How Christianity Shoots Itself in the Foot

 


I've attached a YouTube video that is too long for most to watch. It illustrates why there is little hope for those parts of the faith that have intellectual influence and how the future of the faith will favor free lancers and churches that are for-profit businesses like, Lakewood, owned by Joel Osteen. I'll try to summarize the dilemma from the video.

In the video, a young man, Carter, who lives in the town of Luverne, MN tells about the church his parents and his wife's parents were members of their entire lives. It is a church of the Lutheran Missouri Synod. Missouri Synod is a conservative branch of Lutheran that has funds accumulated in the home office and two or three surviving seminaries. In the past decade it has lost about a million members and falling rapidly. It requires churches have ordained male preachers. To be ordained, the guy has to attend one of its campuses for, as I recall, four years following a bachelor's degree. To become a preacher in that denomination is expensive and the salaries churches can pay with falling membership is itself falling.

Carter, in the video, wants the Laverne church to survive. Its preacher, who served other churches along with his, is retiring. Carter and his wife decided they could swing his attending seminary, even with a new baby, and serve their church as well as another small Missouri Synod church seven miles away. The other church was enthusiastic. The couple has small businesses that would subsidize the small salaries of the two churches. 

Missouri Lutheran Synod does not allow preachers to become ordained by on-line course work. This was a big obstacle for Carter but he and his wife figured out a way to meeting this requirement so the two churches could remain open. But, another bureaucratic obstacle came up.

Missouri Synod does not allow the men entering seminary to be less than 40 years old. Carter, in his 30's, is too young to meet this requirement. Thus, the two churches are in the process of being closed.  All across the Middle West, towns are declining and churches closing. Polls show religious belief and participation are falling. For rural-based denominations like Missouri Lutheran Synod, marketing the church requires people in the communities. Vested interests are shutting down churches and, eventually, the denomination itself.

Other larger nearby Missouri Synod churches want smaller churches closed. Seminaries do not want degrees given in places other than their campuses. On-line seminary degree holders may compete with preachers who paid for resident degrees and they do want other preachers competing for good churches. 

There are other parts of Christianity with the same obstacles to survival. The outlook is dismal.   


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