How 'Freshwater' Parishes can survive in 'Saltwater'
Christendom Parishes in a Secular Age
The glorious thing about the parish renewal movement is that there are parishes all around the world implementing similar principles, in very different contexts, and yet all seeing abundant and varied fruit, be it a Texan megachurch or a Scottish country parish.
Taking part in the Divine Renovation USA conference in Texas last summer, one of the most memorable places I visited was a Bass Pro Shop. It was everything quintessentially Texan: that is, BIG. You could fit an entire, small English village in one of these stores. All your outdoor hunting and fishing needs are supplied here. And right in midst of all the fishing tackle you could ever dream of, was a gigantic fish tank with the most enormous Texan fish you can imagine.
Texans like fishing. And, of course, they like setting records. The largest freshwater fish caught in Texas is the alligator gar.
In Scotland if you go fishing, you’re most likely to catch brown trout (a little on the smaller size).
Of course, just as fish in Texas are bigger than fish in Scotland, so are parishes. But, while size might differ, many realities are the same.
Freshwater fish like alligator gar – however big they are – cannot survive in saltwater. The sea is too salty for them. Whether it’s an alligator gar or a brown trout, if you put it in the ocean, the water inside their bodies flows out of their cells, and they die of dehydration.
(Memories of ‘osmosis’ from high school biology come flooding back to me… “Osmosis is the movement of liquid molecules through a semipermeable membrane from a low concentrated solute to a high concentrated solute.”)
For me, this is an accurate analogy for our parishes too, whether your parish is a Texan megachurch ‘alligator gar’, or a rural Scottish ‘brown trout’.
In many ways, our parishes are freshwater fish that are perfectly adapted for freshwater. I see ‘freshwater’ as an analogy for what Mgr. Shea in his book From Christendom to Apostolic Mission describes as Christendom culture. It is the culture for which our parishes are perfectly adapted. Like an alligator gar happily swimming in freshwater, most western parishes happily thrived 75 years ago. The environment inside and outside the parish is similar ‘concentration’ so there is no osmosis one way or another, just happy co-existence.
What were some of the features of this ‘freshwater’, Christendom culture that Christendom parishes were perfectly adapted to? Summarising Mgr. Shea (with just a sprinkling of philosopher Charles Taylor), I’ll name three.
1. An unproblematic, theistic and biblical way of viewing the world: both inside and outside the parish
This reality meant that the worldview of parishioners could be assumed: everyone in the pews experiences certainty about faith, worshipping and living their faith peacefully and in freedom. It meant that we could rely on visible expressions of faith more than spoken proclamation: to belong, Christian behaviour was emphasised, because belief was taken as given. It created, therefore, what Sherry Weddell calls a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ culture of silence1 about personal faith. And lastly, there was little expectation of mission or personal transformation: that fat, contented alligator gar had no need whatsoever to go evangelising all the other happy freshwater fish!
2. The motivation of Christians was to maintain their role in society and do one’s duty
With Christendom culture in place, there was a strong need to maintain institutions and Christian cultural achievements. The parish shared this purpose, perhaps offering the ‘freshest’ concentration of ‘freshwater’ where people could spiritually top up. It meant that pastors needed to be chaplains providing spiritual care, while laity passively received spiritual care. The relative simplicity of maintaining freshwater, Christendom parishes meant that the pastor could lead happily and unproblematically alone. In fact, ‘lead’ is probably too strong a word: rather, he functioned as a system manager, keeping the machine well-oiled and maintained. In this scenario, little vision for the future was needed; rather, best practices and tried-and-tested methods fit the bill.
3. Basic human and Christian goodness in institutions and societal structures could be relied on
Truly, it is a great good in society when structures and institutions channel goodness and grace. In parishes, it means that the centuries of Christian living, prayer and community has created Christian ‘soil’: a prayerful, Christian atmosphere where normal transmission of faith (e.g. in sacramental programmes) bears fruit. But there is a particular consequence of this reality: Charles Taylor calls it the growth of ‘exclusive humanism’: we grow reliant on the ‘soil’ rather than upon God, and humans learn they can effectively love and do good with little reference to God. ‘Exclusive humanism’ has infected, to some degree, the ‘freshwater’ culture of our parishes. It means that parishes prioritise social and charitable projects that bear fruit thanks to the general human goodness, without reliance on the power of God. ‘Freshwater’ culture therefore comes with a risk of complacency, lukewarmness and self-reliance.
And as our ‘freshwater’ parishes swam happily along with the cultural tide over the decades, they barely recognised that the water they swam in was changing. It is the same principle as boiling a frog: bring water to the boil slowly, and it will not perceive danger, and will be cooked to death. (Hmm, unpleasant imagery…)
The ‘freshwater’ culture of the west has slowly become toxic ‘saltwater’ over the last 75 years and our parishes have been fatally slow to perceive it.
Just like the alligator gar or the brown trout in saltwater, the freshwater in the body of our parishes has been pouring out – low concentrated solute to high concentrated solute – a salty osmosis: and many of them are at the point of dehydration.
In fact, the ‘freshwater’, Christendom parish – while perfectly designed for Christendom culture – is, in the very different environment of ‘saltwater’, secular culture, perfectly designed for its own self-destruction. Assuming and never speaking about personal faith as countless people fall away. Maintaining structures and methods as no one experiences personal transformation. Keeping systems well-oiled in a dying organism. Perpetuating social and charitable projects with little reference to God, and with increasingly fewer people to sustain them all.
The ‘freshwater’, Christendom parish barely needs attack and opposition from outside. Its innate design proves extremely effective at cannibalising itself.
One of Charles Darwin’s chief theories in his Origin of Species is that it is not the strongest of the species that survives, but rather, the one that is able to adapt and adjust to the changing environment in which it finds itself.
The alligator gar (or the Texan megachurch) might be stronger than the brown trout (or the Scottish country parish), and its dehydration process will certainly be longer and more drawn out: it may even display signs of health for a longer time.
But, make no mistake, both will slowly dehydrate from the ‘saltwater’ culture, and neither will thrive.
Yet, there is hope! The parish has unique capability to adapt to its changing environment. And this is where the analogy falters somewhat. For the parish to adapt to a ‘saltwater’ environment by becoming ‘saltwater’ would likewise be fatal: it would be accommodation. But, as the culture becomes secular, the parish’s true identity is to become apostolic: not becoming saltwater, but transforming it through fervent evangelisation, healthy leadership and the power of the Holy Spirit.