JOEL KOTKIN AND KAREN SPEICHER Exploring the gap between the pulpit and pew
The war in Iraq exposed the divide between the clerical establishment and the laity. The schism is felt in churches across the United States. Typical is St. Andrew United Methodist Church, in a working-class neighborhood of Columbus.
Pastor Robert Sholis embraced "the Gospel message of peace" and fervently opposed the war in Iraq. Many in his congregation firmly disagreed with him.
The entire leadership of every mainstream Christian faith adamantly opposed the war against Iraq. Religious leaders denounced the conflict as one of U.S. aggression and needless destruction.
In contrast, the people in the pews, for the most part, were among the strongest backers of President Bush's goal of ousting Saddam Hussein.
According to a prewar poll conducted by the Pew Research Center and Forum on Religion and Public Life, more than 60 percent of mainline Protestants and Catholics favored attacking Iraq; greater than 75 percent of evangelical Protestants supported a military effort.
Leftward shift
Significantly, this gap between the ecclesiastic establishment and the laity extends to a wide range of social and political issues.
Wade Clark Roof, professor of religion and society at the University of California, Santa Barbara, traces the divide to changes in ecclesiastical education and training that began in the 1960s. Since then, he contends, there has been an increasingly leftward, or "progressive," shift within the mainstream clergy on issues ranging from race relations and economic "justice" to homosexuality and women's rights. In that sense, Roof suggests, the Iraq war represented only the latest "milestone in a larger feud" between parishioners and clergy.
During the Vietnam War, Roof notes, church leaders were as divided as the general population on the war. Today, there is far more solidarity in the pulpit. But the "gap between mainline religious beliefs and what the people actually think has grown worse," Roof says.
Views of Christ
Within Christianity, the change in values may be more religious in nature. Mainstream clergy generally view Christ as pacifist, loving, meek and forgiving.
Although this conception is a powerful component of Christian divinity, it is not universally held. There is also the confrontational Christ, one who stands in strict judgment of evil and sees the full embrace of faith as the road to salvation. This Christ is often ignored by mainstream clergy but accepted by many Americans, including Bush.
The image of Christ as warrior and judge, some scholars agree, appeals to the moral concerns of many parents, who feel that religion must and should play a central role in setting their children's values.
Liberal clergy's more forgiving and inclusive attitude toward drug users and homosexuality, for example, disturbs people who regard religion as a bulwark against deviation from traditional norms.
Over time, the changes in religious values and the split between a liberally trained clergy and increasingly conservative laity are likely to accelerate religious fragmentation at the expense of mainstream denominations.
According to the Association of Statistics of American Religious Bodies, membership in almost all mainstream Protestant faiths has either stagnated or declined in the past 10 years. The strongest gains have been made in more conservative churches.
Middle ground missing?
What is most disturbing for the future of mainstream religion in America, Roof suggests, is the lack of a middle ground between evangelical fundamentalism and the increasingly out-of-touch clerical elite more united with one another's common vision than with their parishioners'.
The great clerical shift toward liberal ecumenism seems to be producing an unintended result. Instead of a nation more united in a general appreciation of religion, we are witnessing a growing fragmentation among those who believe that faith should have a powerful role in the shaping of society.
XJoel Kotkin is a senior fellow at the Davenport Institute for Public Policy, and Karen Speicher is an ordained minister in the United Methodist Church. This was written for the Los Angeles Times.