Disciples of Christ decline

‘Congregations in Crisis’: Dour News from Disciples, Brethren

Jeffrey Walton on February 10, 2021

Membership and attendance numbers recently made available show sharp rates of membership decline in both the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and the Church of the Brethren.

For 2019, the Church of the Brethren Yearbook reported 98,680 members, a net loss of 5,766 (5.5%) over the previous year. Average worship attendance for the denomination was reported as 32,488.

The same reporting year, the Disciples of Christ Yearbook reported 350,618 members, a net loss of 31,630 (8%). Disciples’ attendance nudged up to 126,217, an increase of 1,780 (1.4%). [Note: I’ve been asked for a basis of comparison in the Protestant Mainline. Most of that group, including the Episcopal Church and United Church of Christ, is declining between 2-3% each year, although the Presbyterian Church (USA) is declining at 4%.]

Baptisms dropped from 3,782 to 3,362 (11%) while the number of other additions (including transfers in) declined from 6,969 to 6,501 (6.7%). These latter metrics can serve as future indicators of how the denomination’s membership and attendance will fare.

An important caveat with the Disciples’ numbers: I reached out to the denomination’s Office of General Minister and President, which noted that the numbers only include statistics from the 1,772 churches that reported for the 2019 year. The Disciples count a total of 3,119 congregations, but don’t estimate numbers for those that do not report statistics for that year (this is in contrast to denominations like the Episcopal Church, which roll over congregational numbers from the previous reporting year if new totals are not received).

An increasing rate of loss across the past two reporting years in both denominations is especially noteworthy. Rather than continuing a gradual membership decline, the rate is getting worse. Kudos to the Brethren news service in particular for a candid report, including a note that theologically orthodox offshoots may have contributed to the rate of decline.

Theological Disagreements

The Church of the Brethren counts itself among the historic peace churches, alongside Mennonite, Friends (Quaker) and other Anabaptist movements. The Disciples formed as part of the American Restoration Movement (also known as the Stone-Campbell Movement) a frontier offshoot of Methodism that also originated the more conservative Churches of Christ denomination.

Both Brethren and Disciples denominations are member communions of the liberal and declining National Council of Churches (NCC) although their profile and financial support within the ecumenical body are substantially lower than that of the United Methodist Church or Presbyterian Church (USA).

Both groups share many of the demographic problems faced by mainline Protestants: overwhelmingly white congregations, declining birth rates (corresponding to lower baptismal numbers), and an exodus of members that adhere to theologically orthodox teaching.

In 2013 the Disciples’ governing body passed a resolution listing sexual orientation and gender identity alongside race, age and other categories to which the denomination is “striving to become a people of grace and welcome.”

In contrast, the Church of the Brethren’s official position that “covenantal relationships between homosexual persons” are not acceptable remains unchanged. Theological traditionalists within the denomination have pointed out that congregations embracing LGBT practices (including the ordination of persons in same-sex marriages) have not come under discipline.

Some congregations departed the Church of the Brethren to establish the Covenant Brethren Church (CBC), which was officially formed in the autumn of 2020. The CBC affirms within its statement of faith biblical authority, the sanctity of human life and the place of sexual intimacy within the context of marriage between a man and a woman.

Church of the Brethren officials have decried the offshoot as “proselytizing” and have sought to prevent anyone involved with the CBC from remaining an officeholder in the Church of the Brethren.

‘Congregations in Crisis’

The Disciples of Christ are in a difficult season: early in 2020 Capital Area Regional Minister the Rev. Allen V. Harris announced that he would resign in June. Regional Ministers serve as chief executives for each of the denominations’ 31 regions.

“Sadly, my faith in the church has faltered significantly,” Harris wrote. “The daily work with congregations in crisis, whether as they decline and struggle to survive or as they decline and then lash out at their clergy and each other, has drained me.”

The Regional Minister cited among his struggles a series of accusations of clergy misconduct, frequent meetings with church boards “that anxiously cling to old models of being church and yet expect the course of history to change” and “most especially the toxic conflicts that have erupted in the last few years have wearied me beyond my ability to rebound back.”

Harris’ announcement coincided with the decision of the Rev. Miriam and Rev. Stephen Gentle to leave her position as Regional Moderator and his position as Senior Pastor of National City Christian Church. The latter is the national church of the Disciples and counted Presidents James A. Garfield and Lyndon B. Johnson among its members.

Gentle was succeeded by Interim Senior Pastor Amy Butler who herself swiftly exited New York City’s Riverside Church in 2019 under a cloud of allegations and sensational coverage by the secular press.

  1. Comment by Jeffrey Allen on February 10, 2021 at 11:43 am

    I was baptized in the Disciples of Christ in Varnville SC. When we moved to California at my age 14 my parents quit church and I went to churches I could walk to.
    Its sad about the decline, But I would never rejoin DOC because of their liberalism.
    I remember how wonderful the people were.

  2. Comment by Loren J Golden on February 10, 2021 at 5:14 pm

    “The Presbyterian Church (USA) is declining at 4%.”
     
    The reported annual net percentage membership loss from the Presbyterian Church (USA) at the end of 2019 was 3.74% (50,635 annual net numerical membership loss), down from an all-time high annual net percentage membership loss of 5.72% (89,893 annual net numerical membership loss) in 2016.  The number of members reported on the rolls at the end of 2019 was 1,302,043, down from 3,131,228 in 1983, when the (northern) United Presbyterian Church in the USA and the (southern) Presbyterian Church in the US merged to form the PC(USA), and down from an all-time combined membership (of the UPCUSA and the PCUS) of 4,258,761 in 1965.  The highest annual net numerical membership loss was 139,882 (99,705 from the UPCUSA and 40,177 from the PCUS) in 1973, the same year that the Presbyterian Church in America was founded.  The 1973 annual net percentage membership loss of 3.62% was the highest reported until 2012, the year that ECO: A Covenant Order of Evangelical Presbyterians was founded, when the annual net percentage membership loss was 5.27% (102,791 net numerical membership loss).
     
    During the 2020 pandemic, the combined effect of an extended period of time during which churches’ doors were closed, with televised services taking the place of in-person gatherings, coupled with the continuation of televised services for the benefit of at-risk, mostly older members, even after in-person gatherings had resumed, has quite sadly depressed membership numbers of all churches nationwide, with no discrimination between churches where the Gospel is faithfully preached and those where it is not, as members on the margins found it easier than ever to stop going to church.  As such, I would predict that the PC(USA) will report (in May or June, when the report comes out) even higher annual net membership losses (than those experienced in the last few years) at the end of 2020.

  3. Comment by Joseph Flanagan on February 11, 2021 at 4:59 pm

    “Harris’ announcement coincided with the decision of the Rev. Miriam and Rev. Stephen Gentle to leave her position as Regional Moderator and his position as Senior Pastor of National City Christian Church. The latter is the national church of the Disciples and counted Presidents James A. Garfield and Lyndon B. Johnson among its members.

    Gentle was succeeded by Interim Senior Pastor Amy Butler who herself swiftly exited New York City’s Riverside Church in 2019 under a cloud of allegations and sensational coverage by the secular press.”

    It is very sad to see this denomination turn into a farce. What would Thomas or Alexander Campbell say of a church that appointed a woman who forced bunny-shaped sex toys onto her subordinates to lead their national church?

  4. Comment by Diane on February 12, 2021 at 1:28 am

    I was raised third-generation and baptized in the Christian Church (Disciples). Where as some congregations are progressive, most are moderate or conservative – at least those I’ve been connected with when once very active in regional work as a layperson. I’ve been part of or worshipped in no fewer than ten Disciple congregations. I recently examined the history of the denomination in re to slavery/abolition. Both Alexander Campbell and Barton Stone spoke in favor of sending freed slaves back to Africa – they could not envision a mixed-race society. So passionate was Campbell about Christian unity, that he categorized the slavery/abolition debates as political and divisive if debates were held within congregations. He found no biblical reference to support abolition and believed the golden rule applied to masters and slaves alike…slaves should treat masters as they would want to be treated if they were the master and slave owners should treat slaves in the manner they’d wanted to be treated if they were slaves. Both Campbell and Stone could be regarded as “moderates” in this regard, protecting the status-quo White folks in the pews from having any division by insisting the debate was the realm of government.

    That middle-of-the-road, “we agree to disagree” position holds true for many Disciple congregations, where the status quo laity and clergy choose to relegate any in-depth discussion or consensus-building on contemporary issues to “politics”, citing any serious discussion, debates, or voting on an issue as a threat to congregational “unity”. Ice cream socials are popular, however.

    That hands-off, we agree-to-disagree approach is frustrating for many Disciples who either want their church or denomination to endorse wholeheartedly a conservative position or for others, a progressive one. Because resolutions passed at regional and general assemblies are non-binding and clergy tend not to inform the laity, most Disciples pay no attention to the wider church. I’ve known some members in congregations I’ve been a part of who thought we were worshipping in an independent church. There’s not a lot of teaching about Disciples history.

    I’m one of those who left because I felt like I was forever living in limbo. I’d attend progressive statewide ecumenical events sponsored by the state Council of Churches and be the only one there from the Disciples tradition. There was just little interest in being involved outside the local congregation. Disciples do a good job doing the usual – supporting the local food pantry, having church bazaars, having fellowship dinners, providing bookbags and school supplies for impoverished children, adopting families at Thanksgiving and Christmas. Usually there’s an Easter egg hunt, too, and again, summer ice cream socials. The White Disciples Church in my community has beautiful stained glass windows, gothic architecture and a superb pipe organ. They have no joint programming with the several African American Disciple congregations in the same community – I was shocked to find laypeople who said they didn’t know there were any Black Disciple churches.

    I finally left for a tradition that was more justice-oriented, takes prophetic stands and shows up for action alongside ecumenical and interfaith communities, encourages serious theological discourse, and is not afraid to spell out their “all are welcome” by specifically naming the marginalized communities too often condemned in the wider church. Disciples’ too-often silence is a witness to complicity.

    Disciples are a dying lot – I consider them an American experiment in theological moderation for the sake of status-quo “Christian unity”. There’s no commitment to a theological corporate-church identity. They still brag about an open communion table (without an open pulpit in many churches), as if they’re the only denomination with that practice (they’re not). Walking down the middle of the road and dismissing needed conversations on difficult issues because those things are “political” or “divisive” are not congregational survival strategies.

    Just my two cents. I’m part of the laity.

  5. Comment by td on February 15, 2021 at 12:20 pm

    Diane- you just described almost all UMC congregations that i know- except that UMC congregations are all too aware that they are part of a larger institution because of all the regulations about buildings and property. And having so little trust in that institution’s ability to be honest, to follow its own rules, and to appoint competent clergy.

  6. Comment by Gen K on June 14, 2022 at 2:00 pm

    Well personally I was completely traumatized by a DOC church. They don’t tell you what they really believe until you have gone there long enough to really get involved. I am a conservative and they were totally hostle to my beliefs and I never felt comfortable as a member of staff. I was often shunned and most of the staff did not even talk to me much because I am not a liberal. I quit because I could no longer participate in a church so contrary to the teachings of Christ. They say they are open to all but thats only if your a liberal progressive. Its no wonder the are the fastest declining denomination. Once most people figure them out they leave.

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