Mark Twain retorted that he was still alive, contradicting learned commentators who were reporting his death. It has been reported that Unitarian Universalism is dying. Apparently based on the way congregations report their voting membership to the UUA we are averaging a growth rate of 1% per annum, and this is smaller than the national growth rate. Thus the argument goes that we are losing "market share," and therefore experiencing relative decline. While this an area of concern for those of us who cherish the future of liberal religion, quantitative measurements do not necessarily lend themselves to uncontroversial judgments.
First, what is the nature of the growth of population in the United States? If the composition of the United States relative to race, ethnicity, age distribution etc. was more or less the same as it was in 1970 (the high point of twentieth century dues payers to the UUA relative to the U.S. population) then the UUA statistical decline in market share would indicate decline relative to this static conception of population. It would tell us that we did not need a cultural change within Unitarian Universalism, but rather an organizational one. We would need to build more big suburban churches. Train more "boss" ministers. We would need to do what we have always done, but better.
But if the US population is growing among people that we have never attracted: among non white, non Protestant, and not "middle class" (in the mid twentieth century meaning of that term,) then perhaps Unitarian Universalist growth would require that we look at the limitations of our cultural and religious identity. By 2050 the population of the United States will be more than 50% non white. Diana Eck argues that we have become the most religiously pluralistic country in the world with growing numbers of Moslems, Buddhists, Hindus, earth centered traditions, and other ways of being religious not normative in America of just a few decades ago. In the 1970s, our members were typically highly credentialled employees of corporations and governments. The better paying of these jobs are disappearing, and now our employed U.U. membership often comes to us highly stressed and overworked, and we have many who are among the increasingly underpaid and under appreciated service functionaries (teachers, librarians, social workers, and technical level scientific workers.) The former often can't afford to live in the communities that they serve. Meanwhile we gaining a larger percentage of self employed professionals, artisans, and creative entrepreneurs who don't have to live in suburbia, and set up shop in small towns in the Mountains, and in the pine woods of the Southeast. Who will we grow among? What is the future of the suburb?
Dan Harper makes an argument that Unitarian Universalist ministers are educated to lead pastoral sized congregations, and if their leadership style was better suited for a larger church, then our Unitarian Universalist churches would grow. Perhaps, but it still leaves open the question, among whom would we grow?
There is considerable interest among Unitarian Universalists in the growth of large independent churches that serve the perceived needs of a consumer orientated population. These "market driven" churches are directed by staff, and the core supporters and power brokers are smaller core of committed evangelicals. They use innovative technologies to enhance the worship experience. It would be an interesting discussion if we could talk about the pluses and minuses of such an approach, and whether it could be adapted Unitarian Universalism. But we still need to ask, who joins these "mega-churches?" There is considerable evidence that they are the once upon a time constituents of the declining conservative and mainstream evangelical churches. Thus they are recycled UCCs, Episcopalians, Baptists, Disciples, Presbyterians and Methodists. These denominations are losing members, it isn't simply liberal Protestantism that is in decline, it is the old forms of denominational Protestantism.
Where are these mega-churches? They are located on sprawling campuses in the new growth suburbs fueled by white flight. Forty years ago we took that road ourselves, undermining our public ministry and turning us into a religion that serves individual seekers rather than a wounded world.
There is a second problem with the declining "market share statistic," by counting voting members of congregations are we really counting those who identify with Unitarian Universalism? No. we are simply counting those who a congregation chooses to report to the UUA as "voting members" for purposes of paying the annual program fund. Those of my readers who has been on a church board know that the number that is reported is an understatement of the size of the congregation. Thus, we need to distinguish between 1) those who identify as Unitarian Universalists, 2) the total constituency of Unitarian Universalist congregations, organizations, affiliate groups, and ministries, and 3) total number of voting members of Unitarian Universalist congregations. Is it possible that the first two could rise significantly while the third category would grow slower? I think that is not only possible, but we are experiencing that institutional dislocation at the present time. It is a fact that we have experienced rapid increases in paid staff in our congregations, and increases in attendance, yet slower increases in those who get reported to Boston. Perhaps this fact has more to do with the slow death of the form of historical Protestantism, than it does to the eminent death of the religious movement known as Unitarian Universalism.
Third, the growth of voting membership in congregations is uneven. Some congregations have experienced double digit growth, and some congregations have experienced absolute decline in membership. The Districts of the UUA in the Northeast of the United States have lost members or showed small increases, while the Districts in the other parts of the country have seen significant growth in total voting member registrations in the last decade. Why? Some of growth in the "sunbelt" has been fueled by rapid population growth, and some of the fall off in the "frost belt" is the result of declining and aging populations. But our "sun belt" congregations lack the endowments and capital funds to respond to population growth, while the "frost belt" congregations are often living off funds assembled by the generousity of Unitarians and Universalists in the nineteenth century.
It would be a good thing if we could discuss with confidence a growth strategy for Unitarian Universalism based on firm knowledge of demographics and precise knowledge of who our members are, but I believe that such a project is much more complex than citing our favorite statistics to bolster our pet arguments. Nevertheless, I suggest my critique opens several new areas of discussion even if that discussion is somewhat speculative without more information: 1) Can we continue to be a religion of the declining (in relative size at least) privileged white anglo culture and not expect to experience decline relative to the population of the United States as a whole? 2) Does it make sense to mimic the mega-church if the mega-church is really a parasite on the declining Protestant form of organization? 3) Are we going to continue to accept the suburban captivity of our movement? 4) While we may need large churches in urban communities and large suburbs as bases for our public ministry, don't we also need small house churches to tap the energy of small group ministries as ways of reaching entirely new populations and generation life styles with new ways of being church. Perhaps some of our ministers should be trained to be enablers of other peoples lay ministries while others will be trained to be boss ministers in a large budget mega-church. Let God call ministers to ministries based on personal discernment that may or may not fit into the church growth current fad of choice.
If I haven't tested my readers patience with my radicalism let me advance one more critique. If we continue to think of ourselves as a "denomination" - a nineteenth century invention of middle class white Protestantism and if do not adopt to the demographic changes that our country is undergoing we will eventually die. But if we reframe our self conception and come to understand ourselves as a movement of religious liberals in which covenant communities are not necessarily housed in expensive campuses, and led by boss ministers, we might contribute to transformation of the American religious experience. Once again.
