A Different Paradigm to Explain Church Decline

What lies behind the dramatic decline we’ve seen in churches lately? It turns out that some of the most common reasons we’ve given may not be the best explanation. Today, we’ll examine insights from Samuel Perry’s book, Religion for Realists: Why We All Need the Scientific Study of Religion.

• Over the years, we’ve told the story that the mainline has declined because of their liberal theology. We have said that once a church loses its solid foundation, it inevitably heads toward irrelevance and a dramatic loss in membership. But is this the main reason for these churches’ decline?
• By contrast, we’ve told the story that evangelicals are growing because they stick to the gospel and are morally conservative. But what if there are other, better explanations? Let’s look at several theories I think are better backed by the evidence.

Explaining Church Growth and Decline

1. A Drop in Birth Rates

• Both the mainline and evangelical have about the same rate of evangelism growth. The difference in their rate of membership growth was not because of differences in evangelism but differences in birth rates.
• Historically, evangelicals had more babies than mainline folks, so they grew more rapidly. (Underlying this phenomenon was the growing wealth of mainline believers, as wealth tends to be correlated with fewer babies being born.) As evangelicals have also become wealthier in recent history, their birth rates have similarly declined. Like the mainline, their membership will shrink because of it.

2. Cultural Acclimatization

• As the mainline churches became more acclimated to the culture, their children saw different ways of living and chose to pursue those ways. This led to a decline in membership. The same is now happening in evangelical circles, as young people are less sheltered from the broader culture.
• Compare this to the Amish, who have very closed communities. Because they keep the outside out, young people do not choose anything but the Amish way of life. When combined with a very high birthrate (6+ kids per family), the Amish are growing gangbusters. One person even wrote a tongue-in-cheek article entitled, “Will we all be Amish?”

3. Apologetics and Worldviews

• Deep in the heart of evangelicalism in the United States is the belief that if we did a better job at apologetics—a better job of showing that our theological beliefs were superior—people would follow Jesus. But often, this is not how it works.
• Is the decline of religious affiliation and practice in the United States and Western Europe primarily the result of people intentionally switching from one set of ideas to another? No, in actuality, the long-term trend toward secularism is a downstream result of a variety of structural factors related to economics, politics, and family life.

I believe that the central challenge before us is not finding better ideas or methods of persuasion (although that does work for some). For most people, what works is simply creating structures that invite others into the faith community and that sustain the faith of our children. This means getting back to the basics of allowing people to belong before they believe, showing them what grace looks like, and putting Jesus first in all we do.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This article was adapted from “Amish for the Win” by Larry Doornbos at imaginechurch.world.