(UNDATED) As the bill comes due for the boom-time spending that we financed on credit, more is at stake than just family finances.

So is social class — that is, our awareness of ourselves as belonging to a certain stratum of society whose members live a certain way, own certain things, hold certain jobs and share certain cultural values.

The great story of the post-war American economy was the vast expansion of the middle class, thanks to rising industrial wages, wider access to education, a growing “gray collar” (service industry) workforce, and a radical opening of professional employment to women. A year ago, some 53 percent of Americans considered themselves middle class and thus freed from peasantry.

But one card at a time, that house is collapsing. Real incomes for the middle class began declining more than a decade ago, as top management increased its share of the pie, government policy tilted toward the wealthy, and basic health-care and education costs outpaced income. Much of the credit mania of recent years wasn’t profligacy, but a desire to maintain a middle-class lifestyle in the face of growing odds.

As unemployment surges past 8 percent, certain markers of middle-class status are vanishing, including ready access to health care, mortgages, and private education. Cadres who rose into the middle class by serving the wealthy suddenly find their shops and services no longer needed. The two pillars of long-term security — retirement benefits and real estate investments — look shaky for many.

Now comes the downsizing. Move to a smaller house or apartment. Buy a smaller car. Look at a state university. Stay at home for meals and vacations. Wear clothes longer. Stop the violin lessons. Live with parents or roommates.

All classes are hurting, but it is the middle class’s radical downsizing of personal horizons that could prove most traumatic.

If middle-class aspirations fueled the rise of democratic institutions, what will the souring of middle-class dreams do to America? That is the great unknown in this recession, especially if it proves to be more than a two-year correction and instead becomes a new systemic reality.

The precarious state of the middle class is a crisis for several basic institutions: private colleges with big-ticket tuition bills; high-turnover suburban real estate; credit-friendly health care and retail industries; and local governments that depend on property and sales taxes. Can you think of an economic sector that didn’t ride the rising expectations of the middle class?

Faith communities were no exception.

Drawing largely on middle-class constituents, religious groups built suburban facilities comparable to McMansions and poured fortunes into retaining urban outposts for shrinking memberships. They built large staffs and engaged in the boom-time indulgences of denominational power struggles, entitlement battles and inefficient ways.

What happens next is difficult to predict. Some institutions — churches among them, I’m afraid — will stoke the fire of middle-class rage. Some will encourage a retreat into creature comforts. Some clever folks — including, ironically, the very people who steered the financial ship down — will reinvent themselves as bottom-feeders and relieve struggling debt-holders of their assets.

It won’t be pretty. Speaking to my colleagues in the faith world, the sooner we see this downsizing trauma and the more boldly we respond to it, the better we will serve our struggling constituents.

(Tom Ehrich is a writer, church consultant and Episcopal priest based in New York. He is the author of “Just Wondering, Jesus,” and the founder of the Church Wellness Project, http://www.churchwellness.com. His Web site is http://www.morningwalkmedia.com.)