The Church Arrogant

The April issue of First Things had an interesting article about how economic theory can be applied to church, and along the way it shed some light on some of the mythology surrounding early American church attendance. In researching their book The Churching of America, 1776-2005: Winners and Losers in Our Religious Economy, the authors (Roger Finke and Rodney Starke) found that less than one-fifth of the American population claimed church membership at the time of the American Revolution. The rate of church membership then rose after the revolution, to about one-third by the mid-1800's and on up to about half in the 20th century. This is what they are refering to by 'the churching of America'. During this same time, Europe was rebelling against the church and beginning its long decline to today. Contrary to the theory of skeptics, the spread of education and industrialization in America did not force a decline in church membership or attendance. The skeptics insist that increasing education and prosperity necessarily lead to a decline in religion; the authors offer an alternative view.

Their alternative takes a more economic viewpoint, looking at both religious 'firms' (churches) and religious 'consumers' (members). In Europe, they maintain, the church was always a state church with a monopoly. Every nation had an established church so they did not have to compete for members, did not have to compete for funds, and did not have to be concerned about 'quality' or 'customer satisfaction', so the church could easily become focused on its own tradition and the desires of the clergy themselves. Since the 'consumers' had no other choice, they could either participate or stay home. This was also the case in the American colonies, each colony having its own established church and often persecuting dissenters. I well remember visiting Colonial Williamsburg some years back, and part of their living history drama on one of our visits included an intinerant Baptist evangelist being arrested and jailed for breaking the church laws of Anglican Virginia. No dissent allowed!

When the Constitution was approved, some states held on to their established churches for a while, but most of them were done away with in a few years. At this point, the churches had to raise their game to a higher level. Suddenly they had to give parishoners a reason to show up or they could go somewhere else. When that happened, membership began to grow.

This is not all sweetness and light, of course. This kind of religious competition also gave us Mormonism, Christian Science, Scientology, Jehovah's Witnesses and various other aberrations. Still, it does point out to me that established churches have other problems even beyond the very serious problem of tying the church to a political establishment. It also makes for a very self-centered, non-ministering church.

The history, though, also sheds light on our 'Christian founders'. 20% of the population as church members is less than most of those shouting about our religious roots would want to hear about. While no doubt some non-members were dissenters who would have been members if their church had been allowed, most of those would have moved to a different colony I would think. While the rural nature of the colonies resulted in many folks not being near a church, that held true much longer and into the period of fast growth of members and attendance.

In any case, the article shed some interesting light on American Exceptionalism in religion: it may have been the arrogance of the church more than education and progress that brought down religion in Europe.