Doctrine and commonwealth on Dover Beach

In 1991, adherents of the United Church of Canada - a union of Presbyterian, Methodist, and Congregational churches, created in 1925 - represented 11.5% of the Canadian population.  By 2011 that figure was 6.1%.  Such a decline is a part of the wider North Atlantic Protestant crisis, as churches which once had a Christendom commitment to shaping culture retreated from this vocation, embracing a 'progressive' sectarian identity.  Theological justification is offered for this retreat and decline.  We are told that this is what the Church is meant to be, a prophetic minority.  Entirely overlooked is Oliver O'Donovan's reminder that the purpose of a prophetic minority is to bring about the "obedience of rulers":

the church must be prepared to welcome the homage of the kings when it is offered to the Lord of the martyrs.  The growth of the church, its enablement to reconstruct civilisational practices and institutions, its effectiveness in communicating the Gospel: these follow from the courage of the martyrs, and the church honours them when it seizes the opportunities they have made available to it.

However, the pursuit of 'prophetic minority' status as an end in itself continues.  And so the Church, abandoning the culture, contributes to the "melancholy, long, withdrawing roar" of the Faith.  For an example of this, we return to the United Church of Canada, which recently announced that disciplinary action would not be taken against a pastor who is, well, an atheist.

The pastor in question notes her theological development.  At first she was a "non-theist".  Then a "theological non-realist".  Finally, however, "I took the label" - atheist. And the meaning of this?  In her words:

It is my hope that ... churches here in Canada and nations around the world will slough off their fear and prejudice against the word “atheist” and recognize that it really isn’t doctrinal belief that matters at all; it’s the way we choose to live our lives.

Those words make the United Church of Canada's statement, after the decision not to proceed with disciplinary measures, ring hollow:

This doesn’t alter in any way the belief of The United Church of Canada in God, a God most fully revealed to us as Christians in and through Jesus Christ.

In other words, "the belief of The United Church of Canada" is entirely compatible with being an atheist.  A "melancholy, long, withdrawing" whimper.

The painful irony is that this empty, impoverished theology is being offered to a culture now searching for a richer, 'thicker' identity and a more compelling telos than offered by the Market, neo-liberalism, and the vapid appeals to diversity and inclusion.  At the moment that the culture is seeking a more compelling and satisfying account of identity and meaning than that offered by a secular age, we have the United Church of Canada declaring that atheism is compatible with its belief.

And here we are as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight ...

It is, perhaps, a logical conclusion of the sectarian flight to prophetic minority stance.  As a prophetic minority (whether on left or right, traditionalist or progressive), the Church loses sight of the vocation to - in O'Donovans words - "reconstruct [and sustain] civilisational practices and institutions".

How can the Church recover this vocation, what Milbank and Pabst have urged as "a way to restore moral leadership and clarity to Christian civilisation"?  This requires the Church to be unembarrassed about nurturing, again in a phrase of Milbank and Pabst, "fundamentally Christian cultural outlook and practice".  And Christian cultural outlook and practice flows from and is sustained by doctrine.

... it really isn’t doctrinal belief that matters at all; it’s the way we choose to live our lives.

This means that other doctrinal commitments, another creed shapes our lives, rather than Christian doctrine and the Church's Creed.  It means that rather than renewing the culture through the richer identity and more compelling telos proclaimed by Christian doctrine, we accept the plastic identities and desiccated telos of a secular age. 

Christian doctrine is not a sectarian concern.  Rather, it calls and orients the Church towards captivating the cultural imagination, gaining the obedience of rulers, and renewing the practices and institutions of the commonwealth. 

In the absence of this confident, joyful proclamation of Christian doctrine to shape culture and commonwealth, we end up with the banality of a pastor calling on her Church to "boldly stand with those who would clear the public sphere from the prejudices of religious belief".