A friend wrote recently of her frustration with her parish.  The presenting issue was what she called the exclusivity of her parish.  Her fear is that if the parish did not change its ways it would ultimately wither because people like her would walk away if the parish did not change its exclusive, unloving ways and its “19th century notions of equality.”

My friend is more honest than most about the attitudes of her generation.  “We are floaters,” she said, and she went on to note that many like her fall away from their Christian roots as young adults and only come back at “moments of return” such as marriage, baptism, children starting religious education programs, and when burying their parents.  Her complaint: young parents come to the parish to be married or bring their children to be baptized but are sent away because they are not actually bona fide parishioners.  If the Church is to survive, she claimed, it must adapt to the new attitudes of the floating generation and become more loving and inclusive, for, if it doesn’t,  they’ll simply go elsewhere.

I think my friend is on to something.  She’s right that the Church is struggling to respond well to the floating generation. But her diagnosis of the problem and proposed cure are woefully – even tragically -  wrong.

Why are so many in our culture floaters? There’s a lot of evidence that, for many, the underlying cause is a deep theological malaise - “a playful nihilism”  - that infects our culture. When one hears some parishioners claiming they’ll leave unless the parish brings in rock music and a worship style cleansed of its ancient influences, and others claim they’ll leave unless the parish sticks to traditional music and a traditional worship style, one is reminded that our generations have all been McDonaldized.  When a consumer places her order in church for a taste of the sacred - for an experience of the depths for which we yearn but which our overly rational lives can not provide – we expect to get it our way and in a timely manner that fits into our frenzied lives. That’s what we’re paying for, and if a church does not “meet our needs”, well, there’s always Burger King just down the street.

While McDonalds explains a lot about our culture, I don’t think it adequately explains the attitudes of floaters.  Remembering a phrase from theologian Emmanuel Katongole, I suggest that the condom is a better metaphor through which to view the floater phenomenon.  One of the important marks of condoms, of course, is that they are disposable. We could capture this aspect by pointing instead to disposable cameras, disposable diapers, disposable phones, and other consumer goods, but condoms symbolize not just the disposability of a good, but also to the disposability of the good behind the good: that of our sexual relationships.  Condoms teach us that sex is a good that can be consumed, at our discretion, with or without the cost of a serious and enduring commitment.  The disposability and detachment of relationships that condoms provide are important because they make possible that which our culture values as “enlightened” – the flexibility to be always on the move, seeking ourselves,  and the freedom to build whatever altars the Self demands.  Condoms are a good metaphor for the habits and attitude of floaters because the metaphor captures the underlying values that drive their 21st century ideal: self-ruled individuals unencumbered by serious and enduring commitments who see the Church as just another supplier of things that trigger the pleasure circuits as we journey into deeper selfhood.

Our condomized culture has learned to think of its relationships and commitments to core values as disposable. Of course, it’s impossible to reconcile such a value system with the demands of the gospel. So, while I appreciate my friend’s worry about the Church’s ability to satisfy the demands of the floating generation, I am confident that the solution does not consist of the Church adapting to the culture in areas where it is the culture itself that is sick.

Rather, the vocation of the Church is to be that alternative community that embodies Christ in its common life, even when that life may seem archaic, exclusive, and unloving to the world. In certain areas - such as the invitation into the special vocation of Holy Marriage - the Church errs by forgetting what Holy Marriage is. So, too, with baptism. Most parishioners are ignorant of what Holy Marriage is, conflating it with the social contract by the same name through which the State governs property rights, and most are wholly ignorant of how the Church views children and the role of those entrusted with their stewardship on behalf of the Church (i.e., “parents”). Given the Church’s vocation, it is most unwise for a parish to reinforce a floating couple’s expectation that the Church will cater to their desire for the Church’s blessing on their social contract by pretending that it is Holy Marriage when there is no tangible and enduring commitment to the common life of a particular parish. Holy Marriage has no meaning without that commitment to the support and mutual subjection to a particular community of Christ. The same is true of all of the “points of return” at which floaters “come back” to the Church, expecting to be sold good feelings through rites that they mistakenly see as rights. 

Upon inspection, “floater” turns out to be a euphemism for a worldview that locates the floater at the center of the universe and which rejects any vital commitment and relation to a particular people and way of life. “Equality!” in the language of floaters, is not the plea that the dignity of all individuals be affirmed in concrete ways, but rather the demand that no criterion be allowed to stand that requires substantive commitment to a particular community and its way of life, for such criteria encumber the individual in its quest for Self. The euphemism conceals what earlier generations would recognize as the immature desire to be free of commitments that bind, the demand that one’s autonomy be given priority above the life of mutual interdependence to which the gospel calls us and which we can only practice through immersion in a particular community of Christ to which we have pledged allegiance.

I think my friend is correct in her assessment that the Church has grave problems with the floating generation. But, like many, she has misdiagnosed the problem to the extent that she thinks the problem is that the Church does not adequately adapt to the new attitudes of the floating generation. A better explanation is that our culture suffers from a nihilism and a worship of our own autonomy which manifests itself in the false belief that our relationships can be both disposable and Christian, and which is astonished when the Church demands substantive and enduring commitments to participate in our demanding and alternative way of life in Christ that is the shape of restored humanity. We must not forget that “the confessing people of God is the new world on its way” (Yoder).

Is there cause for hope?  The gospel accounts teach us to expect that the vast majority of persons in the crowd will indeed come and go around Jesus without ever actually becoming disciples of Jesus. And those in the crowd will always be offended by the cost of discipleship as they walk away, often shaking their heads and fists at the disciples who refuse to make the ways of the crowd normative for the life of the Church. And so there will always be ebbs and flows in the sizes of the crowds gathered around Jesus, just as we see in the gospel accounts, and, indeed, as we see in Church history.

But we believe and have seen that the Holy Spirit sustains the Church so that God’s purposes are fulfilled by calling, equipping, and sustaining persons as disciples who are truly willing to bear the costs and commitments of discipleship and walk in the way of the Lord, especially in those times when the crowds grow thin. When a parish fails, it’s rarely because they were too demanding, but most likely because they were not demanding enough.  Inevitably one discovers that they failed to hold each other accountable for staying on the path of authentic discipleship. And when that happens, it is appropriate that the parish wither like the grass.

We need not fear for the Church even as we live in this epidemic of withered grass, for we see throughout history that the Spirit plants new communities among the fragments, sustaining the Church in new ways so that God’s purposes are fulfilled.

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Good post, Craig.  I like the title analogy.  (Is that from a book or from Katongole in person?)

It’s from a journal article he wrote about his native Africa, about which I wrote an essay while at Duke.  He applied it to the continent and not the Church, and I am simply redirecting the metaphor here.

Great post, Craig. It’s a sad reality but I think you’ve nailed it—and the solution.  We must continue to ‘be the Church.’  That ultimately will be the greatest refuge amidst the storm.

In preparing for my church history course this summer, I read a fascinating book, The Rise of Christianity by Rodney Stark.  Many of you may be familiar with it.  Dr. Stark is a sociologist and attempts to explain why Christianity became a world religion from a sociological perspective.  In his book, he talk about the “floaters”.  (I cannot recall the exact term he uses but the principle is the same.)  He suggests that those religious organizations who make membership difficult to obtain and costly to maintain are less likely to have floaters than those groups that are much more open.  I have thought about this a lot in terms of our previous discussions on Communion without Baptism and my own thoughts regarding our deplorable (in my opinion) catechetical process.

At first glance, one might think that Craig’s friend is right.  Let’s get people when we can.  We ought to be glad we get them for as little as we can.  Or maybe some of us think that some kind of epiphany will occur for folk during the baptism or the wedding and they will decide to become long-term members.  As romantic as those notions are (and I can be a softy for them myself at times), the research just doesn’t bear it out.  The floaters will continue to float.

However, those religious groups that either make membership difficult to obtain and/or maintain are much more likely to continue to have growth.  When we scratch the surface, this actually becomes quite understandable.  We all want what we can’t get or at least is hard to get.  For example, Dr. Stark tells of research done on joining student organizations.  Those student organizations that had very difficult membership rituals were the most popular and the members formed the tightest and most loyal groups.

So, I think Craig’s spot on in this essay.  Thanks for sharing it Craig.

In Christ,
Shawn

Craig, I really appreciated your post. As a long time parish priest, I can’t tell you how many times people have been astonished and disappointed when I said, “well, I’ll marry the two of you IF you agree to six months of visiting the parish and at least four sessions of premarital counseling,” or “I’ll gladly baptize your baby if you will consider becoming part of our parish family and if you and the Godparents come to instruction for what Baptism is all about.”  When I announce that we at St. Whomever are not a sacramental way-station, but a faith community, they don’t know how to respond.

The only answer for the condomization problem, as I see it, is to continue to be clear about our expectations, no matter how counter-cultural they may appear to our “floater” friends.

Fr. Stephen Secaur
St. Paul’s Episcopal, Woodville, TX

At the heart of the Anglican ideal of the parish is a patient acceptance of all who open themselves
to its ministry. Yes as Stephen says, we set limits, not of our own idiosyncratic viewpoints, but thoee set forth in our Liturgy, which is our doctrine and discipline as well as worship.

The Anglican parson and the whole church exists to minister beyond itself. The theory of Anglican ministry is gentle, patient, and long-suffering. It is grounded in the paradigm of the “village” or today the “place”. Our Cure of Souls isn’t to a limited, let alone ideologically driven assembly of the “elect”, once a Puritan group but now as easily a “progressive” company of like minded people. Rather our Cure is the community and all in that community who avail themselves of the pastoral care the entire parish affords. That pastoral care is described and limited in the vows clegy take and in the vows the laity take at baptism and often “confirmed” in Confirmation and expressed not just in form and ritual but in taking seriously the language we employ in worship. 

For instance, we confess our sins week by week in the Eucharist. We come to Jesus week by week in the Eucharist. There is a patience with unbelief, conflicted belief and a belief not expressed in our corporate and singular behavior.

In the village, the church embraced the whole community, the devout and the skeptical. We don’t live in an actual village, but that paradigm informs genuine Anglican pastoral ministry. We rejected the Puritan ideal of the parish being the collected grouping of the “saved” and envision
a wider ministry. We are in danger of narrowing the scope of our ministry by advancing a theory, conservative or liberal, which seeks to cater to those who “belong” or agree with a party line. The Liturgy calls all who “travail” and are heavy laden. It calls to Jesus all who seek, however imperfectly to be in love and charity with their neighbors and intend to lead a new life, following the commandments of Christ.

Sorry for harkening to an older Liturgy -still in the BCP - but the words of invitation to the Sacrament still echo the pastoral, patient, and caring ministry which typifes Anglicanism at its best.

Hi Fthr. Tony,

How do you recommend we continue to live out that parochial approach in a post-Christian, multi-cultural society such as in the US?  That parochial approach worked very well in medieval society when everyone was of the same faith (with the exception of the ghettoized Jews).  I don’t know if you are suggesting this, but I know of many Episcopal priests who still hold this view of parochial ministry and thus believe that their responsibility for evangelism is to make sure the doors of the church stay open…and no more.  Again, that approach to evangelism was fine when the village was all Christian and the question was whether or not they were living the Christian life or not.  However, we don’t live in that world anymore.  We live in a world much more akin to the early Church with competing religions and outright skepticism of the Christian faith.  Thus, I find a great deal of guidance in how the pre-Constantinian church was so effective in its growth.

In Christ,
Shawn

Not at all. I woud challenge the view that the Medieval, or post reformation priest just made sure the doors were open. I would challenge the view that most people have the foggiest ide of what “post=modernism” means.  That is an intellectualism which fings its proof in the intellectual or faux intellectual group. Ordinary folk are alienatd because they think the chuch is there for those who like that sort of thing. We have to embrace the “village” mindful of the problems and hurt of broken lives.

Tony

I would love to talk about this further as evangelism is very important to me. By the way, I never said anything about “post-modernism” so I’m not sure how that entered the conversation.  Multi-cultural is not post-modernism.  What are the ways that you are suggesting that a parochial view can work in a multi-cultural, multi-religious, post-Christian society?

In Christ,
Shawn

Grin. America has always been a “denominational” multi-cultural society, at least since the Anglicans in the south met the Puritans in the north and all those Germans and “Catholics” and then home grown sects staggered up.

Just read this interview of Cantuar ith Ruth Gledhill. It speaks to my point. +Rowan said?

“ABC: That is one of the anxieties that many people in the Church feel, that a period of cultural legacy of knowing a bit about it has vanished and that therefore what people know is what high-profile headlines say and what the conflicts communicate. This is where the Church of England in particular does have quite a complicated balancing act. The Church as someone said decades ago, has to be something, has to be itself. The question is how to be itself with integrity in a way that doesn’t barricade the doors. I think understanding that the language of our theology the language of our hymns the symbolism of our worship is invitation before it’s anything else, it’s not a set of conditions before you come through the door… In the world of the imagination, of the arts, time was when the Christian faith was bound in with a lot of that. You couldn’t really say that now, easily. And yet that’s where a lot of people find the depth they want, the dimensionality they want.’

Quite so!

Tony

Fr. Tony,
I very much share your concern and your understanding of the parish cure.  Certainly one welcomes with open arms all who come, including those who live among you but who you count among the skeptics and simply the unchurched.  That’s seemed to me so obvious that it need not be said, but I am glad you reminded us of that tradition.  That welcome, however, does not mean diluting the meaning of our sacraments by requiring less than they presuppose, and they presuppose participation in the community of faith at the level appropriate for the individual (catechumen or baptized).  It is not at all a matter of individuals “belonging” or subscribing to a party line, but rather a matter of individuals committing themselves to the community who knows Jesus as Lord of the world and practicing the skills of discipleship within that community. When the unchurched or de-churched “come back” to the Church for these moments of return, one does not turn them away but rather initiates the catechesis necessary for them to understand what discipleship means and demands so that they are invited and equipped to walk on that path that is presupposed in our sacraments.

Precisely. That is why I tried to draw a distinction between the faith received and expressed in the Liturgy and the imposition of a particular “party”  line which perhaps some basis in the Gospel but subsumes that context into a secular political and social grouping defining itself in distinction to another.

Thank you Craig and Fthr. Tony for your clarifications.  I certainly agree with having very open arms but also emphasizing that we are a community of faith and not a sacramental buffet line.

I do believe strongly though that we must do more than just keep the doors open in terms of our evangelistic efforts.  Would you agree?  If so, what have you found has worked in evangelizing a post-Christian community?

In Christ,
Shawn

I like “sacramental buffet line.” Good turn of phrase.  The average size TEC parish is utterly tied up with the upkeep of a building often built in more churched and affluent times and with the cost of maintaining a full time priest. To many “moderns” our churches look like fortresses. Our congregations on the whole have a vested interest in real estate. It has become “the church.”  Originally churches were built for the community, in a time before all the distractions of modern life.

I don’t know how we turn this around. Much of the time he priest is prisioner to looking after the people in the building and the building for the people. For hours and hours each day our church buildings are empty places, except for the church office!  Yet their rooms and space could once again become available centers, if the superstition didn’t remain that they are solely their for “holy” purposes. (I once served a parish which had a presence downtown and its hall used for all sorts of community events. The church was sold, the congregation built a church on the edge of town, more worship space than community space and the congregation dwindled. I was planning renting a store front down town open a few days a week with a place to pray and a place to drink coffee and meet with the priest’s office there. I was called to other things before the plan was put into effect.” 

In most cases the cost of having a presence in a mall or shopping center is impossible because all the money goes on priest and church building. Somehow we have to break out of our self-imposed “ghetto” and be where people are and where they meet, with the “church” still there as the worship center.