Losing my religion
No not really but this is my last week as a member of the Presbyterian Church (we are starting to go to another church). If this is too close to a personal testimony please avoid it but I was inspired by this to think about the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, its place in NI culture and its future. It will largely centre on Coleraine and East Belfast Presbyteries (especially Coleraine) as they are the ones I know but the issues are very likely to be generalise-able. For the religious amongst you my apologies in advance for not mentioning the power of the Holy Spirit and His ability to save souls and cause church growth: this is a blog about religion and not a religious blog.The PCI is the largest Protestant denomination in Northern Ireland and the second largest on the island (after the Church of Ireland). In common with most of the mainstream denominations the PCI has seen a decline in numbers, currently its membership is about 300,000 (it was 336,000 in 1991 and over 400,000 in 1971). The PCI has for as long as I have known it been pretty obsessed with its numerical decline and innumerable suggestions have been made as to how to arrest this problem.
One of the PCI’s problems of course is that it is a very broad church. Some parts of it (largely within Belfast) are liberal, sometimes with a strong ecumenical tendency, whereas other parts (predominantly, though not exclusively outside Belfast and especially North Antrim and East / South Londonderry) are highly evangelical and indeed fundamentalist. These two groups and many in between coexist in relative harmony though their concerns regarding things like church growth (or arrest of decline) often diverge.
Much of the loss of membership (both active and passive) has come from the general reduction in religious observance within Ireland both north and south. This has afflicted all churches, though the Roman Catholic Church may be somewhat more immune at least in terms of keeping people as nominal members. Many Protestants who were once semi or non-practising Presbyterians have simply stopped attending church. Various attempts have been made to bring such people back into the fold with modifications to services, a decrease in formality and other things which have been feared to be “elitist.” Of course a problem which the liberal wing have had is that their frequent opposition to the Orange Order and general mistrust of harder line unionist politics have played poorly with many of those whom they are trying to persuade back into church. On the other side the more fundamentalist wing have caused themselves problems (for right or wrong reasons) by for example refusing to baptise infants of parents who do not attend church. This refusal no matter how biblical it may be has frequently caused resentment within whole families and has resulted in many more than the parents in question not attending church. The compromise position which some ministers have adopted of having a dedication may also be problematic as it seems to be a second class baptism.
Another problem, which particularly affects the fundamentalist wing, is the profusion of smaller fundamentalist churches, which have grown up in the last fifty years. Not only the Free Presbyterians but many other small denominations and indeed individual churches with no specific denominational tag have sprung up and taken significant numbers of what were once the most active and committed Presbyterians.
Sometimes the Presbyterian Church’s response to the challenges it faces has been extremely naïve and indeed incompetent. I can well remember some 20 years ago the Coleraine Presbytery’s response to the unsurprising revelation that some of its young people were going to Portrush night clubs and obtaining drugs: the church put on a single party in the Cloonavin Rooms owned by Coleraine Borough Council somehow wondering if that would help.
The youth work, once the jewel in the Presbyterian Church’s crown has in general suffered badly. Whereas once every church had an extensive programme of youth work many (including my old home church) have lost their youth fellowship for want of leaders willing to give up Sunday evenings.
The youth work itself was also occasionally problematic as there was a tendency especially in the more conservative churches for the most hard line and uber-fundamentalist view to be seen as the most holy. In my own Youth Fellowship the sorts of people brought to speak (without the minister’s knowledge or permission) tended to be the ones who denied that the wine in The Bible could have been alcoholic (odd considering the injunctions against getting drunk). Other favourite issues included the inevitability of The Rapture occurring before the year 2000 and showing the frankly terrifying Thief in the Night videos (incidentally rated 15, not that that stopped our leaders showing them to 12 year olds).
The church has also frequently been foolish in its strategies for managing decline. In an organisation, which is supposedly democratic to a fault, the amalgamation of the Presbyterian Women’s Organisation (always joking referred to by me and my mates as a secret loyalist terrorist organisation: the Protestant Warriors Association) and the Young Women’s Group was forced through. My mother (a PWA leader) recounts attending a meeting where a most earnest central leadership bod went on about how amalgamation was clearly God’s will rather than being honest and say it was due to falling numbers. As one now retired minister once warned me: Be very wary when anyone tells you what God’s will is for you as they may be setting themselves up as a mediator between you and God as that offends against the Priesthood of all Believers and is specifically one of Protestantism’s most fundamental criticisms of Roman Catholicism.
Of course in the midst of this decline there are small pockets of growth. Kilkenny Presbyterian Church was down to less than a dozen members but its elders refused to give in and close the church: now it has over 150 at most services. In the Coleraine Presbytery Hazelbank Presbyterian Church was opened on the western edge of the town in 1973 and largely through the utter determination, hard work and overwhelming holiness of Rev. Sam Millar (now retired) and his late wife it now has over 300 families. These churches are, however, a minority and the slow gradual dwindling of the denomination continues with Church House seeming to have little in the way of ideas to arrest this decline.
I of course now feel rather guilty as the Presbyterian Church has just lost one more family; I fear it will not be the only one this week.
eddie ,
‘As for me – God? Dawkins? I dunno. I just try to be the best Eddie that I can. ‘
Now that – sounds like a ‘wise ‘ plan
Looking at Nevin’s link highlights one of the PCI’s biggest problems, hardcore fundamentalists like Foster and FPs in general snapping at their ankles.
For Foster, the worst thing about the Alpha course is that some RC approve of it. For the sort of people Foster wants to appeal to that’s usually enough. No high falutin’ theology required.
Unfortunately, this type is often very influential in Presbyterian congregations and if any minister doesn’t tell them what they want to hear, there is the impicit threat of them flouncing off to whatever sect satisfies their requirements.
Sammy,
The track record of the C of E is far from decent and bumbling however – just look at the trappings of empire in many of its churches. However, some of my best friends are decent C of E bumblers.
I agree Susan.
After all, the historical seperation of religion from the state was to protect religion from the state.
It was a big step forwards.
In an indirect sense, the Protestant reformation split the connection between loyalty to religion and loyalty to the national monarchies (in many places).
It probably contributed like no other change to cause the fall of monarchies across Europe allow democracy to flourish.
The sleeping dog that is lying down here in the South at the moment is that the RCC has lost the thinking middle class and the working class almost altogether.
When the 1930s-1940s generation of Irish Mammies passes on, the last generation of Irish women terrorised into faith by the Holy Nuns, expect to see a systematic collapse in RCC attendance and another bounce in Anglican practice down here.
abucs ,
‘It probably contributed like no other change to cause the fall of monarchies across Europe allow democracy to flourish’
Debateable , The only RC Kings left are IIRC the Spanish and Belgians . However Britain , Holland , Norway , Denmark , Sweden still have Protestant(Reformation ) monarchs -albeit their power is now largely ceremonial .
‘In an indirect sense, the Protestant reformation split the connection between loyalty to religion and loyalty to the national monarchies (in many places). ‘
True except in the UK where the Monarch cannot be an RC by the Act of Settlement .
So the Reformation did’nt ‘ahem ‘actually take place in the UK did it ?
Back to the drawing word abucs ?
Consider instead the influence of the French and American Revolutions and the British Reform Act of 1832 as more direct progenitors of modern style democracy
some of my best friends are decent C of E bumblers
In the elevated social circles you move in, I’d be surprised if it were otherwise!
Fair comments Greenflag.
I would say the reducing of Monarchies to the ceremonial role, which is basically how it is in Europe, and in fact almost all over the world now, is really what i call the ‘destruction of monarchies’ or to put it more accurately – the destruction of monarchial power.
I think it is the butterfly effect Greenflag.
I know you have read up a lot more on the ‘Religious Wars’ of Europe than myself, but i submit that it can be looked upon in a different way.
It can also be seen as the secularisation of religion. When a king or civic group decide they now have the right to administer religion – choose bishops, defend the faith, establish worship and define heresies etc – that can be looked on as the state taking over religion exclusively. A soldier fighting a war is not necessarily doing it because he now believes his King has the ultimate right to declare all of the above but simply because 1)those of a different faith than the king are threats, subversives and disloyal 2) the king pays his wages 3) he is a loyal national.
When the bloody mess of those wars was over the the outcome was that religion was no longer administered by the state in an exclusive sense, but differing faiths were allowed to practice within the borders of the state – in theory at least. It also inevitably meant the ‘God given’ right of monarchies to exist was no longer tenable.
Hence the age old system of Governments going back to the Egyptians and further was on the way out and allowed for other forms of Government to fill the vacuum IMHO – which in turn led to actions such as those revolutions you speak of.
I am a firm beliver that history is made up of a lot of little chnages in the pysche of the people that lead to large actions that the history books then tend to present as a cause not an outcome.
Of course religion was heavily involved in the whole episode and there were lots of nutters around as they are in everything, but the term ‘Religious Wars’ would not be one that i would agree with.
The problem as i see it, is that religion was and still is to a lesser extent, very important to people and when it gets wrapped up in national politics, as we know, it is a disaster because it holds such a sway with people.
This sway is probably why monarchies existed for so long, because it was wrapped up in religion.
Ironically the exclusive monarchial take over of religion led in the long term to less power and loyalty for and to those monarchies and not more.
Once it was decoupled through those wars, it is in a short space of time that the monarchial power systems declined all across Europe and that decline has spread across the world.
That’s the way i see it anyway.
abucs ,
‘the term ‘Religious Wars’ would not be one that i would agree with.
How about ‘Wars of Religion’ ? One way or the other be it 16th century Spain or later in Britain and Ireland , France and Germany ‘religious denominational wars ‘ were fought and millions died . In Germany alone some 7 million are estimated to have been killed in their ’30 years ‘ war . All around the world there have been ‘wars of religion’ since man developed the first ‘organised ‘ religions . Japanese Shintoists and Buddhists have slaughtered each other for the ‘faith’ jst as much as Catholics and Protestants in Europe or Sunnis and Shiites in the Middle East . Calling these people ‘nutters’ doesn’t cut it . Given the times they lived in ‘religion’ was a plausible rationale for going to war for the people of the time – even if it was used often as a ‘cover’ for
the political objectives of their rulers.
I would see the reduction of monarchial power as being primarily the result of the growth in populations, industrial wealth and rising numbers of the middle classes , and democratic representation , in Europe and America since the 16th century .
The Ancient Romans were largely ‘tolerant’ of other religions in paricular where those ‘religions’ did not encourage their ‘native ‘ adherents to rebel against the Empire . Ironically it was shortly after Christianity became the Roman State official religion that the Empire began to crumble . Whereas the ‘pagan ‘ Roman empire would tolerate the germans or celts or iberians worshipping their holy trees and sacred groves the new monotheistic religion would brook no competition for men’s souls . As late as the 8th century Charlemagne found himself beheading some 40,000 Saxons because of their refusal to give up on their Tree God and accept the Christ as the one true GOD . The ‘pagan’ Romans were much more tolerant -as long as the ‘natives ‘ put in the odd prayer to the God Augustus or Tiberius they could worship as many trees as they wanted .
Religion was in the distant and not so distant past an attempt by the species to try to understand the world and ourselves and our place in it . Science has answered many though not all of the questions which religion has posed in the past . I see that trend continuing although it will not be at the same rate of change for all societies ..
Greenflag,
as i have said before i see science as coming out of religion and as such that project of working out ‘how things are’ continues to this day.
The mass killings were just like the tens of millions of citizens killed by communism – a result of a different philosophy of people to the state that was seen as treason.
That is why for instance, many of the Christians were persecuted because they ‘would not worship the emperor’. Christ himself could be said to have been crucified because his philosophy looked suspiciously like treason to the emperor.
Yet in the long run the philosophy of Christians succeeded against the public burnings, crucifictions and feeding to wild animals and the Emperor adopted Christianity thereby destroying the idea of the Emperor being a divine God.
When the Western Christianity spread so did the stopping of worshipping kings and Emperors as gods (china and Japan in latter centuries for example).
It is not religion that the emperor (or later monarchies) were mainly interested in, but loyalty to their rule, and right to rule). This is what caused the wars and killings and still does to this day.
Ancient Rome (in the West) fell in my opinion because of many factors including population decline, the ‘bararian invasions’ and the moving of the capital to Constantinople by Constantine.
Decline, according to the historians was evident from the second century.
It’s interesting that the eastern Roman empire, based around the new capital of Constantinople, was largely left intact and thrived until the coming of Islam several centuries later.
The Christians in the west, that fell to the barbarians gradually formed nation states and monarchies which lasted for over a thousand years. It was in these middle ages in the West that the Church was the unifying cultural influence and it is interesting that the church spread the use of monastries and instigated universities of learning which would lay the groundwork from which our science would emerge.
In contrast, the surviving Eastern Roman empire fell to Islam and it was the west that emerged stronger in the long run and was even strong enough to try and reclaim the Roman Empire of the east.
It is from the stability and learning of the west (largly from those middle ages) that the whole modern world is based on.
Universities, mass schooling, European nation states leading to democracy, development of widespread hospitals and medicine, charitable organisations of welfare as well as the founding of most of the worlds basic science disciplines occurred in that period, in that region.
The take over by democratic European states of the above functions is the world we live in today. IMHO.
abucs ,
I’m at a loss here to see what your overall point is other than a ‘defence’ of religion and it’s inoculation against any ‘complicity ‘ or causus belli during the history western civilisation ?
While I would agree that it was not the prime cause except in some cases e.g the Crusades -or the 30 years war in Germany the list of the soldiery who went off to war with Gods blessing runs all the way from Emperor Constantine through to an Anglican Bishop circ 1914 who told his flock it was their ‘duty’ to kill as many Germans as they could as so help to complete God’s work on earth.
‘Universities, mass schooling, European nation states leading to democracy, development of widespread hospitals and medicine, charitable organisations of welfare as well as the founding of most of the worlds basic science disciplines occurred in that period, in that region.’
True as long as ‘education’ and scientifc research did not come up with unpleasant facts which could undermine the Church’s teaching on man’s place in the Kingdom of God on earth.
In the Middle Ages ‘knowledge ‘ was confined to an educated elite and the clergy . Today a teenage kid in India , China , or Africa can access knowledge in an instant . The ‘stability’ you refer to re the Middle Ages was a consequence of living in an ordered world world where everybody knew their place and the Sun could revolve around the Earth .
It’s just that i disagree with the ‘completeness’ of some of the comments made, such as some in the last post regarding the crusades, conflict between new and old knowledge, the acceptance and non acceptance of new knowledge, the confinement of knowledge and the nature of stability.
I think a slant can be given to certain limited events making the overall picture appear a certain way, which can be misleading. But i suppose we could be at it all week if we wanted.