The End of Denominations?

Why we need to stop dividing the Church.

Tyler Edwards, 08/06/13

“What denomination are you?"

When we tell people we are Christians, we tend to get asked this question. A lot. It makes sense. With all the different denominations out there, saying you’re a “Christian” is pretty vague.

Our denominational affiliation tells people, at least in part, what type of Christian we are. Do we like to chant in a spiritual tongue or play with poisonous snakes? Do we sit, stand and kneel in an elaborate service while a man in a robe speaks in Latin? Do we sprinkle or dunk? How we feel about instruments, Mary, the structure of worship and numerous other religious activities can all be communicated by our denomination. There is even a non-denominational denomination. We, as Christians, have fragmented the Church so much that there is a division that says, “We are against divisions in the Church.”

We have to admit these denominations are confusing. If you meet someone and they tell you they are third-Baptist-once-removed on their mother’s side, you have to ask: What does that even mean? But the real question that should be addressed is why.

Why do so many different denominations exist?

We divide the Church because we care more about our comfort than we do about the cause of Christ. We are more interested in what we want than what He wants.

We divide the Church like an OCD kid with a bag of skittles. Rather than enjoying all the different flavors, we compulsively sort them. The Church was created to unite followers in Christ under His mission and banner. We are supposed to be one body with many parts, but what we have become is a stockpile of different parts. We have churches instead of the Church. We have uniformity instead of unity. Apparently, we can’t have people who believe different things about Biblical issues come to the same building to worship the one, true God. That would just be chaos!

In the book of Acts, we see the Holy Spirit constantly working to create unity in the Church. At Jesus’ baptism, the Holy Spirit shows up, illustrating God’s approval. Then in Acts 2, after Jesus has ascended into heaven, the Holy Spirit shows up again. He arrives to show God’s support of this new Church. By Acts 8, the Jews were asking if Samaritans (half-Jews) could be a part of the new Church and the Holy Spirit appears to place God’s seal of approval on Samaritan Christians. Then the next time He shows up it is with a Gentile (completely non-Jew). All throughout Acts the Holy Spirit is working to create unity in the Church, to break down social, cultural and economic barriers.

Despite all this, we feel no qualms about dividing and subdividing the Church into more denominations than any reasonable person can keep track of. These divisions of the Church are offensive to God. We aren’t just creating separate institutions; we are defiling His bride.

The Bible tells us to be like-minded, but instead, we tend to become carbon-copy Christians. To a certain point, it makes sense. When everyone agrees, you will have less conflict. Perhaps it’s noteworthy that Jesus invited a tax collector and a religious zealot to be His disciples. That’s like trying putting members of the Ku Klux Klan in a small group with Black Panthers. Why would Jesus do something like that?

Jesus called different types of people to be His disciples because He intended for the Church to be diverse. God made us different. That’s the point. Without the tension of diversity we are not challenged to grow and to constantly dive into His Word. When everyone sees everything exactly the same, there is no healthy conflict. Instead of iron sharpening iron, we get complacent spiritual social clubs. God didn’t create the Church so we could all start acting like one another. He created it so we could all start acting like His Son.

Think of the Church like an army: We have cavalry, archers, swordsmen and various types of units and specialties. An effective army might organize different units in formations based on their strengths, but they still keep them all in the same army. An army consisting of entirely of one type of unit would easily be defeated because every type of unit has strengths and weaknesses. In the denomination divide we have lost one of the greatest strengths. Without diversity working together in harmony, we don’t have unity, we just have conformity.

Jesus didn't give us many different churches. He gave us one Church. The more we divide it, the more our attention turns to what makes us different. We lose focus on the mission of Jesus because we are too busy looking inward. It's time to stop warring over state borders and start focusing on national ones. Instead of fighting with each other over which denomination is best, we should be working together to advance the Gospel to the ends of the earth.

There won’t be denominations in heaven, so why do we make a big deal out of them on earth? The Church is not about how we interpret the Bible -- that’s not to say sound theology isn’t important, but our understanding is not the primary focus. The Church is about Jesus. It is ever, only, always about Jesus. Rather than distracting ourselves (and everyone else) with all the different types of churches, we should be showing people what the Church is about: the love of Jesus.

It's time for the Church to get back on mission. The final command Jesus gave was not “get every nuance of theology right,” it was “go, make disciples of all nations.” We serve the same God, are saved by the same Christ, and were given the same Commission. Instead of focusing on our differences, we should focus on the One who makes us the same. 

http://www.relevantmagazine.com/god/church/it-time-end-denominations

The end of American Protestantism

Catholics in America know they do not belong, which is why they are so determined to demonstrate that they are more American than the Americans.

Stanley Hauerwas, 07/02/13

All you need to know to understand America is that the FBI is made up of Catholics and Southerners. This is because Catholics and Southerners have to try to show they are more loyal than most Americans, since Southerners have a history of disloyalty and Americans fear that Catholics may owe their allegiance to some guy in Rome. That is why the FBI is given the task of examining graduates of Harvard and Yale - that is, high-culture Protestants who, of course, no longer believe in God - to see if they are loyal enough to be operatives for the CIA.

The related phenomenon is what I call "the New York Times Catholics." These are Catholics, usually clergy, a New York Times journalist has learned to call after the Pope has issued an encyclical or given a speech that seems offensive to American sensibilities. They call a Catholic, whom they have previously identified as a critic of the church, to have confirmed that whatever the Pope has said, Catholics in America are not required to obey, or even if they are so required, Catholics will not take what the Pope has said seriously. From the perspective of the New York Times, therefore, a good Catholic is one that would be regarded by the Vatican as a bad Catholic.

But what I want to focus on here is the character of American Protestantism, as well as the religious awareness of the American people and the impact that awareness has on society and politics. No small topic. I think it first important to identify the perspective from which I speak. I am a Protestant. I am a communicant at the Church of the Holy Family, an Episcopal church in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. I teach in the Divinity School at Duke University, a very secular university. But before Duke I taught fourteen years at the University of Notre Dame.

I relate this history only to suggest that I come from the Catholic side of Protestantism. I am not sure I can make clear what it means to say I come from the Catholic side of Protestantism, but at the very least, it means that I do not think Christianity began with the Reformation. When I was interviewed for possible appointment to the faculty at Notre Dame I was asked what Protestant courses I would teach. I said I did not teach Protestant theology because I thought the very notion was a mistake. Rather I would teach Thomas Aquinas, because his work was crucial for my attempt to recover the virtues for understanding the Christian life. I saw no reason that Aquinas should be assumed to be only a thinker for Roman Catholics.

But my presumption that I could claim Aquinas as a theologian in my tradition betrays a Protestant consciousness that may be distinctly American. It turns out that even those of us who would like to be identified as representing the Catholic side of Protestantism do so as a matter of choice. This dilemma, I believe, is crucial for understanding the character of religious life in America.

America's god

America is the first great experiment in Protestant social formation. Protestantism in Europe always assumed and depended on the cultural habits that had been created by Catholic Christianity. America is the first place Protestantism did not have to define itself over against a previous Catholic culture. So America is the exemplification of a constructive Protestant social imagination.

I believe - as Mark Noll rightly suggests in his book, America's God - America is a synthesis of evangelical Protestantism, republican political ideology and commonsense moral reasoning. Americans were able to synthesize these antithetical traditions by making their faith in God indistinguishable from their loyalty to a country that insured them that they had the right to choose which god they would or would not believe in. That is why Bonhoeffer accurately characterized America Protestantism as "Protestantism without Reformation."

American Protestants do not have to believe in God because they believe in belief. That is why we have never been able to produce interesting atheists in America. The god most Americans say they believe in just is not interesting enough to deny. The only kind of atheism that counts in America is to call into question the proposition that everyone has a right to life, liberty and happiness.

Thus America did not need to have an established church because it was assumed that the church was virtually established by the everyday habits of public life. For example, Noll calls attention to the 1833 amendment to the Massachusetts Constitution that did away with church establishment but nonetheless affirmed

"the public worship of God, and the instructions in piety, religion, and morality, promote the happiness and prosperity of a people, and the security of republican government."

Noll points out that these words were written at the same time Alexis de Tocqueville had just returned to France from his tour of North America. Tocqueville descriptively confirmed the normative point made in the Massachusetts Constitution, observing:

"I do not know if all Americans have faith in their religion - for who can read to the bottom of hearts? - but I am sure that they believe it necessary to the maintenance of republican institutions. This opinion does not belong only to one class of citizens or to one party, but to the entire nation; one finds it in all ranks."

Protestantism came to the land we now call American to make America Protestant. It was assumed that what it meant to be American and Protestant was equivalent to a faith in the reasonableness of the common man and the establishment of a democratic republic. But in the process the church in America became American - or, as Noll puts it, "because the churches had done so much to make America, they could not escape living with what they had made."

As a result Americans continue to maintain a stubborn belief in a god, but the god they believe in turns out to be the American god. To know or worship that god does not require that a church exist because that god is known through the providential establishment of a free people. This is a presumption shared by the religious right as well as the religious left in America. Both assume that America is the church.

Noll ends his account of these developments with the end of the Civil War, but the fundamental habits he identifies as decisive in the formation of the American religious and political consciousness continues to shape the way Christians - in particular, Protestant Christians - understand their place in America.

Yet I think we are beginning to see the loss of confidence by Protestants in their ability to sustain themselves in America, just to the extent that the inevitable conflict between the church, republicanism, and common sense morality has now worked its way out. America is the great experiment in Protestant social thought but the world Protestants created now threatens to make Protestantism unintelligible to itself. That is an obscure remark I must now try to make clear.

Modernity and the corruption of "freedom"

I believe we may be living at a time when we are watching Protestantism - at least the kind of Protestantism we have in America - come to an end. It is dying of its own success. Protestantism became identified with the republican presumption in liberty as an end reinforced by belief in the common sense of the individual. As a result, Protestant churches in America lost the ability to maintain the disciplines necessary to sustain a people capable of being an alternative to the world. Ironically, the feverish fervency of the religious right in America to sustain faith as a necessary condition for supporting democracy cannot help but be a strategy that insures the faith that is sustained is not the Christian faith.

More Americans may go to church than their counterparts in Europe, but the churches to which they go do little to challenge the secular presumptions that form their lives or the lives of the churches to which they go. For the church is assumed to exist to reinforce the presumption that those that come to church have done so freely. The church's primary function, therefore, is to legitimate and sustain the presumption that America represents what all people would want to be if they had the benefit of American education and money.

Let me try to put this in a different register. America is the exemplification of what I call the project of modernity. That project is the attempt to produce a people who believe that they should have no story except the story that they choose when they had no story. That is what Americans mean by "freedom." The institutions that constitute the disciplinary forms of that project are liberal democracy and capitalism. Thus the presumption that if you get to choose between a Sony or Panasonic television, you have had a "free choice." The same presumption works for choosing a President. Once you have made your choice you have to learn to live with it. So there is a kind of resignation that freedom requires.

I try to help Americans see that the story that they should have no story except the story they choose when they had no story is their story by asking them this question:

"Do you think you ought to be held accountable for decisions you made when you did not know what you were doing?"

They do not think they should be held accountable for decisions they made when they did not know what they were doing. They do not believe they should be held accountable because it is assumed that you should only be held accountable when you acted freely, and that means you had to know what you were doing.

I then point out the only difficulty with such an account of responsibility is that it makes marriage unintelligible. How could you ever know what you were doing when you promised lifelong, monogamous fidelity? I then observe that is why the church insists that your vows be witnessed by the church, since the church believes it has the duty to hold you responsible to promises you made when you did not know what you were doing.

The story that you should have no story but the story you choose when you had no story also makes it unintelligible to try having children. You never get the ones you want. Americans try to get the ones they want by only having children when they are "ready." This is a utopian desire that wreaks havoc on children so born, just to the extent they come to believe they can only be loved if they fulfil their parents' desires.

Of course, the problem with the story that you should have no story except the story you choose when you had no story is that story is a story that you have not chosen. But Americans do not have the ability to acknowledge that they have not chosen the story that they should have no story except the story they choose when they had no story. As a result, they must learn to live with decisions they made when they thought they knew what they were doing but later realized they did not know what they were doing. They have a remedy when it comes to marriage - it is called divorce. They also have a remedy regarding children - it is called abortion.

The story that you should have no story except the story you choose when you had no story obviously has implications for how faith is understood. The story that you should have no story except the story you choose when you had no story produces people who say things such as, "I believe Jesus is Lord - but that's just my personal opinion." The grammar of this kind of avowal obviously reveals a superficial person. But such people are the kind many think crucial to sustain democracy. For such a people are necessary in order to avoid the conflicts that otherwise might undermine the order, which is confused with peace, necessary to sustain a society that shares no goods in common other than the belief that there are no goods in common.

So an allegedly democratic society that styles itself as one made up of people of strong conviction in fact becomes the most conformist of social orders, because of the necessity to avoid conflicts that cannot be resolved.

Such a view has devastating effects on the church. For the church does not believe that you should have no story except the story you choose when you had no story. Rather the church believes that we are creatures of a good God who has storied us through engrafting us to the people of Israel through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. Christians do not believe we get to choose our story, but rather we discover that God has called us to participate in a story not of our own making. That is why we are called into the church as well as why we are called, "Christian." A church so formed cannot help but be a challenge to a social order built on the contrary presumption that I get to make my life up.

But a church formed capable of challenging the reigning ethos that sustains America is no easy achievement. You may well think that the Catholic Church surely would be up to that task, but you need to remember that, as Archbishop Francis George of Chicago often remarks, Catholicism in America has largely become a form of Protestant Christianity. Catholics in America, like their Protestant sisters and brothers, are likely to assume that there is no essential tension between being a Christian and being an American. As a result Catholics in America think the distinction between the public and the private (and their "faith" clearly falls into the latter) is a given that cannot be questioned.

America's culture of death

If I am right about the story that shapes the American self-understanding, I think we are in a position to better understand why after 11 September 2001 the self-proclaimed "most powerful nation in the world" runs on fear. It does so because the fear of death is necessary to insure a level of cooperation between people who otherwise share nothing in common. That is, they share nothing in common other than the presumption that death is to be avoided at all costs.

That is why in America hospitals have become our cathedrals and physicians are our priests. Accordingly medical schools are much more serious about the moral formation of their students than divinity schools. They are so because Americans do not believe that an inadequately trained priest may damage their salvation, but they do believe an inadequately trained doctor can hurt them.

The American desire to use medicine in an attempt to get out of life alive is but the domestic form of American foreign policy. 11 September 2001 gave America exactly what she so desperately needed after the end of the cold war, for it is unclear if America can live without a war. Otherwise, what would give us a moral compass? So we got a "war against terrorism," which is a war without end.

That Americans are willing to die for America is indicative of their most basic conviction. For, as Carolyn Marvin and David Ingle observe in their book, Blood Sacrifice and the Nation: Totem Rituals and the American Flag:

"In an era of Western ascendancy, the triumph of Christianity clearly meant the triumph of the states of Christianity, among them the most powerful of modern states, the United States. Though religions have survived and flourished in persecution and powerlessness, supplicants nevertheless take manifestations of power as blessed evidence of the truth of faith. Still, in the religiously plural society of the United States, sectarian faith is optional for citizens, as everyone knows. Americans have rarely bled, sacrificed or died for Christianity or any other sectarian faith. Americans have often bled, sacrificed and died for their country. This fact is an important clue to its religious power. Though denominations are permitted to exist in the United States, they are not permitted to kill for their beliefs are not officially true. What is really true in any society is what is worth killing for, and what citizens may be compelled to sacrifice their lives for."

America is a culture of death because Americans cannot conceive of how life is possible in the face of death. Freedom names the attempt to live as though we will not die. Lives lived as though death is only a theoretical possibility, moreover, can only be sustained by a wealth otherwise unimaginable. But America is an extraordinarily wealthy society determined to remain so even if it requires our domination of the rest of the world. We are told that others hate us because they despise our freedoms, but it may be that others sense that what Americans call freedom is bought at the expense of the lives of others.

***

I love America and I love being an American. The energy of Americans - their ability to hew out lives often in unforgiving land, their natural generosity - I cherish. But I am a Christian. I cannot avoid the reality that American Christianity has been less than it should have been just to the extent that the church has failed to make clear that America's god is not the God we worship as Christians.

If I am right that we are now facing the end of Protestantism, hopefully that will leave the church in America in a position with nothing to lose. When you have nothing to lose, all you have left is the truth. God may yet make the church faithful - even in America.

Stanley Hauerwas is Gilbert T. Rowe Professor of Theological Ethics at Duke University. His most recent books are War and the American Difference: Theological Reflections on Violence and National Identity and Hannah's Child: A Theologian's Memoir.

http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2013/07/02/3794561.htm

What Does 'Religion' Mean?

Gary Laderman, 06/08/2013

Can anyone tell me just what definition of the word religion is being used in the media these days? In the past, public use of the word was easy to identify: "religion" meant "belief in God" and, in general, was used to refer to the one true religion, Christianity. Today, "religion" can mean anything at all, from the most personal and intimate spirituality for the individual to the most diffuse cultural activity in any given society.

A new Gallup poll is declaring that according to a large majority of Americans religion is losing its influence in society, a perception this study and all the media coverage emphasize is not related to measures of personal religiosity such as church attendance or self-reports about the importance of religion. This news is on the heels of the now-familiar religion media story about the rise of the "nones" in American society, individuals who are not affiliated with any religion at all.

While survey results and pie charts are supposed to provide a clearer picture of a particular question or phenomenon, in the case of religion this data seem to be creating more distortion and confusion than enlightenment and insight. Some obvious questions come to mind when confronted with these recent polls concerning religion in America:

-- Are there other measures for religious commitment than church attendance and self-reporting on a scale of importance?

-- Is it more accurate to say that Americans perceive Christianity as losing its influence than religion in general?

-- Can people who don't affiliate with any religious institution or didn't choose one of the available religious identities on the questionnaire still be religious?

On the other hand, and in the very same week, you have the publication of a Forbes article that asks, "Is Religion an Essential Driver of Economic Growth?" It offers a preview of an interview with Peter Berger, a well-known sociologist of religion who wrote one of the classics in the field, "The Sacred Canopy," and suggests the boundaries between religious orientations and cultural development are porous and historically determined. Focus is placed on another classic in the study of religion, Max Weber's "The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism," which argues that certain elements of the Protestant "lifestyle," like worldly asceticism, contributed to the emergence of modern capitalism.

So religions can blend into culture and become a driving force in the economy? Certainly this notion can also apply to political spheres, as well as the realm of art, and maybe even popular culture and entertainment. Perhaps this is a two-way street as well -- maybe politics, economics, popular culture, art and so on can shape the religious lives of Americans, if not lead to completely new forms of religion.

Another recent news article conveys this possibility quite well. CNN just published a profile on superstar surfer Kelly Slater with the title, "Kelly Slater: 'Surfing is my religion.'" In it, we learn that surfing is more than a sport, more than a career for Slater; it is, the author writes, a "spiritual experience." Here, religion is not something found in institutions and formal traditions, but arises in physical activity with nature and solitary exertions on the ocean, riding waves.

Whether Slater falls under the "none" category is not as important as the fact that religious dimensions are found for him and I suspect many other surfers outside of sacred texts and traditional organizations; in other words, spiritual values and experiences that define his religion might not be recognizable to some Americans, but they can constitute a religion profoundly meaningful to those on the boards.

Even while we will continue to remain fixated on the "nones," it is worth nothing that the history of religion in America may be most dynamic and vibrant outside of conventional sacred settings, perhaps located in what is simplistically and inaccurately referred to as "secular" culture. The astute and often ironical American writer Mark Twain remarked in the later 19th century that popular culture, newspapers and sensational literature provided Americans with religious values and orientations, not just sermons and church publications.

Looking at these few examples gives one the impression that the media, as well as Americans more generally, are working with extremely varied and diverse definitions of religion. The three takeaways from this brief discussion help point out a few of the dilemmas.

First, the meaning and valences of the word religion change over time, and in American history it has been coupled with the dominant and ubiquitous religion of the land, Christianity. Only recently has religion been uncoupled from Christianity, and the implications of what one might call the dechristianization of America for the public understanding of religion remains to be seen.

Second, religion cannot be compartmentalized and separated from the rest of culture. Instead, religion, and especially Protestantism in America, has suffused numerous spheres of social life -- is a "driver" in economics as well as politics, entertainment and so on.

Third and finally, the rise of the "nones" does indicate the end of religion as we know it, as I've written before here. If we can take the notion that surfing can be a religion for some, than what can't be a religion? And who can determine what counts as a religion and what doesn't? The Christians used to be the prime authority on these matters in American society. Now the media and Internet do not have as much of a stake in maintaining traditional boundaries and have instead leveled the playing field completely.

Religion can mean everything and anything. Does that mean it now has no meaning at all?

Europe's Other Crisis: Religion

Paul Ames, 06/03/13

The press room podium in the European Union's headquarters is usually the domain of men in conservatively cut dark suits.

Last week however, the stage was a profusion of flowing robes, broad-brimmed fedoras, gleaming gold chains, turbans, ecclesiastical dog collars and a shimmering blue-grey sari, as the EU's leadership sought to take the continent's spiritual pulse at their annual meeting with religious representatives.

With its popularity battered in the midst of the economic crisis, the EU was seeking some solace and support.

"You the religious authorities, help us with your societal and spiritual contributions, to rediscover the enchantment of our European future and to rebuild the strength of our European soul," pleaded Herman Van Rompuy, the devout Catholic and former Belgian prime minister who presides over EU summits.

Europe's crisis goes beyond the economic, speakers at the meeting agreed.

Disillusioned citizens are questioning the values of European integration that have pushed nations of the post-war continent together for the past 60 years, rejecting traditional political parties to seek new and sometimes scary alternatives on the political margins.

"We have all spoken about a crisis that is much more profound than what we see in monetary and economic terms, there is a crisis in our society," said Metropolitan Emmanuel Adamakis, head of the Greek Orthodox Church in France.

The problem for many of the spiritual leaders attending is that Europe is also undergoing a crisis of religious identity. In several countries, church attendances and religious affiliation have plummeted in recent decades.

Just 51 percent of citizens in the EU's 27 nations said they believed in God, when questioned for a 2010 survey.

In Sweden, Estonia and the Czech Republic that number fell below 20 percent - although more said they believed in the existence of "some form of spirit or life force." Forty percent of the French declared they believed in neither god nor spirit, along with 30 percent of the Dutch, 27 percent of Germans and a quarter of the British.

In the 20 years up to 2010, the Evangelical Church of Germany, closed 340 churches and is considering giving up another 1,000, the news weekly Der Spiegel reported in February. Dutch churches are reportedly closing at a rate of two a week - around 4,000 remain from the estimated 19,000 built since the 13th century. From 1999 to 2010, the Church of Sweden says it lost 800,000 members.

Even in the traditionally more devout Catholic countries of southern Europe, faith is under pressure. A survey released in February showed 70 percent of Spaniards describe themselves as Catholic, a fall of almost 10 percent in a decade. Among Spanish Catholics just 12.5 percent attend mass at least once a week.

In comparison, 40 percent of Americans describe themselves as "very religious" and normally attend service at least once a week, according to a recent Gallup poll.

NATO officials worry a widening belief gap between religious America and an increasingly secular Europe could erode their sense of shared values, and combine with a growing divergence in defense spending and the new US focus on Asia to weaken the trans-Atlantic alliance.

One religion that is growing in Europe is Islam.

On average Muslims make up 3.8 percent of the population of the 27 nations of the EU, according to figures released by the Pew Research Center in December. An earlier Pew study predicted the Muslim population of 17 western European countries would grow from 4.5 percent in 2010 to 7.1 percent by 2030 due to immigration and a higher birthrate.

Churches abandoned for lack of congregations have been turned into mosques, as well as cafes, rock-climbing centers and private homes. That's a trend denounced by some Christian conservative groups who warn of an emerging post-Christian Europe with growing tensions between religions.

Such fears have been highlighted by attacks against 11 mosques around Britain following the killing of soldier Lee Rigby by two suspected Islamist extremists in London.

Campaign groups warn of an increase in Islamophobic and anti-Semitic hate crime in some countries is linked to the declining economy. "The ... economic crisis, which has nurtured the neo-Nazi cause, may endure or worsen," said a report from the World Jewish Congress last month. "We must be prepared for all eventualities."

While violence and tensions have captured headlines, the imams, bishops and rabbis meeting in Brussels accentuated the positive, pointing to religious groups working together to overcome division.

"There is a movement slowly but surely towards resolving these issues," said Syed Ali Abbas, a Shia Muslim representative. "In Europe there is a trend which is moving Jewish, Muslim, Christians and other religions to come together."

In countries hardest hit by the crisis, rising poverty and declining government resources have given religions an enhanced role as providers of basic needs.

"In Spain, Greece, Cyprus, the social services of churches have increased drastically," explains Rev. Rudiger Noll, associate general secretary of Council of European Churches. "If you see how many soup kitchens are offered, it's an unprecedented amount of food that is given out. People are turning to churches for charity."

The Catholic relief agency Caritas said it provided help to 88,000 people in Portugal during the first half of last year, an increase of 64 percent on the same period of 2011. The Orthodox Church in the Greek capital Athens has 3,000 volunteers handing out more than 10,000 food packages a day.

Noll says it's too early to say if such charity or the search for spiritual guidance in a crisis will lead Europeans to return to religion.

In Spain, which keeps monthly figures, that does not seem the case. The number describing themselves as non-believers rose to 16.5 percent from 12.7 percent in 2008.

Despite such numbers, Noll does not see Europe sliding away from religion. In an interview he says organizations from trade unions and political parties to sports clubs are also seeing a membership decline as citizens question entrenched institutions. Beyond that, he says, their underlying spirituality endures.

"Religiosity is not declining. It's relations with the institutional type of church that is declining ... this is the challenge for our churches, they have to open up to modernity and talk to people in today's language if they do not want numbers to decrease."

http://www.realclearworld.com/articles/2013/06/03/europes_other_crisis_religion_105208.html