Protestantism’s Twin Plight

PROTESTANTISM’S house has twins. Their cries are now being heard. For in the cradle are twin plights—one is in America, the other in Europe. In America the laments of leading churchmen have exposed the religious revival as being hollow. Too many peace-of-mind seekers and materialists, the clergymen say. Dean Liston Pope of Yale Divinity School put it candidly: “There is no great religious revival in America, and probably will not be in the accepted sense. . . . The extension of church membership . . . should not be allowed to obscure the present state of the world.”

Now the other twin has started to cry. The recent publishing of Paul Hutchinson’s book The New Ordeal of Christianity has underscored Protestantism’s plight in Europe. The American, especially, is surprised to read of “the feeling of helplessness and despair which pervades so much of European Protestantism today.” Author Hutchinson faced the facts:

“We now have millions—especially among the industrial workers and the surviving youth—indifferent to the churches when they are not contemptuous of them. A striking but incontrovertible fact about European countries which traditionally have been Protestant strongholds—such countries as England, Scotland, Holland, and the Scandinavian nations—is the almost complete withdrawal of organized labor from the churches and the rapid shrinking in the number of young people who show more than the most passive interest in Protestant church activities.”

The book discusses individual European countries and states that in many of them “the spread of communism since the war has rocked the Protestant churches.”

“The most striking fact about Protestant churches in England today,” says the new book, “is the emptiness of most of them.” The writer points out how shocked Billy Graham was when he discovered empty pews in England. Did Graham’s crusade change the matter? “His meetings in England and Scotland,” wrote Hutchinson, “have not changed it. The situation is even more dismal, if that is possible, in Scotland than in England. And in Scandinavia it is appalling.”

Protestantism’s plight in Scandinavia is: “Not only are the organized workers there out of touch with the churches but most other elements in the Scandinavian populations . . . are likewise out of touch.” The editor of a leading newspaper in Stockholm told the author: “The church is simply a venerable old monument in Sweden. We support it for historical and sentimental reasons. But it no longer plays an important part in Swedish life. If you want to study Swedish religion today, go back to the United States.”

Back in the United States church leaders continued to bemoan their own plight. “Much of our current boom in religion,” declared Presbyterian minister John E. Burkhart, “is nothing more than spiritual aspirin. It doesn’t cost much, doesn’t do much, won’t hurt much, and isn’t worth much.”