Trouble in nondenominational land: ‘Supply chain crisis' is creating empty pulpits

Long ago, the Rt. Rev. C. FitzSimons Allison was a bishop in good standing in the Episcopal Church.

A year ago, however, he resigned — at the age of 95 — to serve in the Anglican Church in North America, which is an ecclesiastical body that is recognized as valid by many Anglican bishops in Africa, Asia and the Global South, but not by the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Needless to say, he has witnessed more than his share of Anglican debates about the future of the Anglican Communion, a communion in which national churches are in rapid decline in rich, powerful lands like the United States, Canada and England, but exploding with growth in the Global South.

During one global meeting, Allison watched a symbolic collision between these two worlds. Bishops from North America and their allies were talking about moving forward, making doctrinal changes in order to embrace the cultural revolutions in their lands. They were sure that Anglicans needed to evolve, or die.

Finally, a frustrated African bishop asked three questions: “Where are your children? Where are your converts? Where are your priests?” These questions are highly relevant, amid stark demographic changes in First World churches.

I thought of this Anglican parable when reading a Frank Lockwood feature in the Arkansas Democrat Gazette that ran with this double-decker headline: “Churches of Christ grappling with preacher shortage.” I don’t want to critique this story for two obvious reasons: (1) Lockwood has been a friend of mine for several decades and (2) one of the major voices in the story is veteran GetReligionista Bobby Ross, Jr.

But the trends noted in this report are serious and proof that it’s simplistic to say that these kinds of problems exist in doctrinally “progressive” denominations, and that’s that. Thus, I think this is a story that many journalists and religion-beat readers need to see. Here’s the overture:

Churches of Christ have a supply and demand problem — thousands of houses of worship and not enough preachers to fill the pulpits.
During Harding University's 100th annual Lectureship in Searcy …, roughly 100 people gathered for a session titled "Minister Shortages in Today's Church."

Yo, journalists: It's time for a big update (or two) on the old, old Anglican wars timeline

Scribes who have been covering the Anglican Communion wars since, oh, the late 1970s or so (there are a few of us Jurassic journalists left) know that this has been a long, complicated road.

In most recent elite-press coverage, this timeline has been radically truncated, turning battles over a wide range of doctrines and church-history issues into a simple good vs. evil clash over LGBTQ rights. In this version of history, this global doctrinal war began in 2003 with the consecration of a non-celibate gay bishop in the tiny, shrinking Diocese of New Hampshire here in America.

Here at GetReligion, I have long referred to this fallacy as “Anglican timeline disease.” Hold that thought, because we will come back to it.

The key, right now, is that journalists need to radically update this timeline, in the wake of some major global developments that are receiving little elite coverage. Here is the dramatic double-decker headline for the major report in The Wall Street Journal:

Conservative Anglican Leaders Call for Break With Church of England Over Same-Sex Blessings
Archbishops from Africa and elsewhere repudiate the Archbishop of Canterbury’s historic role as spiritual leader of Anglicans worldwide

The overture for this solid story included several bites of information that are worth noting:

Conservative Anglican archbishops on Monday said the Church of England had forfeited its traditional leadership role in the worldwide Anglican Communion by approving the blessing of same-sex relationships earlier this month, opening a historic rift in one of the world’s biggest Christian denominations.