Motus Mentis

On Twitter, Nick Land has posted a link to an essay on the membership trends — growth vs. decline — of various UK churches. The author, John Hayward, examines these trends with respect to the various denominations’ endorsement of Wokeness.

We read:

A person would have to be a recluse not to know that a new ideology has been taking hold in Western societies over the last few decades. Many names identify it: Liberal progressive; diversity, inclusion and equality; critical theory and its derivatives in race, sexuality etc.; LGBTQ+; the sexual revolution; even derogatory names such as “wokeness” and “cultural Marxism”. None of these terms accurately describe the collection of beliefs and behaviours associated with the ideology.

The lack of an agreed name for the ideology makes it difficult to study objectively. For the sake of this post, I will call it the Progressive Ideology because, like earlier progressive movements, it believes that human reason overrides God’s revelation.

In some ways, the ideology is a bit like a religion. People and organisations need to show they identify with it, either as supporters or by “coming out” with a particular identity. Such public identification is like conversion. The person or organisation has “joined the cause”. They have progressed. Or, as it is sometimes put, they are on the “right side of history”. Consequently, they now receive approval from those who have already embraced the ideology.

In order to assess a church’s fidelity to Wokeness, the author uses endorsement of same-sex marriage as a proxy:

One of the leading shibboleths of the progressive ideology is same-sex marriage (SSM), now legal in many Western countries. This practice is such a contrast to the previous history of the human race that those who approve of it can clearly show their progressive ideological credentials. Thus, Christian denominations where the progressive ideology has taken hold have been working hard to conduct same-sex marriages. In figure 1, I give the rates of membership change, indicating the denominations’ status with regard to SSM.

Here’s the chart:

To date, no growing church has adopted same-sex marriage. All of these denominations hold firm to historic Christianity. Indeed they are all evangelical in doctrine. Additionally, they have statements that affirm marriage as between a man and woman only – the historical and Biblical position. I propose that their confidence in the authority of Scripture enables them to stand against progressive ideology and drives their efforts in making disciples. They know what God requires of them in both behaviour and mission…

All the denominations that perform SSM are in significant decline and will become extinct before 2050 … These are the United Reformed Church, Welsh Independents, Scottish Episcopal Church and Methodists. Clearly, their position on marriage has not caused their decline! All have been declining since 1960.

What’s happening?

I suspect that their decline and the embrace of progressive ideology have the same cause. Could it be these denominations have a lukewarm attachment to confessional Christianity? Do they see their religion more in human terms than divine terms? For them, is Christianity more about things people do rather than what God does? If so, they have embraced progressive ideology as a positive alternative to orthodox Christianity rather than a failure to stand against societal changes. Liberal churches are not weak churches but strong ones, but strong for a different cause, a this-worldly one.

The problem with this shift is the mutability of the mundane: the ever-shifting fads and fashions, the surging and receding paroxysms and passions of the mortal world are no rock upon which to build anything durable. Any “religion” that lowers its eyes from transcendent truth in this way, that denies what is eternal and objective to make sacred the fleeting and merely subjective, is a shabby, truncated thing that, in its pride, is more than willing to shoot Heaven down from the sky, only to learn that it can build nothing holy from the debris-field. Men are not gods, or even angels — and whenever we delude ourselves that we can be, we soon find out the hard way.

Read the essay here.