Defining and healing divisions among Dane County churches

Christopher James

By Phil Haslanger
Collaboration Project Story Team

 As Christopher James surveyed churches in Dane County and talked with pastors here and visited some of the churches, he began to get a sense of varied texture the religious landscape in a community not always thought of as religious.

He explored the divisions in the community and among the churches. He looked at the differences in the ways Christians give voice to their priorities and go about their worship. In the process, he opened up possibilities for churches in this area to find new ways to shape the future.

James is an associate professor of evangelism and missional Christianity at Dubuque Seminary in Iowa. His 2017 book, Church Planting Post-Christian Soil: Theology and Practice, focused on efforts to start new churches in Seattle. Now he has turned his focus to Dane County for what is known as the Dane Churches Project. On Nov. 20, he presented his preliminary findings at Upper House.

 He set the context for his work by starting with the idea that “God is here” and that what God is doing here is “working toward the renewal of all things.” James said everyone has a role in that: “God has been inviting regular folks to get in on the renewal of all things.” And his research supports the idea that there is work to do in the Madison area.

James sketched out four broad categories that help define Dane County - a fast-growing county of younger and highly-educated people that is among the most polarized counties in the nation. Polarization in this context is defined as partisan prejudice and it was as sharp here as anywhere in the country (details on a large study of this appeared in The Atlantic last March.)

There were two other markers James cited for Dane County - the levels of racial inequity and tension and the rating of Madison as the 11th most post-Christian city in the nation. While 76 percent of Madison residents describe themselves as Christian, this study by Barna found only 31 percent could be categorized as “practicing Christians.” Barna found 19 percent were atheist, agnostic or unaffiliated with any religion, but James thought that percentage is actually higher for this area based on other research data.

James gathered his own data through a survey that got responses so far from 114 of the 317 churches in Dane County. He said that Catholic churches were underrepresented in the responses to date, but that beyond that, the data is reasonably representative of the diversity of churches here.

 Where the differences began to show up were in how evangelical and mainline Protestant churches defined their priorities. While “proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus” was at the top of most responses, there was a sharp divergence on whether it was more important to evangelize non-Christians or improve society through political action.  

Fifty-one percent of the churches called evangelism extremely or very important while 25 percent called it “not” or “only a little” important. In contrast, 62 percent said improving society through political action or community organizing as “not” or “a little important” while 38 percent gave it varying degrees of importance.

Not surprisingly, this division lined up to some degree with evangelical churches prioritizing evangelism and mainline churches prioritizing social action, James noted. 

Distinctions also showed up in worship practices between the two broad categories of churches. At evangelical churches, there was more likely to be hands raised during singing, longer sermons and the presence of charismatic gifts while at mainline churches, there was more attention paid to the liturgical calendar, the singing of hymns, the saying of the Lord’s Prayer and the public sharing of prayer requests. 

For evangelical churches, marks of spiritual maturity included having a Christlike character, being obedient to God’s will and walking in the power of the Spirit with less talk about humility, listening and openness. Likewise, in mainline churches, the marks of spiritual maturity were serving those in need and standing up against injustice and less of a focus on being obedient to God’s will. 

James found a political carryover in this as well, reflecting the general assumptions about the interactions between religion and politics in America. There were more Republicans in evangelical churches, more Democrats in mainline churches and about 30 percent of the churches described themselves as “purple.”

Being a purple church, however, did not mean those churches dealt with the political diversity in their midst, James observed. Rather, they just did not talk about political or social issues much in church and thus were not “showing the world how we can live together with differences.”

He also took a look at new churches started in Dane County since 2010, saying, “It is possible to start new churches here.” In fact, 34 of those started since 2010 are still functioning. They tend to put a higher priority on serving the needs of the community, welcoming all in an inclusive community and identifying more closely with their neighborhoods than the more established churches.

James said his research led “to a real sadness that the church in Dane County mirrors the polarization and division in our society,” so he challenged the attendees at Upper House to embrace humility (look at the plank in our own eye), local ecumenical kinship (loving our neighbors) and discernment and collaboration to find out what God is up to here, what our role is and then work together to renew all things.

James said he still has three phases to go in his research and invited churches who have not taken his survey to do so at this link.

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Local pastors respond to Christopher James’ presentation.