While I am always cautious about aligning myself with Rachel Held Evans, some of her personal struggles and blog posts deeply resonate with me. Here is one entitled “The Mainline and Me.” Some disenfranchised evangelicals are finding a new home in mainline denominations. Yet, I agree with Rachel that you can feel like you are between a rock and a hard place. You feel alienated from evangelicalism, yet a move to the mainline seems like jumping from one extreme to another! Since I am considerably more conservative than Rachel Held Evans, I was comforted to know that even she feels uncomfortable with switching to the mainline!
What to do? You experience such feelings of angst and frustration. It is hard to feel like you belong no where. You are too “liberal” for the evangelicals, but too “conservative” for the mainliners.
One option is to find an evangelically influenced mainline church. These do exist. There are mainline churches with leaders who are evangelical and who bring a distinct evangelical atmosphere to their church. We have found one locally – it happens to be United Methodist. We’ve been visiting a couple months and feel hopeful. They hold firm to core doctrines of the faith, yet don’t have the same hang ups as evangelicals. The pastor is very open, and admits that some United Methodist churches are sadly liberal and have drifted from core doctrines of the faith. He believes this is the reason the UMC has been in a state of decline. Clearly he is trying to lead his church in a different way, and this church is experiencing considerable growth.
This church is like a blend between evangelicalism and the mainline, and various disenfranchised people may be able to find a home in congregations like it. We need more of them. If you are a disenfranchised evangelical, this may be an option for you!
Yet, it became clear to me this evening that this transition is not going to be an easy one for me. I do believe this church will work for us in the long run, but I think it is going to be a rather slow adaptation. While evangelically influenced, it is mainline.
I am a fish out of water!
I’ve been distinctly evangelical my entire life. While I’ve grown disillusioned with evangelicalism over the last few years, it is all I have ever known. It is the only water I have ever swam in. I’m also an introvert, and as other introverts can attest, we can be slow to adapt to new situations. Feeling like a fish out of water can be much more challenging for us. It isn’t quite so easy as wearing a fishbowl on your head like the fish from Chicken Little and functioning normally! (I love that movie! Any other fans?) Introverts are also more self-conscious and a fish bowl on the head only attracts unwanted attention!
In a class for new people at this church, most of the others were from some type of distinct mainline background. They seem to be drawn in by the greater depth of teaching they are experiencing at this church. This is a good thing. But, for us, it is actually the opposite…While pleased with the depth, it is less than we are accustomed to.
As some doctrines of the UMC were reviewed in this class, there was a spontaneous recitation of the Apostle’s Creed. Uh…I am familiar with the creeds as I’ve studied them…but I don’t have them memorized and was only able to stumble through it. (As everyone else said it loud and clear!) Just another small illustration of feeling like the oddball. I suppose I could have run circles around them reciting Bible verses and won every “sword drill” with frightening speed.
Hoping I’ll be able to breath the mainline air sooner than later…I’m also unsure how to breath in a church that allows women full freedom to serve!
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**Adding a note to emphasize that I realize I’m speaking in generalities and stereotypes to some extent! For example, there are some very shallow evangelical churches out there with fluffy preaching, who claim to believe core doctrines, but rarely teach them. Some mainline churches can actually be better with their creeds, confirmation classes, and such.
Laura, I’m in the same boat. I’ve only been in independent, bible type churches. With the exception of one, all strived to be “culturally relevant”. I recently jumped over to the PCA for this very same reason you cited. I actually love the recitation of creeds and reader/response affirmations. It seems so solidifying for the congregation to engage in this unison activity. I’m going through a pre-membership class and it is very rich in teaching. But you are right, there are some things we give up. So far it’s been worth it.
Thanks for your comment Lisa. We seem to think alike or be on similar paths in various ways. I think this change will be worth it in the end for me too.
As an Aussie, I find this post interesting, familiar in some ways but foreign in others.
In Australia, I’m not aware of the same distinction between “mainline” and “evangelical”. The largest protestant denomination in Sydney (Anglican) is one of the most hard-line evangelical, the Presbyterians are very Reformed, but the Uniting (former Presbyterian, Methodist & Congregational) is much more liberal. I think we have far less, and less successful, ‘independent’ evangelical churches than you do, with the exception of a couple of strong Pentecostal brands (Hillsong and Christian City Church).
But I think those differences are superficial, and underneath we have the same problems – no church is really what we’d like it to be, and not just because people fail. There seems to be endemic failure built into church DNA. I think the biggest problems are probably a wrong model of leadership and a conservatism built on fear and insecurity.
I feel the answer for us is to learn to walk with God as a couple or family, or (harder) as a single, regardless of the church, and then pray for the Spirit to lead us to where he wants us to serve him. We will end up in all sorts of different churches and groups, none of them perfect or even what we would choose ourselves, but serving the kingdom and hopefully making a difference. I will pray that you find peace and useful ministry where you are. Best wishes.
Thanks for your Australian perspective and thoughts Unklee! In case you (or anyone else) is interested, Marc Cortez (an American seminary prof) had a post last year entitled “What mainline does and doesn’t mean.” And here is an official list of the mainline groups. Yes, it sounds like there is more of a distinction here in the US. But it isn’t always clear cut – as I mention in my post there are individual mainline churches that are evangelically influenced – so you could say some churches are both. And unfair stereotyping can go on.
P.S. In case you look over those links, note that “American Baptist” does not mean all Baptists in America – it is one specific type of Baptist and they are indeed liberal – and I don’t think that is stereotyping. haha.
That is an interesting list in that link, Laura. It seems that Quakers are mainline? I’ve never heard anyone include them in that category. And the Metropolitan Church too? That denomination was established primarily on sexual identity issues, so it seem sot me to be hard to say it is in a mainline with the other churches who were established for more generally recognized doctrinal reasons. Still, it’s a good list to keep the discussion going!
Hi Tim! Yeah, I was surprised that the Metropolitan church was on that list too! And I usually think of Quakers as their own distinct group. Marc Cortez lists 8 groups that are the traditional mainline groups.
Yeah, I like Cortez’s list better and his explanation of what it means is helpful too.
Is there a problem built into church DNA, or is it built into the members of the Church who still deal with their sarx? I think the DNA of the body of Christ is without blemish, according to the Bible, but that doesn’t mean everyone in it acts that way.
Laura, I grew up in a mainline liturgical church (same denomination my wife grew up in), but became a believer in adulthood and then primarily attended more independent evangelical churches. We feel comfortable attending mainline churches with solid teaching, like the one you’ve found, but we are still attending where the flavor is much more typical evangelicalism.
Oh, and on your last note about women being able to serve in all church offices: Yay! (Then again, I’m solidly egalitarian in my doctrine.) it’s perhaps a coincidence, but I wrote today on the issue of how church leadership’s word choices can reveal their views of women in the body of Christ.
Cheers,
Tim
Hey Tim! One reason (among several) that we considered a switch to the mainline was b/c the mainline generally allows women more or even full freedom to serve. It is such a strange feeling for me to sit in a church service and see women involved in nearly all aspects of the service – along with men of course! A blend of both sexes serving together. I think this is how it is suppose to be as men and women are both divine image bearers. And in my reading of the New Testament I see a blend of men and women serving without such strict gender distinctions and limitations like in many evangelical churches.
The church I grew up in has had a woman pastor for years (too small for any associate pastors). And when it comes to women teaching the word of God, I keep in mind what Billy Graham said about his kids: Anne is the best preacher in the family.
I was glad to follow the link that Tim left here on Ellen Painter Dollar’s blog. I am an ordained pastor in the mainline Christian Church (DIsciples of Christ), currently serving in a United Church of Christ congregation. I’ve been thinking a lot about “Evangelicalism and me”, and just wrote an open letter to my evangelical friends about how our relationship has changed throughout the years. I do think part of the “divide” is theological, of course, but equally significant is culture. I wholeheartedly believe that mainline and evangelical Christians worship the same God and Father of us all, but our language and ethos is different enough that we will often feel that fish out of water feeling when we traverse the divide.
I do not agree that the reason the mainline has declined is on account of doctrinal drift. The crumbling of Christendom in the West certainly affected the mainline first, which makes a great deal of sense given the historical “power center” of the mainline in American culture. But Christendom continues to crumble and is beginning to affect evangelical churches as well. Of course there’s a lot of handwringing about this, and I myself continue to struggle with the grief and anxiety associated with such profound change and unsettling. But, Christianity existed before Christendom and will persist after Christendom. I am hopeful that in the post-Christendom world there will be more opportunities for mainline and evangelical Christians to explore our core unity in Christ.
If you’d like to read my letter, it can be found here: http://kewp.blogspot.com/2013/02/an-open-letter-to-my-evangelical-friends.html
Hi Katherine! I truly hope others will follow your link and read your “Open letter to my evangelical friends.” Evangelicals need to read your perspective and how things came across to you when you encountered evangelicalism in your youth. I like how you word it in your letter that “Many of us seem to have fallen off of different fences into the same field.” I think that is my experience too. While I think doctrinal drift is a problem, we agree on much. I increasingly feel so alienated by many aspects of evangelicalism. I think Mark Driscoll is more than a bit problematic. haha. But not in my world – not that long ago I sat at a table of evangelicals where they praised and raved about Driscoll! I could hardly believe it. To my shame, I didn’t speak up because I was just dumbfounded. Well, I am rambling. Thanks again for reading my post and leaving a comment.
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