1. Church of Sweden (6.75)
Church attendance in Sweden is down about 5-10% on average...
2. Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania (5.3)
3. Ethiopian Evangelical Church Mekane Yesus (5.3)
Some might legitimately ask about the accuracy of these African numbers...
4. Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (4.6)
Where only half that number has communed in the past two years...
5. Church of Denmark (4.5)
6. Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland (4.5)
The Danes and Finns have not much better attendance that Sweden...
7. Protestant Christian Batak Church, Indonesia (4.2)
We like to herald numbers like these to trumpet mission work but discount them too...
8. Church of Norway (4.0)
Slightly higher than Sweden's attendance
9. Malagasy Lutheran Church (3.0)
Again, a former mission, and our dilemma in unpacking these numbers...
10. Evangelical Lutheran Church of Hanover, Germany (3.0)
Well Germany is awash in full churches on Sunday morning, isn't it...
My point is that these numbers do not reflect the full story... those in Europe and America have some soft numbers, it is true, but the softest of those soft numbers is generally in Europe. Former missions have now become strong partner churches but sometimes the very same people who trumpet the mission success of these churches downplay their size or vitality (or point to their financial dependence upon money from the US and Europe) in order to minimize the strength of their witness when they disagree with European and American Lutherans.
The big revelation is this -- on Sunday morning there are more Lutherans in Church in Africa than there probably are in Europe and America combined. We have been talking about the vitality of our former Lutheran missions now partners for a long time but when it hits home like this, it gives us pause. So when former missions rise up to complain about the recognition of same sex marriage or approval of gay and lesbian clergy (in PALMS), they represent not the viewpoint of one portion of Lutheranism but a very large portion of those active on Sunday mornings and the most vital areas of Lutheran life and identity.
Anglicans have long wrestled with this issue of former missions who now have the strength and stature to disagree with the mother churches in England and America. Now we Lutherans are finding the same reality. And this is the rub. The very same people who wish to trumpet the success of these former missions are the ones who do not want to listen to what they have to say when they disagree with the direction of European and American Lutherans (ELCA in particular).
Lest those in Missouri smile smugly, we are not far behind. The more that we embrace the Joel Osteen, Rick Warren, Bill Hybels style of evangelical identity, the more we risk being theologically distant from those very church bodies we once nurtured as missions and now accept as partners.
Perhaps this is God's correction hand at work to remind us... we are not always who we think we are and those who were once our obedient children have risen up to challenge their muddled parents... and this is how it should be...
3 comments:
Luther somewhere noted that the Gospel does not long remain in dominance in any one place - that it flowers, and if people do not tend it carefully it moves on to other places where people hear it gladly, leaving only a remnant behind. He saw the flower in Germany, and a remnant only in the classic heart of Christianity - Rome, the Middle East, North Africa.
Perhaps we are now becoming the faithful remnant. It is not a bad thing to be this, but it means we must abandon much of our pride.
When I was in my first year at seminary, I listened with glazed eyes to a presentation from a mission type who told us that the newest mission field had been identified: North America.
A few years later, during my last year, the president of the seminary in Ethiopia, who had also been the leader of their church, told us that the Ethiopians didn't want our money or our equipment. The Ethiopian Lutherans wanted us to be faithful.
Amazing.
In Anglicanism, the Global South as the former missionary Churches are known, have been speaking very firmly to the Church of England, the Episcopal Church USA, and the Anglican Church of Canada in no uncertain terms about their apostasy. The Anglican Communion is re-shaping under the leadership of the Global South, with the North sitting on the sidelines.
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