What can be done about the PCA’s “big sort” constraint? I wish I were that smart to say. I am not. I wish I had all the answers. Thankfully, Presbyterians do theology in community. My greatest desire is for the PCA to be serious about its HUP ethos in suburban and city center churches so she would seek outside, objective, non-PCA help.

The PCA has such a closed community of discourse that her blind spots linger far too long.

Part One: Statement of the Premise can be found here: http://bit.ly/h0vYaX

Pulitzer-prize finalist Bill Bishop’s data-tested thesis is that social conservatives and social elites sort themselves politically and form churches around already accepted social norms. This will explain how the PCA grew and why it likely won’t grow beyond its current cultural demographic in the near future. For example (page numbers to Bishop’s book are in parenthesis),

(1) Beginning in the late 1970s through the 1980s, Americans moved into neighborhoods with those sharing similar voting values. The conservatives went to the suburbs and the liberals stayed closer to the city. Where are the PCA’s largest and most vibrant churches (10)?

(2) With political homogeneity, it is easier to grow consensus faster and build a movement. Elites, historically, are more partisan, more principled (5 points), more extreme (predestinarianism), and more ideological that regular voters. For example, many in the PCA would question a person’s faith if abortion was not a top voting issue (39).

(3) As “white flight” ideologically sorted geographically, “liberal church goers would live in one place and conservative church goers in another”(42). Center city church goers likely voted for President Obama (regardless of whether or not they were evangelicals) whereas few suburban PCA’ers would even think about supporting Obama. I was recently at a city center PCA church overhearing a group of people loudly thankful for Obama’s policies and presidency. I just can’t imagine that would be the case in PCA suburban churches in Virginia, for example.

(4) According to Bishop, the “real white flight” of the past two generations has been white ideologues moving to communities that were becoming staunchly Republican to live among socially similar people (53). I don’t have the numbers, but my guess is that upwards of around 90% of the PCA church plants between 1980 and 2002 were in Republican counties. This fits with the homogeneous unit principle. We mistakenly only viewed “white flight” as racial. It was ideological.

(5)HUP: it doesn’t matter if you’re a frat boy coming out of RUF, a high school student, an ex-con, or a judge, like minded company polarizes and builds solidarity. The point of HUP is to gather like-minded people in high schools, on college campus, in neighborhoods, etc. (68).

(6) In 1960, 60 percent of evangelicals identified as Democrats but by 1988 that number was down to 40 percent. Because the PCA began around the time of Roe v. Wade it provided a unique opportunity to distinguish herself from “liberals” and gathered around homogeneous political and social issues that were later supported theologically (113).

(7) Low income whites, in general, have maintained their allegiance to Democrats as late as 2004. The Republican Party experienced its largest growth, in past two generations, among middle- and upper-class Americans [regardless of race] (120). You will rarely find a PCA church of low income white people with allegiance to the Democratic Party because low income whites are a culture many PCA’ers detest (121).

(8) Ideological and social white flight has left rural America behind (137). The most neglected and ignored churches in the PCA are rural. They have been left behind by suburban and city center white elites (137). As I’ve written before, middle-class elitism does not seem to care about poor white people.

(9) City center churches will be easier to plant in the future because young Americans culturally sort by lifestyle preference. Lifestyle is a city’s main product and the housing market has shifted accordingly. People will use “missional” as justification for sociologically sorting as an urban elite if necessary. Church planters follow people who sort according to social and cultural preferences (153). We should not be overly impressed with center city plants because they will likely also not be successful at reaching blacks or Latinos in cities (as I’ve stated before). [Editor’s note: the original URL (link) referenced is no longer valid, so the link has been removed.]

(10) Churches promote themselves as tribal. There are safe spaces to have one’s personal social and political values affirmed and not challenged. As such, you’ll tend to find churches where people share homogeneous worldviews. This is church tribalism. (159).

(11) HUP encourages bringing people to church who already share the same language, culture, music, or even food, as everyone else. That is, “you’ll like it here. There are people here like you already.” The homogeneous unit builds a tribe of people “just like us.” (162, 164, 165).

(12) At the end of the 1960s, the social and political conservatives sorted themselves on the basis of being committed to the “Great Commission” as liberal Christians had become lost in social issues (social gospeling instead of preaching “the gospel”) (168-169). This fits with the PCA tagline. Chapter 7 of this book is sobering and has the PCA written all over it.

(13) Culture-driven churches construct congregations around similar lifestyles. Whether it’s a suburban church, a hipster church, or city center church, local congregations constructed around lifestyle preferences (173). “I got to a church where people shop at Trader Joe’s, etc.”

(14) Churches have to build around social cultures because there is no longer “brand loyalty” in American Christianity (175). HUP discourages branding as “Presbyterians.” Churches built around social customs and norms avoid putting “Presbyterian” in the title of the church. People aren’t coming because it’s “Presbyterian” they’re coming to connect with their homogeneous subculture.

(15) People openly committed to “inerrancy” tend to be unwavering Republicans (177). This is not a point, just an interesting correlation.

(16) When white conservatives church shop they tend to look for churches that share their political values and culture first and foremost (178). This may explain why there are so many former Southern Baptists and social conservative Catholics in the PCA rather than former liberal Presbyterians. It’s the same conservative social culture.

(17) Church planting has been reduced to “gathering people like us!” (181).

(18) Because people aren’t willing to accept the fact the PCA is clustered culturally many black and Hispanic men have paid a tough price. The multi-ethnic efforts will likely bear little fruit and explains why, in part, the movement fizzled in the 1980s (whereas multi-ethnics have exploded among Pentecostals). When good intentions fail to do due diligence and plan for the contingencies of Gordon Allport’s “contact hypothesis” we can’t expect much success (285). Multi-ethnic projects will only work under certain planned conditions. Hiring a “black guy” is not planning around Allport (285). The Kumbaya multi-ethnic strategy is has been an epic failure (284).

Having said this, I know that there will be individual outliers that do not fit what is presented above. I am certain that many can offer personal stories of individual churches or experiences where this is not the case. There’s no need to contact me to list them as exceptions to the rule. I’m far more interested in the rule than the exceptions. I’m concerned more about the genotype than the phenotype.

What can be done about the PCA’s “big sort” constraint? I wish I were that smart to say. I am not. I wish I had all the answers. Thankfully, Presbyterians do theology in community. My greatest desire is for the PCA to be serious about its HUP ethos in suburban and city center churches so she would seek outside, objective, non-PCA help.

The PCA has such a closed community of discourse that her blind spots linger far too long.

I’ve written before about needed radical changes in detoxing from HUP in the PCA as well as the need to honestly deal with race issues to dismantle the idolatrous syncretism in many parts of the PCA that equivocates the love of Southern culture with following Jesus.

The culturist, doctrinalist, and pietist cold war in the PCA has a much deeper sociological and cultural manifestations that call for deeper surgery. Those may remain as internal issues but, externally, if the PCA continues to attach herself to the same social value demographic, it’s pretty much a wrap.

While many are trying to figure out how to end the cold way American culture is radically re-sorting in ways that will leave the PCA behind wondering in 20 years why the denomination stagnated into slow decline.

Finally, I recognize that much of this sounds unspiritual as if God cannot work despite the lack of cultural intelligence looming in these conversations. I believe that He can do whatever he wills. We face again the sovereignty and responsibility mystery.

I am committed to the pursuit of prudential judgments in these matters as the Holy Spirit leads. I want to be wrong and surprised by change but unless preferences for social and cultural homogeneity are addressed I have to be honest to black and Latino brothers and sisters seeking to join the denomination. They are joining more than a theological community so don’t cry “foul” or be frustrated when you’re expected to socially conform to social customs and norms in the burbs or in center city churches.

I was not told this. You know what you’re getting into here: the PCA is homogeneous unit principled “big sort” denomination that has not yet decided if it wants to be culturally conservative evangelical first, and Presbyterian second.

What I find even more fascinating is that few have ever stopped to asked why it is that Presbyterianism in America (even liberals versions) have never, ever made deep inroads into black and Latino sub-cultures and why the PCA thinks is will succeed? That discussion is for another day. . .

Anthony Bradley is an Associate Professor of Theology and Ethics at The King’s College, NYC. This commentary is taken from Bradley’s blog, The Institute, and was also published in the Commentary section of WorldMag.com and is used with permission of the author.

[Editor’s note: Some of the original URLs (links) referenced in this article are no longer valid, so the links have been removed.]