It’s Time for a New “Finest Hour”

The title was meant to shock: “Britain Is No Longer a Christian Country, Say Frontline Clergy.” But which cultural observer was saying it was? If there is any settled understanding, it is the post-Christian nature of the Western world.

Perhaps the shock, at least to Brits, was who was finally admitting it. The Times, a leading U.K. newspaper, conducted what it claimed to be “the most wide-ranging poll carried out among frontline Anglican clergy, and the first survey of Church of England clerics conducted in almost a decade.” Result? Three-quarters of Church of England priests believe that “Britain can no longer be described as a Christian country.”

The shock to me, or at the least the shock of concern, was the solution the priests espoused to the decline. The survey “found a strong desire among rank-and-file priests for significant changes in church doctrine on issues such as sex, sexuality, marriage and the role of women to bring it into greater line with public opinion.” In other words, a majority of priests want “to start conducting same-sex weddings and drop [the church’s] opposition to premarital and gay sex.”

They also felt under pressure. Why? As one priest put it, the “pressure of justifying the Church of England’s position to increasingly secular and sceptical audiences.”

Linda Woodhead, professor and head of the department of theology and religious studies at King’s College London, noted that the survey revealed how the church had found itself in recent decades “pushed apart from public opinion on what’s right and wrong” on issues including sex and sexuality. Referring to the moderate ground the frontline priests seemed to be staking out, or at least wanting to, Woodhead added that if they were listened to “the church might be in a better place today.”

In response to the survey, at least the Bishop of Leeds, the Right Rev Nick Baines, had the sense to say: “The church is the church, and, as such, not a club. It has a distinct vocation that does not include seeking popularity… [This] means sometimes going against the flow of popular culture, however uncomfortable that might be.”

For anyone who embraces the importance of historical Christian orthodoxy, this goes without saying. But to Woodhead’s point, would capitulating to culture actually result in warm bodies in the pews?

Hardly.   

Many years ago, sociologist Dean Kelley wrote a book, Why Conservative Churches Are Growing. He noted that, beginning in the mid-‘60s, mainline churches that had become more liberal in their theology simultaneously began to decline, while conservative churches who remained countercultural in their theological moorings (translation, true to historic, biblical Christian orthodoxy) were growing.

Why? Kelley’s conclusion was that conservative churches tackled the questions of the day with robust answers rooted in transcendent truth. They did not try to give culture what culture already believed, but instead engaged culture with what the Christian faith believed—countercultural though that may be. Further, they did not flinch from challenging people to deeper levels of personal commitment to that faith.

Though Kelley’s book came out in 1972, the findings haven’t changed, and his conclusions have stood the test of time. Mainline liberal churches continue to decline, conservative churches flesh out the majority of all churches that are growing, and the reasons remain clear: conservative churches are countercultural in nature due to their embrace of transcendent truth, and they call people to a commitment to that truth.

It brings to mind something I recall reading by the late Catholic contemplative Thomas Merton where he warned against watering down the Christian faith to such a degree that we have nothing to offer the world that it does not already have.

Conservative churches have something to offer the world that it does not already have, as do all churches that embrace historic Christian orthodoxy. The reason is because they embody and present the message of Jesus, who came bearing not simply grace, but also truth (John 1:14). For example, the woman at the well was met by Jesus with radical acceptance, yet also confronted with her sexual promiscuity. The woman about to be stoned was protected by Jesus, but then encouraged to leave her life of sin.  

It was this combination that made Jesus so winsome and compelling. Because truth and grace were inextricably intertwined, Jesus could thunder a prophetic word and then be invited to an evening keg party by the very people he had confronted earlier in the day.

Somehow, we’ve lost this dynamic. We either confront the world with a caustic or even abusive spirit, or we water things down in the hopes of goodwill. Neither will engage a post-Christian world at the point of its deepest need.

What the world needs is Jesus.

And what Jesus brings is both truth and grace.

That is what I would implore my Anglican brothers and sisters to embrace. This is your moment to take a stand, not compromise. Otherwise, it will be anything but your finest hour, and the consequences will be dire. 

Those of you in Britain know to what I refer.

On June 18, 1940, Winston Churchill addressed the House of Commons as to the rationale for continuing to fight the war against Hitler and his prediction that the Battle of Britain was about to begin. Here were his concluding words:

Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilization. Upon it depends our own British life, and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this Island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, “This was their finest hour.”

Make it your finest hour in a way that transcends even that pivotal moment. This time, it’s not about Europe as a socio-political entity, but rather the very eternities facing the men and women of Europe as spiritual beings.

James Emery White

Sources

Kaya Burgess, “Britain Is No Longer a Christian Country, Say Frontline Clergy,” The Times UK, August 29, 2023, read online.

Dean M. Kelley, Why Conservative Churches Are Growing.

“Their Finest Hour,” International Churchill Society, read online.

About the Author

James Emery White is the founding and senior pastor of Mecklenburg Community Church in Charlotte, NC, and a former professor of theology and culture at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, where he also served as their fourth president. His latest book, Hybrid Church: Rethinking the Church for a Post-Christian Digital Age, is now available on Amazon or from your favorite bookseller. To enjoy a free subscription to the Church & Culture blog, visit churchandculture.org where you can view past blogs in our archive, read the latest church and culture news from around the world, and listen to the Church & Culture Podcast. Follow Dr. White on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram at @JamesEmeryWhite.

The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of CrosswalkHeadlines.

James Emery White is the founding and senior pastor of Mecklenburg Community Church in Charlotte, NC, and a former professor of theology and culture at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, where he also served as their fourth president. His latest book, Hybrid Church: Rethinking the Church for a Post-Christian Digital Age, is now available on Amazon or from your favorite bookseller. To enjoy a free subscription to the Church & Culture blog, visit churchandculture.org where you can view past blogs in our archive, read the latest church and culture news from around the world, and listen to the Church & Culture Podcast. Follow Dr. White on X, Facebook and Instagram at @JamesEmeryWhite.