Summer is the time when many Protestant denominations hold annual or biennial meetings to assess the state of their union, make policy decisions, and figure out the best way to maximize their partnership.
The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America meets June 8-12. Thousands of “messengers” from the churches of the Southern Baptist Convention will gather in Columbus, Ohio, on June 16-17. During the same week, the Evangelical Free Church of America will host its national conference in Vista, Calif.
Denominational meetings may go on as usual this summer, but denominations, as a whole, have fallen on hard times. The Pew Forum’s survey of America’s religious landscape showed a rapidly declining percentage of Americans claiming a Christian identity. Among the 70 percent who still claim to be Christian, fewer and fewer identify themselves by their church’s denominational affiliation.
The rise of “the nones” (those claiming no religious affiliation on surveys) has gotten a lot of press in recent years, and deservedly so. But we shouldn’t overlook the rise of “the nones” within Christianity — Christians and churches claiming “none” when it comes to denominational affiliation.
A century ago, most Christians saw themselves as Baptists, Presbyterians, Catholics, Lutherans, and so forth. In the last 50 years, with the decline of mainline Protestantism and the rise of the cross-denominational evangelical movement, many American Christians began to abandon their denominational homes.
Today, many of the largest and fastest-growing churches in America do not belong to a denomination, while many churches that remain denominational have dropped the moniker from their church’s name (perhaps to avoid unnecessary barriers or baggage), and have thus become like their “nondenominational” counterparts, at least outwardly.
The bad news is that loyalty to historic church groups is waning, and for this reason, many Christians feel free to jump from one church to another, regardless of denominational identity.
The good news is that the imminent demise of denominations is premature, and a denominational affiliation is not the “hindrance” many believers consider it to be.
BLOGS: Trevin Wax
