Bruce L. McCormack of Princeton Seminary is a serious theologian. He’s not messing around, trying things out, or riding hobby horses; he’s reading and writing Christian theology as if it matters, as if something depends on it. In an article in the new issue of the International Journal of Systematic Theology (“Karl Barth’s Christology as a Resource for a Reformed Version of Kenoticism,” in IJST 8/3 (July 2006), 243-251), McCormack turns in his usual excellent performance, providing a preliminary report on his much-anticipated Scottish Journal of Theology lectures to be given in Aberdeen in 2007. After making his main argument (about Christology), McCormack concludes with some remarks about the way he views the current situation for Christian theology:

The situation in which Christian theology is done in the United States today is shaped most dramatically by the slow death of the Protestant churches. I have heard it said –and I have no reason to question it—that if current rates of decline in membership continue, all that will be left by mid-century will be Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and non-denominational evangelical churches (the last named of which will include those denominations, like the Southern Baptists, which are non-confessional in doctrinal matters and Congregationalist in their polity). The churches of the Reformation will have passed from the scene—and with their demise, there will be no obvious institutional bearers of the message of the Reformation. What all of this means in practice is that it will become more and more necessary, for the sake of the future of Christianity, to establish stronger ecumenical relations with the Catholics and the Orthodox.

(You might want to read that twice before going on; McCormack phrases things carefully.)

By “the slow death of the Protestant churches,” McCormack means the membership decline of those (mainly) Lutheran and Reformed denominations with clear European roots. As he goes on to make clear, evangelical and Baptist churches don’t count as “Protestant” in this sense because they don’t have creeds or confessions, and their church structure doesn’t rise much above the local level (no bishops or presbyteries or strong denominational hierarchies). To a good Presbyterian, that kind of evangelical church life must look anarchic.
(more… )