Mainline Protestantism’s drift into theological modernism in the past century, and the conservative reaction, affects the prospects for Christian faith in the 21st century.
The 1958 Thorndike Barnhart Comprehensive Dictionary defined the word evangelical as:
“Of or having to do with the Protestant churches that emphasize Christ’s atonement and salvation by faith as the most important parts of Christianity, as the Methodists and Baptists.”
Methodism, especially in America, was the original revivalist movement. It contributed to American religious culture the camp meeting, the altar call, the gospel song, the protracted meeting, and the personal testimony. And it did this all without the benefit of trained clergy.
In 1832 Congregational seminaries enrolled 234 students, Presbyterian seminaries 257, Episcopalians 47, Baptist 107 and Methodists none. The first Methodist seminary opened in 1847. By 1859 when other Protestant seminaries enrolled over 1,200 students, the Methodist counted a total of 51. Yet Methodism claimed the allegiance of one-third of the entire American population (from “religious preference” tables of the 1860 census; “Methodist” in this accounting included all Methodist groups north, south, white, black as well as United Brethren and Evangelical Association bodies).
But Methodists, when they converted and established churches, moved rapidly up the social scale. They wanted education, respectability, and to distance themselves from some of the extremist elements in revivalism. A number of Methodist leaders began to gravitate toward the theological system known as modernism. When the Methodist Episcopal Church published a series of articles on “The Fundamental Doctrines of Methodism,” in 1916, emphasizing original sin, the atonement, and the authority of Scripture, Francis McConnell (later Bishop McConnell) of the northern church, wrote a book, The Essentials of Methodism, which did not even mention the cross, which asserted that Atonement was not a Methodist essential, and asserted that “experience” was the key to Methodism.
While McConnell was a popular speaker, especially on college campuses, his modernist perspective, and the perspective of many of the Methodist seminary professors of the time, was virtually unknown in most local churches. This was well explained by an article in The Christian Century, “What Is Disturbing the Methodists” (May 20, 1926). The article declared that Methodists had the reputation for doctrinal disinterest. Charges of doctrinal heresy were unknown among Methodists. Still, Methodists were in the mood of incipient revolt.
According to the article, Methodist ministers came in three grades. The upper grade consisted of bishops, secretaries of agencies, professors in seminaries, and those serving “big” churches. They were influential, prestigious men who attended seminary and ruled the denomination (at the time only 12 percent of the clergy had seminary training). Through them the liberal tone of Sunday school literature had advanced beyond that of every other denomination, except, perhaps, the Congregationalists. The second grade consisted of the ministers who probably entered the conference through the Conference Course of Study and pastored the medium-sized churches. They aspired to be part of grade one. The low grade consisted of men with limited resources. They were the lay pastors and pastors in rural areas. Their numbers were not small. Thirty-five hundred of these low-grade pastors had not passed the seventh grade. 4,000 of these pastors made up the bulk of Methodist ministry.
The ministers in the two lower grades were in revolt. The denomination was being taken over by modernist forces. This was too bad, according to The Christian Century. But times change and it would only be a matter of time until Methodist clergy would be duly educated in newer ways.
What The Christian Century observed as confirmed in an extensive study, The Beliefs of 700 Ministers and their Meaning for Religious Education published in 1929 by George Herbert Betts of Northwestern University. Betts had mailed 1,500 survey sheets to Protestant ministers in the Chicago area. 700 of these were returned including 200 by seminary students. The largest number of responders were Methodist but Baptists, Congregationalists, Episcopalians, Lutherans, the Evangelical Church, and Presbyterians also responded. On the Virgin Birth: affirmed by 90 percent of the Lutherans, 80 percent of the Baptists and the Evangelical Church, 69 percent of the Presbyterians, but only 54 percent of the Methodists and 25 percent of the Congregationalists.
Was Jesus’ death on the cross the one act that made remission of sin possible? 99 percent of the Lutherans believed so, 78 percent of the Evangelicals (the group that later merged with the United Brethren, and then with the Methodists to form the United Methodist Church), 75 percent of the Baptists, 67 percent of the Presbyterians and Episcopalians, 60 percent of the Methodists and 20 percent of the Congregationalists.
Betts was concerned that whatever the denominations believed they should be consistent within themselves. In the category of consistency Methodists were dead last of the denominations. Eighty percent of the Lutherans could agree on forty-four of fifty-six items. Of Methodists, however, 80 percent could agree on only eleven of the 56 items.
But even more revealing was the great gap between seminary students and pastors in churches. 70 percent of the pastors believed in the Atonement, but only 29 percent of the students; 53 percent of the pastors believed in Original Sin compared with only 13 percent of the seminarians.
Betts concluded that the church should not be teaching what the leaders do not believe. The church needed to revise its doctrines and its teachings to bring them in line with the advanced thinking of scholarly investigators of the modern day. These were arguments advanced 30 years earlier by modernist professors such as Borden Parker Bowne of Boston who made reference to the swamps of ignorance and superstition of ordinary church goers.
But what if the highly regarded modernist thinkers were simply wrong—or heretical? If there was such a tremendous gap between Methodism’s recently “enlightened” elitists on the one hand and ordinary pastors who served faithfully on the other hand, perhaps it was not the pastors (the “low grade” pastors of the Christian Century article) who needed to change, but the modernist elite. If doctrines such as Original Sin and the Blood Atonement had been a part of Christian teaching for 1,900 years why should the church change the essence of its faith because a few self-appointed professors insisted that it do so?
And, how is this related to statistics revealing mainline denominations over the past fifty years have been in serious decline. United Methodist membership in America has decreased from 11 million to 4 million (professing members); of the twenty-five largest seminaries in the U.S. only one (Duke) is affiliated with a mainline denomination; the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) have declined from 8,000 churches in 1968 to 3,690 today; the Presbyterian Church USA has experienced a loss of nearly 65 percent of its memberships from 1983 to the present; the United Church of Christ has declined from 2,246,000 members and 8,184 churches in 1960 to 712,296 members and 4,603 churches in 2022.
A preview of where this series of articles is heading: The educated and social elitists have not and will not lead Christianity toward revival and a renewed church. The liberal projection of an earthly Kingdom of God prevailing under the Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Man was (and is) a failed vision, especially when that vision is accompanied with political and social strategies.
When Jesus started the Sermon on the Mount with the words: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven,” he spoke of a different way the followers of Jesus would order society. Our goal as believers is not to make the “poor in spirit” like us (privileged leaders of the world around us) but to make us as servants. We may want to learn from persons and groups outside our own circles of influence. I, for one, want to know more about the Pentecostals, and about believers in what we sometimes refer to as “third-world” countries. I have stories to share about the church in the 1960s, about evangelical renewal groups, and about God’s workings.
How is it going these days for Christian faith in America and in the world? Despite discouraging polls about growing secularism and a turning away from the church (at least in America) I believe there is reason for hope.
More in this Series:
A Methodist ‘Croaker’ Surveys the State of the Christian Faith
Mainline Protestantism Tested: Racial Unrest
Comment by David on October 29, 2025 at 8:24 am
One finds a trend among Methodists to appear more “respectable.” Their early places of worship were in the meetinghouse style, a rectangular space, sometimes enlarged with galleries, with a dais and reading desk in the front. A small communion table was placed on floor level. By the the 1890s, buildings could have a semicircular arrangement of pews and on raked floor to facilitate audition. A major change took place around 1920 when the desire to emulate episcopal churches changed architecture. Methodists adopted an altar-centered plan with the pulpit being placed to one side and often a Bible lectern on the other. The uses of crosses and candles appeared on altars of new churches and the communion tables of older ones By the 1940s, Methodist pastors adopted gowns for services.
Comment by DanW on October 29, 2025 at 12:27 pm
David, you will find that Methodist churches in the U.S. come in all shapes and sizes. From small wood frame buildings, with rows of wooden benches and little adornment, to huge cathedral like buildings, with Tiffany stained glass, crystal chandeliers and comfy stadium seating. Some have beautiful pipe organs, and others humble console pianos. I’m not sure how common steeples are on Methodist churches. I wanted to say they are atypical, but I’m writing this a stone’s throw from one with a tall, beautiful steeple. (I wouldn’t throw a stone. It’s just an expression.) 😉
Comment by David on October 29, 2025 at 4:11 pm
Yes, there are various styles of Methodist churches, but they have changed in style over the years. Perhaps the largest of the meetinghouse style was the 1894 Great Auditorium at Ocean Grove, NJ. This is a steel framed building covered with wood and seats presently 6.250 and more when it was built. This is unheated and intended for summer use. The clergy who speak there do not wear robes and a cross was placed inside only in recent decades. The organ there is the 17th largest in the world and the electric sign with “Holiness to the Lord” in light bulbs is likely the oldest surviving electric sign in the world.