Are Pastors the Cause of the Loss of Church Membership?

Abstract

In my RRA Presidential Address, I want to present the idea that the pastor's sermon is the cause of membership decline in churches of the mainline denominations. To do that, I need to eliminate two other arguments for the decline. Those arguments are that the liberal stance of mainline churches is the cause of their loss of members and the argument that members' low birth rate is the cause of their decline. I think it has been clearly shown that the liberal stance that the mainline churches have taken on political or social issues have not been the cause of their decline. I won't rehash these studies but just mention that Hoge, Luidens and Johnson (1994) in the book Vanishing Boundaries showed again that these stances have not hurt the mainline. Hout and Fisher (2002) in their ASR article argued that the conservative political stance of churches has resulted in the increase of politically liberal persons checking no religion in national polls. The Hout and Fisher (2002) study is not limited to mainline members, as I will say inore about later. In case some of you might still think the liberal stance has hurt membership, Bama (2003) earlier in this decade noted that the millions of young unchurched have no understanding of or interest in a church, even if it is "contemporary" in style. He did not make any distinction between liberal and conservative churches. They are all losing the youth. He says: "Millions of young adults are more interested in truth, authenticity, experiences, relationships and spirituality than they are in laws, traditions, events, disciplines, institutions and religion." Bama did not mention sermons, but I would not be surprised if he has been unhappy with their quality. There is no doubt that the declining birth rate has affected the membership of mainline churches, but denominations have not been able to hold on to the younger members they have. Hoge et al. (1994) in a study of baby boomers that had been confirmed in the Presbyterian Church about 15 or 20 years earlier found that 45% of