One day I am reading that the United Church of Christ is losing churches at the rate of three each week (die or leave) and gaining churches at the rate of 0.7 each week (brand new or joining from other denominations) for a weekly loss of 2.3 churches (the UCC currently has 5,320 churches and 1,111,691 members). The next day day I am reading about the growth of Southern Baptist churches in Vermont where one out of three Vermonters claim no religious affiliation. In the six-state New England region, Southern Baptists find the growth unusually slow—in eight years in Vermont, from 17 to 37 churches. Yet, their goal is to settle 6,000 new churches in an are that has replaced the Pacific Northwest as the least religious region in our country.
Why these two items struck me is that my religious background is in the church of Colonial New England, Congregational, and I was an ordained minister in it, and its successor, the United Church of Christ, for 45 years. This year-by-year decline in my former denomination saddens me. Even more saddening is the extension of this distortion of Jesus’ message in a literal, dogmatic and exclusive Christianity.
More information is at <http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0731/p02s04-usgn.html>.
