10 Things I’ve Learned After One Year at IRD

As of today, I’ve worked at the Institute on Religion and Democracy (IRD) for one year. This anniversary is somewhat overshadowed by a much more famous historical date, at least for fans of sci-fi television – the fiftieth anniversary of when Star Trek originally aired.

But TV history aside, my experience at IRD has taught me a lot about the Church, Christianity, and public policy. I have appreciated the wisdom afforded me by working with my fellow IRD staff, who have impressive depths of knowledge about Christendom.

So today, I wanted to share ten things I learned during the past year. The following blurbs are a combination of fascinating stories from my colleagues and items I’ve blogged about. Hopefully you will find these points informative, too:

1. The United Methodist Church (UMC) is headed toward orthodoxy. I attended my first United Methodist General Conference in May, and it was quite an exciting, eye-opening experience. Moreover, it was an incredibly uplifting one. Pro-Israel, pro-life, and pro-marriage Methodists made major gains. This positive direction for a Mainline Protestant denomination was highly encouraging.
2. Western Christians have lots to learn from Christians in the Global South. This last year, I got the chance to travel to India, an experience I wrote about in several blog posts for IRD. Among the specific lessons I learned on this trip were that Western Christians need to grow in their theological orthodoxy, devotion to prayer, openness to the supernatural, ambition to spread the Gospel despite opposition, and willingness to follow God’s call to ministry.
3. Liberal theology is destroying denominations like the United Church of Christ (UCC). The UCC predicts its membership will decline 80 percent by 2045. My colleague Jeff Walton reported that “UCC members will drop precipitously, from 1.1 million to just under 200,000 adherents” in less than three decades. The UCC is among the most liberal denominations in America. I wrote about numerous examples of liberalism in the UCC, including here, here, here, and here.
4. Christian Realism and Just War Theory still enjoy rich academic study today. IRD’s Providence Magazine, which just released its fourth quarterly issue, has given Christian foreign policy experts a new platform to share their thoughts, arguments, and ideas. Although liberal pacifism may seem to be popular in some Christian circles, many thoughtful Christians say that just war is both loving and necessary.
5. The Presbyterian Church of America (PCA) is defying the odds and growing. Summer Intern Will Higgins wrote about the PCA: “God seems to be doing a miracle!” The PCA went into slight decline in 2008-2010, but has rebounded in the last five years. Higgins interviewed some prominent Presbyterian pastors, and discovered that among the reasons for recent growth were ministry in urban areas and outreach to minorities.
6. The UMC has become the most global denomination based in America. IRD President Mark Tooley wrote that no Methodist at his first General Conference in 1992 could have predicted this phenomenon. Tooley wrote that no one “24 years ago, including me, could have imagined our church’s transformation from a nearly U.S.-only mainline Protestant denomination to an increasingly evangelical and global body of over 12 million in which Americans will soon be the minority.”
7. The list of America’s largest seminaries is dominated by Evangelical institutions. My colleague Chelsen Vicari assembled a list seminaries in America with the most full-time students attending. The results were revealing. All of them were Evangelical affiliated, and half were Southern Baptist! Vicari noted that “students seeking training for church ministry in the United States are largely attracted to evangelical Protestant seminaries, a trend that hasn’t changed much over the past twenty years.”
8. Methodist founder John Wesley endured intense persecution for his faith. Eighteenth century England wouldn’t seem like a hotbed for religious persecution, but nevertheless Wesley encountered numerous potentially life threatening situation during his ministry. I discovered this while reading Jake Hanson’s Crossing the Divide: John Wesley, the Fearless Evangelist, a new biography of Wesley. Hanson described how Wesley encountered “ecclesiastical divisions, ministerial turf wars, and predicaments” within the Church, not to mention the “poverty, sickness, and spiritual darkness” of his times.
9. Corny Christian entertainment like the new Ben-Hur movie doesn’t sell. The remake released this summer of the classic Ben-Hur bombed at the box office. In my review of the movie, I noted how many of the most powerful themes from the 1959 film were diluted in the new version. Another notable example of this phenomenon was Of Kings and Prophets on ABC. I initially reviewed the pilot, and later reported when network executives cancelled it after just two episodes. The show barely mentioned God, instead playing up sex and gore for more entertainment value.
10. Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was shaped by her Methodist faith. Methodism served as a foundation for Thatcher’s entire life and political philosophy, even more important than neo-liberalism or conservative politics, as historian Dr. Eliza Filby described in her recent biography, God and Mrs Thatcher. “Before I ever read a page of Milton Friedman or Alan Walters, I just knew that thrift was a virtue and profligacy was a vice,” Thatcher said. (Will Higgins also reviewed God and Mrs Thatcher here.)