Worldwide Church Split

The Coming Church Split

As I write this essay representative of the Anglican Church are meeting in the British Isles to determine what to do with the American version of Anglicanism for having elevated to Bishop a practicing gay priest. There are two sides. There are the liberal Euro-American Anglicans who can’t see why everyone would make such a big deal about this issue. The majority of the Episcopal Church (the name for the Anglican Church in America) are apparently OK with it, but a vocal minority is stoutly opposed. In America and Europe it seems to be “a done deal”—the conservatives are in the minority and the “flow of history” seems to be with the liberals.

Not so fast Wilson! Americans and Europeans no longer have a death grip on worldwide denominational thinking. They may still control most of the money, but not most of the spirituality and doctrine. A third world force has emerged in the Anglican battle fully on the conservative side—indeed many of them make America’s conservatives appear rather broad minded. As we are witnessing in Anglicanism, there is a major “Third force” in the world—and it is conservative and willing to fight—even expel liberal elements from their fellowship.

Some denominations globalized their polity (mostly in the 1960’s and 1970’s) requiring that central issues of doctrine and practice must now be ratified by some sort of “World Fellowship.” For these bodies it almost guarantees the liberalizing trends in the USA and Europe will be a short leash internationally.

What we see here are the early tremors of a coming split in the church. Not a local split so much as a worldwide split. I suspect we’ll see old unions unraveling in the coming century—and it will be the magnitude of split that has only happened twice before in history. You and I will not be able to sit on the side undecided during this fracture—we will both have to ”vote” with either one side or the other. One side will be the growing edge of the church, dynamic, exciting, dramatic (yet full of mutations and sometimes error). The other will be predictable, traditional, better educated, safe and declining. Which side will your church and denomination join when the big split comes?

Such a worldwide church split has only occurred twice before in the history of the church. The first massive church split occurred in the 11^th century when the one universal Christian church split east and west—into two churches, Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic. In that first worldwide church split the (Eastern) Orthodox church remained the conservative branch while the (Western) Roman church as the more progressive ones. The second worldwide church split occurred in the 1500s when Protestantism emerged from the Roman Catholic as a third branch of Christianity. In that split the Roman Catholics were the conservatives and the Protestants were the “progressives” of the day (Don’t miss the current film “Martin Luther” for insight on that).

The next great church split will not be an east-west split nor will it be a protestant-catholic split. Both Protestants and Catholics and people in the East and West will be dividing. However that is not to say the coming church split will not have geographical aspects. The split will generally fall along North-South lines, with most of those in the Southern hemisphere in one camp leaving most everybody in the Northern hemisphere in the other. Except the USA, that is. The USA Christians might vote to go with the Southern camp. We’ll see.

Actually the emerging movement is not so much a southern hemisphere movement as what we used to call the “third world.” It is in this hemisphere where Christianity is expanding at incredible rates while the Christian movement languishes in both Europe and North America. True, the USA continues to be a “Christian nation” numerically with 260 million Christians. But the growth edge of Christianity is elsewhere: with 313 million Christians in Asia, 360 million in Africa and 480 million in Latin America. The church in these mostly-Southern countries takes a different from than the Christian church of the USA and Europe. The differences cannot however be accounted for by culture. They are deeper, theological and they add up to an impending worldwide split for Christians.

This new form of Christianity is more conservative and even puritanical at times. It is committed to supernaturalism as a worldview and accepts demonic activity as something ordinary that should be met with a “power encounter” on a mystical level. It expects healings and other miracles to happen and considers them a sign that God is present among his church. They are more communal and accept greater authority of the church and church leaders and thus reject Western individualistic and privatized forms of religion. They are open to the Spirit’s leading today and believe in continued revelation from God opening them up to all sorts of strange doctrines. Americans might use an easy shorthand term for this surging new brand of Christianity: “Charismatic” or “Pentecostal.” In the last century this movement has emerged and come to represent a third of the worldwide Christian church today. In the current century this surging wave will probably come to represent more than half—and you will have to decide which half you’ll be in. So will your church. And, your denomination.

We do have an option. The remaining form of Christianity is what most of the Western church has been drifting toward for centuries—progressive/liberal individualized modern Protestantism. Christianity of this stripe doesn’t get too excited about religion, is rather permissive, tolerant, does not expect miracles or visitations from God in worship (or expects them rarely), attempts to integrate faith and science, and offers a mild cerebral form of religion for thinking people. This Western progressive/liberal Christianity looks at the emerging southern forms with apprehension—as if it is an aberration or mutation of “real Christianity.” They assume that once these folk move to the cities and get more education they will outgrow and abandon such superstitious religious nonsense. But they won’t. To complicate matter even more the wave of postmodern thinking even in the West is leaning toward the emerging experiential conservatives. Strange allies: the Southern hemisphere, Africa and Asia’s third force Christianity allied with emerging postmodernism!

So, how will your denomination vote? Will you vote to join the emerging miracle-oriented Charismatic conservative church led mostly by people from the Southern hemisphere… or will you vote with the traditional, staid, progressive-conservative, modernist church lead by Euro-American Christians?

Well, you don’t have to vote today. Indeed there probably will never even be a day when you “vote” on this issue. More likely each of us personally (and each denomination) will “vote” to associate with one or the other side in a thousand little decisions over the next 50 years. Eventually we will have a “big” issue (like the Anglicans face now) but don’t think that these two sides are deciding now their position. They have made that decision a hundred times a year for the last 20 years—and the “gay bishop” issue merely exposes how they’ve been voting all along.

OK… place your bets. If you were a betting person how would you bet your denomination will vote? Which branch of Christianity will it join in the coming century? How about your local church? And, finally—how will you vote? Or, probably more accurately—how have you been voting all along?

So what do you think?

To contribute to the thinking on this issue e-mail your response to Keith@TuesdayColumn.com

October, 2003. Revision suggestions invited. May be duplicated for free distribution provided these lines are included.

Other "Thinking Drafts" and writing by Keith Drury -- http://www.indwes.edu/tuesday

SOURCES: For further reading: Take the time to read Philip Jenkins excellent article in The Atlantic on this subject along with George Wills’ column on the Anglican church issue.