A lot of the problems you describe with your parish honestly don't sound like they are so much age-related as convert-related, like the people you've been dealing with don't know how to deal very well with people who come from other religious traditions. It makes me wonder how much of other people's problems they attributed to Boomer age attitudes in the other thread might have more to do with how we deal with "newcomers."

In addition to Bill's points, with which I agree, it sounds like one of the issues you raise is around decisionmaking, which is a difficult process for all non-profits, not just churchs. Too often, vestries or other governing bodies attempt to offer guidance or make decisions without first engaging those affected by the decision. Or they go into executive session to explore emerging ideas or concerns, out of fear that the individual involved will take the issue personally. But it is far more effective to engage directly with folks, to be transparent, and to forge consensus.

One suggestion: Check out the written norms developed by some dioceses. A particularly well done set of norms is available in PDF from the Diocese of Southern VA at: http://is.gd/JQilb0 .

Hope this is helpful!

Eric Bonetti

Amen--I've encountered quite a lot of this myself.

Amen and amen! "Everyone with ears, listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches.

Bill and Eric: with all respect, your responses are instances of what the author is attempting to illustrate. There is a striking and destructive tendency not just to deflect critique onto other matters (which you both do in your responses), but also to misunderstand the critique as encouragement simply to implement some radical but inhibited aspect of a proposed project. Sadly, this is not listening.

What is never faced squarely, honestly, and with integrity is what the author says is necessary: "it requires that those who have presided over the decline recognize that they are responsible for it..."

I pray that we have begun to walk that path.

I have seen this too.

Sean Ferrell

I agree that this is a very frustrating situation. I definitely wonder though, at the idea of taking a bad situation at one, or some, parishes and applying it to the whole church. Our church is experiencing a generational shift in leadership, as it is growing. And unpleasant things happen sometimes, but nothing that I've seen that couldn't be overcome by really constructive dialogue. Good leadership helps to set the expectation of construct dialogue.

To the author and Josh, I'd be circumspect about saying "it requires that those who have presided over the decline recognize that they are responsible for it..." Those people built the church that is now growing. But there is a life cycle and there are really smart people in TEC who have studied this and have constructive information about those cycles. Our parish is now a "Transitional Parish," having grown out of being a small "Pastoral Parish," and hoping to achieve the stability of become a "Program Parish." Each stage has predictable characteristics and growth pains. The "old guard" has much to grieve, including a loss of the intimacy of the small parish (which used to be able to thrive, but not so much now - that demographic isn't their fault).

For crying out loud, have a little compassion for that loss, even as speaking reasonably, and in an informed way about the change that's truly needed to be healthy and sustainable (225 to 250 attendance on Sundays is the number I've heard).

Yes, grounding in liturgy and service is crucial. The liturgy (including the music) nurtures all else. I would find it difficult to carry out the work of social justice without the grounding of inspired liturgy. It's hard to imagine people flocking to a church that doesn't have that going for them. I do come from the Anglo-Catholic tradition, and I do understand that inspired liturgy will look different for others, but it must be at the heart.

It makes me wonder about clergy roles and expectations. Because what I've expressed requires an excellent liturgist, with good musical taste, who sets expectations of constructive dialogue, and perhaps mediates conflict. I don't know if that differs from clergy expectations. It seems like a good theology of leadership to me, but I don't know, it's not my job.

I appreciate the candor and the desire to speak and be heard that are evinced in this article, and I hope that the local leadership wherever this is can find a way to include this person's perspective.

That said, I think there are some methodological problems with the critique being offered.

First, from the quote, "Religious baby boomers raised a generation of kids that fled from churches as soon as they got the chance. Those of us among their children who escaped the cataclysm of being raised in the 80s and 90s, those of us who are still here, you need to listen to what we have to say. The decline of mainline Protestantism, the lack of religious conviction (or even basic Biblical knowledge) among the vast majority of my age cohort should be proof enough that whatever has been going on for the last 40 years or so has been an unmitigated disaster. The handful of us who actually understand this AND still have hope deserve to be listened to."

This has a "null hypothesis" problem: it assumes that other denominations and other organizations AREN'T experiencing decline. They (demonstrably) are, as sociologists such as Robert Putnam (American Grace) take the time and attention to point out. Thus it would seem that the decline of organizations has been going on for some time, and may be something happening to "boomers" as much as from them.

Second, there seems to be a fundamental attribution error in assigning anything "the boomers did wrong" as dispositional (there's something in their nature that makes them run the church poorly), while the challenges the author is describing in his/her experience are described situationally (they're external circumstances beyond his/her control, and don't relate to his/her own responses to the conflicts).

I want to be clear; this is something in human nature, and not a denigration of the writer, who I believe has taken the time to write something important.

But the question is, "What to take rom this perspective?", and I don't think I can draw a clear line from the argument ("Our experience has been challenging") to the three conclusions.

I'll go point by point.

1) Youth engagement through an ongoing process? Fantastic. I'm all for it. But I'm not sure this isn't a "felt need" issue; not many of the 16 year-olds I know want to come to indaba groups (full disclosure: I was one, but even then I didn't think of that as the common youth response to church structure). If "youth" means the 18-30, or even 20-and-30-somethings, again, great!, but I think the ongoing process is plagued by situational variables: young people move more often, start careers, go back to school, fall in love and get married, etc. My own stability through my 20s has been such that I simply haven't been able to commit to everything I'd like to.

2. The trouble with this notion is that it's got this really problematic assumption that the only way for my voice to be heard is for yours not to be. "Reverse mentoring" seems dismissive, and logically problematic. Any impulse to have the experience and wisdom I have heard by removing the voices of those who by their age have MORE experience seems to dismiss their wisdom. I'd like to see this re-written as a two-way conversation, rather than the young people sitting the old down to explain the proper way to do things.

It sounds quite a bit like the conflicts involved in the context of this poster's experience relate to a local experience, and not general tendencies in every church. Perhaps his/her rector/priest-in-charge COULD stand to be silenced and only listen for a while, but I hope that most of our parishes have the maturity to experience collaborative dialogue.

3. I've recently been through the process of ordination. My process took about five years, and I was ordained at the age of 28. It was burdensome, and I encountered my fair share of situational complexities that made it more so than it might have been. I don't think it should be less so. Few thoughts:
- I've known people who have withdrawn because the burdens of the process caused them to recognize and anticipate the burdens that ordained leadership would bring. One of them recognized that his passion was for PhD level academics in a related topic, and has gone on to pursue that; I'm proud of his decision and its self-awareness. The structure may be scandalous in putting us through our paces, but I'm grateful for every anti-predation test, economic-stability review, psych-screening and challenging question about how I would handle a real conflict from the church's present experience.
- If the church needs creative leaders, it needs people who can handle problems that are not simple and technical in their nature, but complex and adaptive. Being able to take care of yourself through a complex and adaptive ordination process is habit-forming for good self-care. When YOU are the primary tool for your ministry, you need something that helps you form your own best practices.
- Our clergy number has roughly tripled since the 1970s, even as numbers have dropped by a million. In my sponsoring diocese, when I attended a postulancy retreat, there were over 40 people at some stage of the process. A good number of those folks were under 30.
- I would not have been as effective a priest at 23 and 24, when I first believed I had a call to this ministry, as I was on the day of my ordination. The years I spent in formation (which continues, of course) did not exhaust me, but did sometimes temper me or provoke increased moderation.

I don't mean this to silence the voice of the original post. Again, I think it's important to know when parts of our church structures are feeling hurt or abused. But the call to share a new perspective shouldn't remove all current perspective, and new suggestions should be held in creative tension with old.

Perhaps a long-winded way of suggesting we keep the baby, if not the bathwater.

With respect, Josh, what you seem to want is not to engage in conversation, but to require all responses to echo back the author's arguments. That's really not not acceptable, and is essentially a demand to shut up couched as an appeal for honesty and integrity. I wrote my comment not because I was cunningly trying to deflect critique, but because I think the author is wrong. Sorry if that doesn't fit your definition of being honest and showing integrity, but I really have no intent of ceding my right to expressing my own opinion.

I think Bill has a worthwhile point- it isn't always ageism (by old aginst young and also vice versa) that is the problem, but the insider-outsider problem. This manifests itself in generational conflict (young people are outside), in conflict over diversity (non-whites are outside), in gender and sexuality based discrimination(women and LGBT persons are outside), and in problems dealing with converts (newcomers are outside).

The original article and the author here are making Baby Boomers a bit of a scapegoat. That probably is unfair. A better characterization of the problem would probably be had if you simply replaced "Baby Boomer" and "old people" with "current leadership" and "young people" with "those currently excluded from decision-making authority within the institution(s)."

Ben,
No one is suggesting that the baby be thrown out with the water. I find it very strange that you’ve read this reflection that way. I can only speak for myself, but I believe it cannot be reiterated enough that the extraordinary vision and courage of the women and men who paved the way for women’s ordination and those who continue the valiant struggle for the full recognition of LGBT Christians in the Church deserve not just celebration but the deepest respect. If this critique demeans those advances, I want nothing of it. Yet, surely the same people who had the moral courage it took to attain those goals are not now above confronting with integrity those ways in which it likewise failed!

But I believe that your comments, specifically, Ben, are red herrings. They don’t clarify the problem the author isolated. They obscure it.

First, the quote to which you refer does not evidence either of the logical problems with which you saddle it. It is neither a null hypothesis problem nor a fundamental attribution error. Nowhere in the quote is the claim made that other institutions are not experiencing similar decline—in fact the quote mentions that they are, specifically; nor, does the quote suggest that there is something “essential” about baby boomers that led to these problems.

Instead, the quote simply isolates a problem: the children of baby boomers fled the churches in large numbers and as a rule lack religious conviction and Christian formation. It is my understanding that this is not a particularly controversial claim. The conclusion that the author draws from these facts, which also seems to me to be reasonable and true, is that something went disastrously wrong. I don’t think any of this is controversial or unreasonable.

What I think you object to is the evident frustration the author has with baby boomers, which I believe you are wrongly attributing to the argument to discredit it.

The author’s frustration appears to me to stem from a second, interrelated point: namely, that baby boomers (as a group) are consistently obviating responsibility for this decline in participation and formation. It certainly would be a useless waste of time if the reason to point this out was simply to ascribe blame. But I think the author’s point is more substantial. S/he is saying that the characteristics that contribute to this refusal to take that responsibility are part of the reason for the decline and one of the consequences of this continued refusal is perpetuation of that problem. And it is because of that this that the author says, rightly in my view, that those who have not left and who can put their finger on this problem need to be heard.

And yet, as the author’s anonymity tragically demonstrates, these kinds of points are being entirely shoved out of the room or domesticated altogether. The result of both is, once again, the perpetuation of the problem. In all honesty, the fact that the author feels compelled to voice these words and does not feel a safe space exists in the conversation for them, leading her or him to publish it anonymously—this alone should give us considerable pause. (And it shows, Cynthia, that s/he has a tremendous amount of circumspection about the claims that s/he has made.)

The point I believe the author is working to articulate is one that David Foster Wallace also made in his essay, "E Unibus Pluram: Television and US Fiction." He states there: "And herein lies the oppressiveness of institutionalized irony, the too-successful rebel: the ability to interdict the question without attending to its subject is, when exercised, tyranny. It is the new junta, using the very tool that exposed its enemy to insulate itself.”

Bill Dilworth, interdicting the subject without attending to its subject is what I understood your comment to be. You can, of course, disagree with the author. But to do it well, you do have to avoid reiterating his or her point. I was simply pointing out that if you want to prove it wrong, you'll have to attend to it differently than you have. I think the author is at least saying something like this.

You'll pardon me, Josh, if I don't consider you the arbiter of discussion quality and continue to muddle along on my own, even if I don't do it well. Please dont think you have to waste any more time trying to train me; you know how intractable old folk are. By the way, it's incorrect to say that Boomers' kids fled the Church if you're implying that previous generations succeeded in raising faithful church-goers, and that Boomers alone managed to chase their kids away. Church decline has been going on for longer than that, and it would be equally true that most Boomers themselves fled the Church.

I think Adam is correct (and not simply because he said I have a worthwhile point). Framing the discussion in terms of age assumes that all Boomers share in church control. We don't. There are lots of disempowered Boomers out there.

I think Josh makes lots of good points too. :)

Thanks for the reply Josh; I think your first paragraph laid out the kind of response I was hoping for from the original article: not a dismissal of "the boomers," but a call for fuller engagement throughout the church. I'd agree that this should be uncontroversial, and should be fought for when it becomes controversial.

That said, I'll beg your pardon and say that the article as I read it DOES attribute the problem it identifies to the boomers; specifically, by saying: "those who have presided over the decline recognize that they are responsible for it, an admission of culpability that I do not see anyone readily being willing to admit to."

It's in the process of responding to this that I see null hypothesis and FAE problems: if institutional decline just-so-happened to occur while baby boomers were coming into the leadership of institutions, then they may not be responsible for it, even if they have a responsibility to do something about it.

I think that may be the linguistic confusion that's allowed two opposite interpretations of the article: the question of the nature of the responsibility of those in power.

I'll briefly re-iterate that I don't think the author's conclusions follow from the description of the question; rather, we can find space for more around the table without asking those present currently to vacate their seats.

I believe I took a hard line with the article because it seems to come out of a specific and highly-nuanced local experience. That certainly calls for intense and structured response, but I'm not hearing anything at the systemic level.

I need to hear why the take-aways from this aren't simply, "Make sure you're open to engaging everyone" and "If there's a toxic local situation, its resolution should be sought by those in authority as well as those it's affecting."

I suppose, on the flip side, I feel that it's AS uncontroversial for healthy parishes to say, "I can hear and support your need for change where you are, but where I am we have different needs that don't include that particular change."

Ben, re: "It's in the process of responding to this that I see null hypothesis and FAE problems: if institutional decline just-so-happened to occur while baby boomers were coming into the leadership of institutions, then they may not be responsible for it, even if they have a responsibility to do something about it."

The statement that you quote--viz. "those who have presided over the decline recognize that they are responsible for it, an admission of culpability that I do not see anyone readily being willing to admit to"--does not say anything about what caused the decline. S/he speaks of those who "presided over it" and who have "responsibility for" it. As I said in my comments, there is a valid concern here insofar as it points to the fact that it is "responsibility for" this decline in participation and formation that is being evaded. It is the present-day evasion that is the problem, not what caused it to begin happening ca. 1970.

There are arguments to be had about causes, and I think that some very strong claims can be made in favor of the charge that these are the consequences of a certain style of conceiving the nature of institutions that is cultivated by "the too-successful rebel." But I don't think those kinds of arguments are being made here, nor are they what is being interrogated. As I said, I think you're uncovering it because you resist its being framed in terms of generations. But if the problem is one of what is not being addressed now, and the culprits are (generally speaking) from another generation, then that's just how we have to talk, even while we work to separate those claims from the cultural baggage we attach to them (e.g., boomer = narcissist, gen-x'er = cynical slacker).

There simply is no reason to rehearse the "correlation is not causation" dictum.
The validity of the author's point stands if the point is about those who "presided over" and had "responsibility for" these consequences.

Finally, this is not simply a local point. It is a particularly salient example of a more general experience. And I don't think this is a controversial point, either. It is not simply local because it is calling attention to a certain institutionalized understanding of institutions, etc. So, the take-away that is more than just "Make sure you're open to engaging everyone" and "If there's a toxic local situation, its resolution should be sought by those in authority as well as those it's affecting" is that the author is struggling to name and identify the same problem Wallace refers to as "institutionalized irony," a view that results in a certain kind of tyranny--the kind that makes people fear that they can't critique the institution without severe repercussions.

This is why I think this is so important that we pause over the author's anonymity and attend to it. Unless the author is pathologically paranoid, the sheer fact that s/he felt compelled to post this anonymously means that these generalizations are not abstract. They have concrete, real-world consequences, which we have an obligation to hear. Perhaps we will all find that the matter is different than we all thought. But, like I said, so long as we are not listening, we are only making this problem worse.

Tabling the discussion of how well or clearly the article presented its points, I'm not clear where this is connecting for you, Josh? Where do you believe there is an institutional denial of responsibility, what are the specifics of it, and where is it occurring in ways that are unique to boomers? And if that evidence exists, what do you think it's pointing us to? What IS being unaddressed now?

Here's a bit of my own experience that causes me to feel that actually, quite a bit IS "being addressed now," even if it isn't fixed or perfect:

I see the restructuring of diocesan and national offices to reflect economic realities, and the General Convention energy around such things as the Acts 8 group and the restructuring task force as being a pretty robust engagement with the structures of the church.

(The restructuring task force even has a mandate to include under-35-year-olds, and the youngest delegate I've heard of to date is 24 or 25, which says to me that far from excluding gen-x'ers and millenials, "those in power" -- boomers or not -- are making a point of building their participation into the structure of the church's governance.)

Ordination processes are changing, and the new canons stipulate an 18 month minimum period of formation between accepted nomination and ordination to the transitional diaconate (hardly oppressive). The minimum age for a priest is 25, which essentially means you could do discernment during your bachelors' degree, get your M.Div and fieldwork requirements completed, and be allowed. That's really agile, although most people's other life commitments will prevent them from moving at that space, and -- with all due respect and humility -- most people (of whatever age) NEED the gifts they can receive from a longer period of formation.

I've known effective priests and bishops who are boomers, and also gen-x'ers (or with bishops, about as close as you can be without crossing over). I've also known ineffective clergy from both groups. Same with lay leaders in parishes and dioceses: effective or not, boomer, gen-X, or millenial, I could name every pairing.

My current vestry and last vestry had effective gen-x'ers, and boomers as members. I've seen good committee work, small group work, music and worship planning, and outreach done by boomers and millenials, and I'm beginning to see millenials in those leadership. I know fewer millenial clergy, but that might well be expected, given that God calls us at different points in our lives and not everyone's process is the same.

All of this leaves me wondering what, specifically, is being critiqued? If it is only "boomers in charge," I need to hear more before spending time and energy on it. If it's one bad instance of parish leadership, then there are strategies that might be offered if the author makes him/herself known privately to some of us. But I don't feel like I've seen a supported charge yet.

This makes me wonder how many other people cannot share openly their thoughts / opinions / experiences.

What voices are missing from the discussion - on this and other articles?

I myself have experienced much of what the original author mentions, but feel like I cannot say so under my real name.

(I realize I am going against Cafe policy with my anonymity on this comment itself, but I ask that the moderators please allow it in this case.)

Circumspect or not, Josh, my view is that the author is responding to a local situation. It bears little resemblance to anything I'm witnessing. Therefore, I'm circumspect about calling it a larger problem throughout the church.

I'm on the divide, I'm not a baby boomer, but I'm not really a Gen Xer, either. I'm circumspect about leveling heaps of responsibility on a whole demographic. Baby Boomers are responsible for the decline of the church? It is hard for me to listen to the deeper concerns with a pretty "out there" and angry accusation on the table. Like Benedict, I'm not seeing a "supported charge."

Two people don't feel comfortable posting under their own names. Now that is a problem. And it is a local one. And I wish everyone luck with such problems. Community is really important, and clearly there's a lot of dysfunctionality going on for at least 2 of us. I pray for something better for all.

Given the Cafe's usual stance on anonymous comments, I think it's very hard to see how widespread the problem is. The very nature of voicelessness means that we aren't hearing the people who feel that way.

My brother, a (Roman Catholic) parish musician, does not use his real name even on his own FaceBook page. In other (trans-denominational) church-related online communities I participate in, the ratio of pseudonyms to real names is pretty high. My female priest and seminarian friends tell me that there is a fairly substantial online culture of female clergy/seminarians who are almost entirely anonymous online, because they need a place to discuss their problems, but can't risk the danger of speaking openly. And then there's a the vast majority of people who don't read blogs, participate in online forums, or have time to comment on places like the Cafe.

Even I (if you can believe it, with my big mouth) have been (trying to) put a bridle on my online speech recently, because of the way some of my comments have been (mis?) interpreted by members of my community. (Also because Jim Naughton, Katie Sherrod, and my wife have all informed me that I'm not always as helpful as I could be when I get all.... well, you know how I get.)

At any rate... I don't think you can interpret an apparent lack of voices expressing their inability to speak out as a meaningful metric of, you know, anything at all.

It's not just Churchpeople who cultivate, or are encouraged to cultivate, anonymity. When I was a student teacher the cooperating teacher under whom I worked was sure that any sort of internet presence would invariably bite teachers in the butt eventually. And anyone even thinking of running for public office in the future would probably be well advised to avoid social media and the blogosphere entirely.

If you really want to stifle voices, keep bickering among yourselves on this forum with methodological, long-winded critiques of each other’s words– those of us who are sick of it will leave or choose not to participate because we don’t want to be beat up in this forum.

I appreciate the candor with which the author wrote and the required anonymity for this conversation. Like other commenters above, I have had quite my fill of similar experiences.

Ask yourselves: Does dismissing youthful (or any outside) voices happen where I am? And through what lack of leadership and vision? At what price? How do we change the “we’ve always done it that way” stagnation in our churches and church organizations?

I do believe reverse mentoring would help with the “we’ve always done it that way” mentality.

I completely agree with the essay and embrace it's suggestions.

Well said and astute. Particulalry the 3-point suggestions.

Kevin McGrane

And based on the amount of time and thought put into the various comments and essays, it's apparent that this is THE topic of the church: how do we change? What do we change into?

Kevin McGrane

Oh would we like to have you in my parish. We have no tolerance for any opinion not being expressed AND listened to with courtesy. Most of us have been through a listening course.... "We've always done...." is not allowed because our "always" is just 2 years old. Nothing is dismissed by a wave of the hand. Sometimes our Vestry meetings are VERY interesting.