COMMENTARY: Is merger in store for American religious communities?

c. 1999 Religion News Service (Rabbi Rudin is the national interreligious affairs director of the American Jewish Committee.) UNDATED _ Mega-mergers in the corporate world have been taking place for some time and have included airlines, banks, publishing houses and telecommunications companies. While mergers are perhaps good news for stockholders, they have often involved employee […]

c. 1999 Religion News Service

(Rabbi Rudin is the national interreligious affairs director of the American Jewish Committee.)

UNDATED _ Mega-mergers in the corporate world have been taking place for some time and have included airlines, banks, publishing houses and telecommunications companies.


While mergers are perhaps good news for stockholders, they have often involved employee layoffs, bitter personality conflicts within the rarefied air of executive suites, clashes of corporate cultures and economic turbulence.

Could similar mergers now be in store for some of America’s religious communities? Can differing spiritual beliefs, doctrines and institutional histories be overcome in the quest for the elusive goal of “unity”?

Perhaps.

Recently leaders of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the nation’s largest Lutheran denomination, met in Denver and voted to formally establish full communion with the Episcopal Church. While not technically a merger, the action brings these two Protestant groups, numbering about 8 million members, much closer together and includes mutual recognition of clergy, rituals and baptisms.

But behind the pious language of “religionspeak” that explained the Lutheran action, some well-known human forces were also at work. Economic realities frequently intrude into human institutions, even religious ones. Observers readily admitted this was a factor bringing Lutherans and Episcopalians together.

Both groups have suffered membership losses in past decades, and one possible result of the alliance is that small, economically strapped Lutheran and Episcopal churches may merge into a single congregation. Or perhaps two small congregations may share one minister instead of employing a Lutheran pastor and an Episcopal priest.

For more than 200 years, Episcopal Church membership was primarily of British background, while the Lutheran churches traced their heritage to Germany and Scandinavia.

My professional duties bring me into close contact with the leaders and rank-and-file members of both church bodies, and although the liturgies and rituals seem different to me, the socioeconomic makeups of the churches’ members appear almost the same. The powerful leavening force of American society has muted the distinctiveness of both religious groups and helped make the de facto merger possible.

That same leavening force was one of the factors causing the recent resignation of Greek Orthodox Archbishop Spyridon. The Greek-American laity who led the campaign to remove Spyridon want their archbishop and their church to more fully reflect the American religious scene.


That trend is certain to accelerate in the future for all “immigrant” churches as their members become more sure-footed within American society.

Some observers predict that while there will always be distinctive groups like the Pentecostals and charismatics, before too long four large clusters will account for more than 90 percent of American Christians: Roman Catholics; merged moderate Protestants like the Lutherans and Episcopalians; theologically conservative evangelical Christians; and Eastern Orthodox.

Similar forces are also at work within the American Jewish community and although formal mergers are not likely to happen in the immediate future, some religious realignment is under way. The Reform or progressive Jewish movement was the 19th century creation of German-speaking rabbis and lay people who settled in the United States. Their outlook reflected an Enlightenment view of religion embracing modernity and rationalism, while eschewing much of traditional Jewish ritual and feelings of peoplehood.

The Conservative movement historically sought the always desirable middle ground between Orthodox Judaism and the radicalism of the early Reformers. Unlike the Reformers, many Conservative leaders traced their family roots to Eastern Europe rather than Germany. Reconstructionism, a small “made in the U.S.A.” denomination, began in the 1930s and reflected the pragmatic non-supernatural theology that is an integral feature of American religious life. And, finally, there are the growing numbers and increasing self-confidence of Orthodox Judaism.

Today the Reform and Conservative movements often work together to secure full religious rights for their members in Israel. That alliance, built upon a shared goal of religious equality in the Jewish State, will continue to develop.

In addition, the Reform movement has dramatically moved away from much of its original philosophy and today emphasizes many aspects of the Jewish tradition, including rituals and liturgy. The socioeconomics of Reform and Conservative Jews are nearly identical, and I predict an amalgam of the two movements will evolve in the new century that will stand beside a resurgent Orthodoxy.


However, one thing is certain: The Lutheran-Episcopal linkage is only the first of more changes to come as Christians and Jews overcome old barriers and establish new ties.

DEA END RUDIN

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