The Future of Churches

By Volodymyr Kish

As faithful readers of this column well know, I have in recent years taken a greater interest in things religious and spiritual.  Part of that is no doubt due to the efforts of my local parish priest, Father Bohdan Hladio, who feeds me a steady stream of articles, homilies, podcasts and books on Faith, the Christian Life, and the finer points of philosophy and theology, particularly of the Orthodox kind.  But I have noticed that there is also no shortage of discussion and dialogue in the broader media about the crises that most of the established faiths find themselves in as they struggle to stem the tide of declining membership and increasing scepticism about the relevance and authority of church teachings and church governance.  In this weekend’s Toronto Star newspaper, for example, there was an in depth analysis of the conflict between the more liberally minded and socially activist organization representing American nuns and the more doctrinaire and rigid patriarchal Catholic Church hierarchy who would prefer that that the Sisters return to their more traditional (and subservient) roles.

By and large, it would be safe to say that most of the established religions in North America have been in serious decline for many decades.  The bottom line is that in our modern Western World, the well-educated and independent thinking younger generations are finding it hard to either understand or relate to church language, services, practices and mindset that has remained virtually unchanged for some two thousand years.  During that time, the established major religions have also acquired some political and structural baggage from the mostly feudal societies and power structures within which they evolved that put them at odds with the democratic and liberal ethos of modern Western societies.  Let us not forget that for most of Mankind’s history, religious leaders worked hand-in-hand with the established political structures to keep the impoverished and illiterate masses in check. Things such as papal infallibility, exclusive male dominated governance structures, reactionary policies on sex and birth control and unquestioned obedience to church dogma just don’t cut it anymore.

The Ukrainian churches in Canada, both of the Orthodox and Catholic persuasions, have been no exception to this trend.  They are both struggling to survive in a meaningful way into the future.  Amongst the clergy and leadership of the churches there is much proverbial wringing of hands and dismay over the lack of commitment by the “faithful”  to practise the Faith as their predecessors did loyally for countless centuries.

The problem in my view, to borrow from Marshall McLuhan, is not in the message but in the medium.  People in our society are just as troubled and in need of spiritual guidance as ever.  Unfortunately, churches today have lost the ability to communicate effectively with their flock.  The language, music, metaphors and symbolism of the Bible and of the traditional church services may be poetic and aesthetically beautiful, but they are incomprehensible and irrelevant to today’s homo modernicus.  Many of the problems of today’s society either did not exist or were inconceivable in biblical time.  Two thousand year old metaphors and parables can’t begin to deal with the complex moral issues a young person faces today.

This is not to say that the essential guiding principles of Christianity do not apply to today’s issues and problems.  Quite the opposite – the essential morality underpinning Christian beliefs is just as applicable today as it was two thousand years ago.  Essential moral and ethical principles do not change over time.  But, and this is a big but, the Church must change the way it  communicates this message and teaches Christianity into a form and a language that people today can understand and relate to.  What is essential is that such change has to occur quickly.

For two thousand years, the major established churches changed very little in terms of form, content and governance.  They didn’t need to, since the societies within which they existed changed very little fundamentally.  From the time of Christ to just barely over a hundred years ago, most of the Western World was governed by kingdoms and empires that were essentially feudal in nature.  The industrial revolution and the advent of democracy over the past century and a half have caused a dramatic shift in politics, education and social values.  This has created accelerated change in almost all aspects of life.  The one aspect of our society that has changed the least in the face of this is the churches and organized religion.  If they are to survive, they need to embrace change and do it very quickly.

The Church needs to take a serious and deep look at how it executes its mission and there is very little that should be excluded from scrutiny and change.  Let us remember that in the first few centuries after Christ, there were no church buildings, very little in terms of church hierarchy, no standard church “services”, no Bible, no sacramental requirements aside from baptism, and an informal commemoration of the Last Supper, no canon law or dogma, and little in terms of rules and obligations.  All those were developed subsequently to deal with the requirements of the day.

It is time to analytically strip down all of what has accumulated over the millennia to the bare essentials and rebuild the churches so that they better reflect the needs and practices of today’s society, while at the same time staying true to the essential teachings of Christ.