Revanchist Denominations
Attempting to regain power in a complex situation
My dissertation was about Attending Non-Members, people who attended church regularly (at least once a month) and had never joined while having been present for at least six months. My initial assumption was that people who attended a congregation they felt part of would eventually join or else move on to someplace else.1 I thought they would feel great organizational pressure to join2 and that if membership demands were too great, they might negotiate an intermediate status that let them hang around even if they couldn’t vote or be on the board.
Early in my work on the dissertation, I had to wrestle with the relationship between attendance and membership. What was more important? Someone who was part of the life of the congregation or someone who was on the membership rolls?3
And what does that mean for the individual? Does she think of herself in denominational terms or does she just like the preaching, music, and children’s programming at this particular church? In this age of churches named The River, Journey, Hope Pathway, and the like, do the people in the congregation even know what denomination the church is part of? If they know, do they even care?
These questions about the relationship between denominational identity, church membership, and individual behavior have been on my mind recently as denominations confronted changing attitudes toward current events, specifically LGBTQIA+ affirmation.
My own United Methodist denomination has been in the midst of this struggle for years. A potential resolution involving the creation of a traditional Global Methodist Church separate from the larger UMC was in the works when the pandemic hit. While we were all waiting for the next general conference, now postponed until 2024, the GMC went ahead and separated. Many details remain about church property and budgets, but the separation is underway. I don’t know what the new more affirming UMC will be called but the divorce has occurred even though both organizations agree on the vast majority of issues, with LGBTQIA+ status being the outlier.
Not all denominations are willing to have the years of conversation the UMC wrestled through. They have stepped in to regain control in the face of changing attitudes.4
As I wrote last fall, Seattle Pacific University had a group of faculty, staff, and trustees working on the development of what they called the Third Way document. It would affirm the Free Methodist Church’s stance on marriage while carving out a more accommodating position for the university.5 Before that could be considered the FMC changed their official position to require all institutions in the denomination to fully adhere to FMC stances or risk losing their affiliation. Since the FMC owns the university and the property on which it sits, it foreclosed any potential conversations going forward.
A very similar move occurred in the Christian Reformed Church (North America). Issues over LGBTQIA+ attitudes at Calvin University were seen as a cause of concern by conservative voices. So while a statement on human sexuality had been in development for some time, this summer it was elevated to covenantal status alongside key tenets of reformed theology. In other words, it was now expected that CRC employees, especially including faculty would be required to affirm the CRC position annually. While there is currently a plan in place to allow faculty to dissent from that statement, the long-term implications of covenantal status are uncertain. Faculty members asked to choose between supporting their students (gay and straight alike) may be forced to leave. As with SPU, the denomination owns the university and the property so it has the upper hand.
Last month, the Church of the Nazarene — my former home — joined the club. The Board of General Superintendents (six individuals selected by the denomination at their quadrennial general assembly) made an announcement that the section of the Manual (book of discipline) called the “Covenant of Christian Character” and “Covenant of Christian Conduct” were now elevated to the same position as church doctrine.
These covenants covered positions on traditional marriage, pornography, inappropriate movies, dancing, and alcohol, drug, or tobacco use. They now exist in the same realm as beliefs about the authority of scripture, the divinity of Christ, and belief in the Second Coming.
There were likely several reasons why this occurred when it did. First, one of the Nazarene institutions made news when a dean was fired in light of an affirming stance taken by an adjunct. Several Nazarene pastors have been removed from their churches and stripped of their credentials for taking affirming stances. And this week, a new book of essays titled Why the Church of the Nazarene Should Be Fully LGBTQ+ Affirming lays out the case on why the denomination should change its stance. I wrote one of the essays for that book.
You might not be familiar with the term “revanchist” in my title. It has a very specific connotation. One of the definitions I found refers to it as “a policy of seeking to retaliate, especially to recover lost territory.” I find it apt, especially in its military sense of fighting to reclaim territory won by the “enemy”. In the face of rapidly changing attitudes, these three denominations have staked out positions hoping to reclaim lost territory. It won’t work for the most part.
Let me return to my pondering about denominational membership. If not drinking and not dancing and not supporting LGBTQIA+ loved ones means someone can’t be in membership, then they’ll leave. Denominational identity is too weak of a bond to hold people whose attitudes and behaviors have already changed.
Where it will matter, on the other hand, is on the future of pastors and institutions. Denominations still control the processes of pastoral credentials and pastoral placement. They own and have majority board control of institutions of higher education. And so they have used those levers available to them to try retaking the contested territory.
This may work in the short term but not in the long term. Universities are struggling with enrollment already and revanchist strategies will scare some needed students away. Churches need pastors and the assumption that congregations will suddenly align with the new interpretations are naive. Even if pastors lose credentials and leave their churches, they will quite possibly take numbers of congregants with them wherever they go.
Here’s a relevant paragraph from my essay in that book on why Nazarenes should adopt an affirming stance:
The survey asked the younger clergy group how important it was for them to stay in the Church of the Nazarene. The good news is that only 12 said it wasn’t important at all with another 90 saying it was not particularly important. So Nazarene belonging was important or very important to remain in the denomination for 78% of the millennial respondents. They were also asked a question about what might cause them to think about leaving. Over 45% identified “the denomination’s difficulty in dealing with contemporary issues” as a potential future trigger.
Unlike my claims about the vagaries of membership for congregants at large, denominational identity is important to those younger clergy who will make up the future of these denominations. They see that as integral to their future. But they will not stay when the denomination makes it impossible to do so.
It feels really quaint 37 years later. The age of consumer religion, anonymous megachurches, and church hopping has changed all that and my dissertation topic wouldn’t be approved today.
Actually, they felt little pressure even from the pastor. Pastors I interviewed said that if people changed their minds and wanted to be members, they knew where to find him. I called this the “Little Bo Peep” phenomenon.
Numerous times when getting a pastor’s permission for my little study, they asked if I could tell them about the members who never came.
According to the Public Religion Research Institute, 38% of white evangelicals support same-sex marriage, up ten percentage points over just the last eight years.
This is the one piece of the SPU student lawsuit that is still active. They allege that a trustee tipped off the denomination about the draft Third Way document, prompting the denomination to take action.