Church “does not emphasize personal conversion as something that occurs dramatically” or suddenly”. Neither does the mainstream of Evangelical thought. An individual’s conversion can be gradual; everyone does not have a “road to Damascus experience” like that of the apostle Paul. Jesus is the one who insisted that there was only one way to the Father – through him. Jesus also viewed the Old Testament, his Bible, as “the word of God written”. God alone brings “the Kingdom” – his righteous rule – closer; the Kingdom will not come close to those who refuse to submit to God as the ruler of their lives. It is impossible. Submission to God’s rule and conversion integrally tied together. You cannot have one without the other. Unfortunately the Episcopal Church encourages the kind of lukewarm Christian faith that George Barna’s research has found to characterize a large number of American Christians. See Barna: American Christianity a Luke Warm Church by Erin Roach (http://www.christianexaminer.com/Articles/Articles%20Jun07/Art_Jun07_20.html). They end up with a hodgepodge of beliefs.

Chilton ridicules the desire of many people for a Christian faith that is biblical and authentic. He derides such a faith as “too much like Amway for comfort.”

After listing what he believes that the unchurched ought to find appealing about the Episcopal Church, Chilton admits that the denomination does not appeal to the unchurched in large numbers. He does not examine the possible reasons for this lack of appeal. Rather he adopts the view that the Episcopal Church is a “niche church” that is appealing to a small segment of the unchurched population. It is noteworthy that Chilton is not the first Episcopalian to take this view. Indeed he is repeating a view that has been around for a few years, a view that has been used to rationalize the Episcopal Church’s slow growth in a number of dioceses. It reveals an unwillingness to recognize that what the denomination, diocese, parish, etc. is doing is not working and to make the changes necessary to reach more people.

When a denomination is not growing, there is a strong temptation to downplay the importance of numerical growth and to substitute different criteria of success. Chilton succumbs to this temptation. He offers two “measures” of success for the Episcopal Church. The first is denomination’s growth and improvement in Christian formation. The second is the denomination’s effectiveness as a proponent of social change. Here again Chilton fails to present research findings supporting his assertions. One informal study that Richard Kew did suggests that Christian formation is one the Episcopal Church’s greatest areas of weakness. The part that the Episcopal Church has played in bringing about changes in attitudes toward blacks, women, and homosexuals is debatable. A strong case can be made for the Episcopal Church having moved in the direction of American society on these issues rather than the other way around as Chilton asserts.

Chilton claims that the Episcopal Church’s vocation is “to bring heaven to earth.” God has given a number of tasks to his Church on earth. These tasks are identified in the New Testament. Bringing heaven to earth, however, is not one of them.

Chilton goes on to assert that the evident mission of the Episcopal Church, having brought about changes in attitudes toward blacks, women, and homosexuals in American society, is to be “a city on the hill” for the Anglican Communion. At this point what is really evident is that in the course of the article Chilton has reinterpreted, in true revisionist fashion, the mission of the Episcopal Church as promoting the normalization of homosexuality and homosexual practice in the other provinces of the Anglican Communion while laying out a rationale for abandoning the central task of the Church of Jesus Christ – the Great Commission. Despite the title the article is not about measuring success at all. The title is just a hook to catch the unwary reader.