This past weekend, my son got called for "cherry picking" at his soccer game. He had beaten the defense and happened to be in the right place at the right time when a teammate kicked the ball his way. The goal he scored was rescinded by the opposing coach, over the protest of my son's coach (even though goals and wins/losses only matter in the spring tourney), all to the dismay of my son (who was being congratulated by his teammates and was confused by the call). To add to the situation, what my son did wasn't in technical violation of the rules (as his coach pointed out) and the goal was only scored because the other team's defender (the boys are still young enough where there is no goalie) had abandoned his post to go where the action was.
In the non-sporting, academic world, cherry picking isn't about having a player near the other team's goal or basket, it is when we pick what we want to talk about to the neglect of other things in a given book or article. Out of the many articles and posts I've read in the past week or two, these are the ones I'm going to talk about, in the context of The Mainline and the state of American Christianity and Religion.
The first is over Carol Howard Merritt's post in The Christian Century from September, in which she argues against the continued use of the name "mainline" to describe the Seven Sisters. It is a brief post and is one that is focused on making an argument for a recasting of those denominations as a sort of Progressive/liberal religious force, abandoning "mainline" (not because they are no longer the majority denominations, as I argue in my book) but rather because the term seems to her to describe people who "hang out at the Country Club and eat cucumber sandwiches in fancy hats." Her post has generated some interest in the possibility of finding a new name to classify the Seven Sisters (see the Religion News Service article here if you'd like to vote and/or read the commentary/discussion).
While such a discussion is interesting and fun (even if it isn't likely to catch on), there are a few problems with Merritt's post. The first is that the term "mainline" predates sociologist E. Digby Baltzell's use of it in talking about "upper crust" Philadelphia society. The reason it got attached to the Seven Sisters to begin with (as I discuss in my book) is because the Federal Council of Churches was organized in Philadelphia some fifty years before Baltzell's piece was even written. The mainline is older than the 1950s, it has a history (and yes baggage), but there is power in the name and to abandon it, to allow it to fall into disuse, is not something to be done lightly.
The second problem is that Merritt's argument is based on two additional assumptions: That by accepting the term "mainline" the Seven Sisters are "white-washes our influences" and that keeping it somehow limits the Sisters from answering the call to "who we want to become." As to the notion of "white-washing," Merritt accurately points out that it could be construed that the Seven Sisters have only been influenced by white theologians (more precisely, dead white males), whereas she points to a wide a diversity (whites, blacks, Hispanic, men, women, Catholic, and Protestant) of influences on theological trends within the Seven Sisters. The problem here is two-fold: First, the notion of white-washing is somewhat the creation of the Seven Sisters themselves (and to a larger degree, the Federal/National Council of Churches), and somewhat missing the point that when the organization was first created by those denominations, for a wide variety of historical reasons (including racism and sexism to be sure), it was the creation of largely white males. While such a history does not preclude change to be sure ("who we want to become"), as I read Merritt here, what she seems to be advocating is not just a move away from the past but all most a rejection of it. In short, taking this line to its extreme, one might see the repudiation of much good along with much of what one might disagree with. Institutions without moorings (or a firm foundation) are not likely to stand the test of time, even with a name change. And while the list of theologians are impressive and make for a strong argument, they are not the whole story nor are they the only theologians who deserve mention and consideration.
Indeed, Merritt's argument presupposes that the Seven Sisters are only home to liberals (both theological and political) since the 1960s. That isn't backed up by the evidence, even today you can find theological diversity within the Seven Sisters, perhaps most obviously at the local level. And that gets at her second point ("who we want to become"). Which "who" is Merritt talking about? The conservative, evangelical United Methodist congregation in Indiana? The liberal Episcopalian church in New York City? The Presbyterian Church (USA) in Texas? It assumes a consensus within and between denominations that is largely a fiction. It is a useful fiction in many respects (esp. for denominational leaders) but it is a fiction nevertheless. Just like no one voted to start calling the Seven Sisters, the founders of today's National Council of Churches, the Mainline to begin with, no one (even those taking part in the Religion News Service poll) is going to be able to craft a new label that really captures who those denominations are today. The diversity that Merritt alludes to (and celebrates) in her post insures that. Furthermore, while those churches and denominations aren't likely to disappear (let alone the Church--a topic I'll return to later in the week perhaps), the Seven Sisters do have a problem with "median age" that a name change or re-branding isn't likely to change either.
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