COLUMBUS, Ohio (RNS) A church conference here was a stark contrast to rage-filled political conventions taking place elsewhere.

Facing the same economic frustrations and cultural worries, as well as a grinding internal “recession” in church membership, Episcopal leaders from southern Ohio gathered with enthusiasm about tomorrow, trust in their leaders, and a palpable desire to make the necessary changes for better days.

By contrast, recent political gatherings have dissolved in rage, calls for anti-government violence, a rush to arms, and a surge in intolerance toward any views but their own.

Same conditions. Same angst. Same sense of disarray. And yet such different responses. One is filled with courage and grace; the other with fear and vitriol.

If you ever wondered why it matters that we nurture healthy faith communities, here was a powerful sign.

The political arena has become toxic, paralyzed and polarized by angry partisanship and weak politicians whose only goal is to prolong their incumbency.

It was shocking to hear politicians urging conservatives at recent meetings to take arms against their own government, as if violence held an answer to citizens’ worries. Where can such irresponsible demagoguery lead except more incidents like the angry taxpayer in Texas who flew an airplane into the local IRS office?

With no politicians egging them on, the Columbus gathering turned away from organizational warfare. People sought solutions, not targets for blame. They accepted the grim numbers — a decline of national church membership from 3.6 million to 2 million, market share plummeting from 1.67 percent to 0.68 percent — but no longer used them to denigrate any change or faction they didn’t like.

They sought a way forward and accepted the sobering proposition that simply repeating the past 45 years would lead nowhere. Politicians exploiting angst, by contrast, looked backward to some fictional golden era, as if restoring yesterday was a way forward, not just a comforting delusion.

Humbled perhaps by their own decades of small-vision partisanship, church leaders were eager to think large, to embrace change, and to take risks. They understood it is time for “entrepreneurial leaders,” not another decade of avoiding risk.

Politicians, by contrast, were doing nothing more than pleasing the disaffected by giving them meaningless slogans and futile plans.

In steeling themselves for the hard work of engaging a changing culture, these church leaders showed none of the bullying and bluster that have marked church conferences in recent decades. No one predicted the end of civilization if they didn’t get their way. No one threatened to withhold their funds. The time for such grandiose displays is over.

Faith does make a difference. Serious faith looks forward, not backward. It trusts in God and in other people, rather than collapsing into nihilism. It imagines better days when people find common ground, not reasons to hate.

Serious faith looks at current conditions — the same conditions that feed orchestrated chants of rage elsewhere — and wants a future grounded in reality, not in nostalgia and magical thinking.

Serious faith arises out of suffering and humility. So does serious citizenship. Mainline denominations have a powerful message to share: the humble admission that “pride took us down, and now God will lead us onward.”

(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.)