A loosening
Churches of Christ are evangelical-adjacent; sometimes trends in the CoC world reflect wider evangelical trends, sometimes not. In the following case I think they do.
It seems to me there has been, in the past twenty years, what I’m going to call a “loosening” in low-church American Protestant contexts. And the phenomenon appears to be widespread, not limited regionally or denominationally. Here’s what I mean.
For multiple generations—I’d say at least five, probably more—the following things were true of the sort of churches (I like to call them “baptist” with a lower-case “b”) I have in mind:
Alcohol was off limits.
Ditto for tattoos.
Ditto for gambling of any kind.
Cessationism was a given.
Salvation was sectarian.
Feast days were suspicious.
Sacraments were epiphenomenal at best, optional at worst.
Sunday morning worship was only one of many weekly congregational gatherings.
In my observation, most or all of these features have been forgotten, reversed, or weakened in recent years. Moreover, this loosening has occurred not only among Millennials and Gen Z believers; it has occurred also among Gen X and Boomer believers at the same time. In other words, the very same people who once shared in the “old way” have transitioned along with their children and grandchildren into the “new way.” The divide is not between parents and children; to the extent that the divide still exists, it’s located elsewhere.
This is important to note for two reasons. First, the battle is not cross-generational so much as cross-epochal. Second, the battle isn’t perennial, since this profound social, moral, and liturgical transformation hasn’t happened with each new generation of low-church believers. The old faith was handed down, generation to generation, until the last two decades or so. And then all at once “everybody” changed. (Not everybody—but a lot of them.)
Here’s how those eight markers play out today, in my experience:
Most low-church Protestants I know (from twentysomethings to grandparents) now drink alcohol, including those who for decades did not. In fact, all of a sudden it seems taken for granted that alcohol is not even a question for Christians to consider.
Tattoos abound in this Christian sub-culture!
Gambling gambling is still off limits. But every church I’ve been a part of as an adult has had men’s poker groups or similar gatherings where money is bet and exchanged. And nobody seems to talk about gambling online or on sporting events as a serious or pressing moral question.
Whether at church (with folks from their 30s to their 70s) or in the classroom, the Christians I talk to are either outright spooky, meaning unapologetically affirming of charismatic gifts, or agnostic. I regularly poll both crowds, and just about no one wants to defend cessationism as a doctrine. I actually can’t recall the last time I met someone who was willing, even casually, to argue the view that signs and wonders (“miracles”) no longer occur. This shift may be the most seismic on the list!
By “sectarian salvation” I mean, minimally, confessional-doctrinal-ecclesial boundaries on who can and cannot be saved. Historically capital-B Baptists in this country have readily admitted that, for example, Catholics are not Christians, or at least usually lack saving faith. For a century Baptists and CoC-ers did fierce battle over the necessity and efficacy of baptism for this very reason: it drew lines around who would and would not be saved! And yet today I find in almost every corner an enormous ecumenical tent beneath which just about any self-identified Christian is counted as “in.” Certainly nothing so archaic as a denominational line would count somebody out.
Until recently, Churches of Christ wouldn’t even acknowledge Christmas or Easter. Other churches would celebrate those, but not Advent or Epiphany or Pentecost or Lent. Those were for Catholics. And yet now Advent and Lent and the liturgical calendar are all the rage.
In my normie evangelical students, I spy sacramental minimalism as a default setting, but the moment we start talking and reading, their innate charismatic spookiness starts nudging them up the sacramental ladder. They see both the importance of the sacraments and the lack of any self-evident reason why sacraments must be purely symbolic, cordoned off from the grace they mediate as signs thereof. The more liturgical and charismatic this generation gets, the more sacramental they seem to become. They’re certainly far more open to it; they don’t share previous generations’ firm biblical and doctrinal priors on communion and baptism as non-efficacious.
Once upon a time, what it meant to be faithful in churches of Christ was to attend Sunday morning Bible class, followed by public worship, followed by Sunday evening worship, followed by Wednesday evening Bible class. Other churches have had similar arrangements. From what I can tell, both Sunday and Wednesday evening gatherings are dying. The trend lines are all pointing down. Some congregations, especially larger ones, and especially more conservative ones, are maintaining the meetings. But across the board they are less and less frequent; the social norm that this is what it means to be a member in good standing is no longer widespread. Naturally, this is of a piece with, and in turn creates a feedback loop with, decreasing biblical literacy and biblical study. The less “being a knowledgeable Bible reader” is convertible with “being a serious disciple of Christ,” the less “additional meetings” will seem necessary to the Christian life.
This is all anecdotal, I admit. Am I wrong? Do others see the same trends? Am I missing some? Is it right to call this a kind of “loosening”? I’m not looking for causes, only the effects (or symptoms) themselves. I welcome correction and addition.
