Darryl W. Stephens: Facing the Empire Within

Today's post is by Rev. Dr. Darryl W. Stephens. Rev. Dr. Stephens is Director of United Methodist Studies at Lancaster Theological Seminary and is author of, among others,Reckoning Methodism: Mission and Division in the Public Church (2024). This post is taken with permission from Rev. Dr. Stephens' blog, Ethics Considered.

On Monday, the United States of America inaugurated the reign of a president who said he would not rule out the use of military force to seize control of the Panama Canal and Greenland. Such international aggression would be a blatant attempt to expand the not-so-hidden empire of the USA. To my fellow United Methodists in the USA: Do not retreat in resignation! We must face the empire within.

Empire assumes many guises. The 2024 Social Principles of the UMC defines Donald Trump’s threat as colonialism: “the practice of establishing full or partial control of other countries, tribes, and peoples through conquest and exploitation.” Empire can also be conducted through neocolonialism, exercised through economic, political, and social control of other peoples. More expansively, empire refers to any coercive power that controls people’s lives—often without their realizing it.

The United Methodist Church (UMC) and its predecessor institutions have a long history of supporting and building empire. The UMC was born of a state church, the head of which controlled the largest world empire at the time. When the US colonies won political independence from the British crown, Methodism in the US also became independent of John Wesley and the Church of England. US Methodism, however, retained the structures and attitudes of empire.

White US Methodists, in particular, have a lot to reckon with. We exercised empire through chattel slavery, forced relocation of indigenous peoples, and missionary expansion. Methodists defended these practices with biblical proof-texts and theological arguments, claiming their actions to be God’s will. Indigenous boarding schools, for example, were cast as education and Christianization. Jim Crow laws were depicted as maintaining public order. Methodists justified their participation in projects of empire through powerful rhetoric and jurisprudence, such as Manifest Destiny and the Doctrine of Discovery.

Trump’s territorial aspirations mirror in some ways the UMC’s decades-long agenda to become a “global church.” Both efforts involve structures of empire, with control residing in the United States. The UMC’s central conferences, for example, are directly modeled after the Church of England’s structure from 1867—during the height of Western colonialism. Regarding Anglican churches overseas, the Church of England sought “the binding of the Churches of our colonial empire and the missionary Churches beyond them in the closest union with the Mother-Church.” The US-based UMC has been slow to dismantle this inherited form of empire, making its largest overseas acquisition in 2008 (a relationship that unraveled in 2024).

Facing “the empire within” requires a long process of repentance. For example, the UMC began facing up to its past mistreatment of Native Americans in 1988. General Conference confessed the church’s sin and offered a formal apology in 1992, supported restitution to some tribes in 1996, offered an act or repentance in 2012, and published an in-depth report of Methodist involvement in the Sand Creek massacre in 2016. The work of repentance continues. In 2000, General Conference adopted an Act of Repentance for Racism—and the work is not done. Repentance involves confessing sin, ceasing wrongdoing, turning from old patterns of behavior, and intending to do better. Repentance also requires restitution and active resistance to further harm.

If only we could face down empire with a quick apology and a simple vote! Neither is sufficient, and yet both are important steps. In 2025, annual conferences in the UMC have the opportunity to vote on several constitutional amendments that address the harms of empire.

• Proposed is adding the words “gender” and “ability” as protected categories to Paragraph 4, Article 4, which proclaims the “inclusiveness of the church.” Behind this proposal is the awareness that Methodism has a long history of discrimination against persons because of gender and physical and mental (dis)abilities.

• Proposed is a revision of Article V, “Racial Justice.” Through this amendment, United Methodists must decide if “The United Methodist Church commits to confronting and eliminating all forms of racism, racial inequity, colonialism, white privilege and white supremacy, in every facet of its life and in society at large.” An affirmative vote would be a significant step toward dismantling these forms of empire.

• The most complex package of constitutional amendments addresses the most complex form of empire with the UMC: the role and power of the United States. The “regionalization legislation” proposes decentering US conferences by putting them on equal legislative footing with conferences around the world. No longer would the denomination’s General Conference be dominated by legislation pertaining only to the United States.

While I am in favor of the above constitutional amendments, I know that they will not solve the problem of empire. To face the empire within, we must reckon with our past, repair relationships, and create more just structures for all. The project of decolonizing church and society requires collaboration in material projects of shared concern through which we can craft new narratives of solidarity and belonging. We cannot achieve this goal by serving “the needy” from our position of perceived privilege. Rather, we must roll up our sleeves and get to work alongside each other as equals in the kin-dom of God.

If you, your reading group, or congregation is invested in facing the empire within, consider reading together the following books:

Stephens, Darryl W. Reckoning Methodism: Mission and Division in the Public Church. Cascade, 2024.

Scott, David W., and Filipe Maia, eds. Methodism and American Empire: Reflections on Decolonizing the Church. Abingdon, 2023.

Methodism and American Empire Book Now Out!

I (David) had previously shared an announcement and description of a book I have co-edited with Filipe Maia: Methodism and American Empire: Reflections on Decolonizing the Church. At the time, the book was available for pre-order. I am happy to share that it is now printed and available for purchase! You can find it on Cokesbury, Amazon, or wherever you buy your books. Note that in addition to being the denominational book seller, as of this writing, Cokesbury has the book at a discount over Amazon.

Here is the brief description of the book from the publisher (Abingdon):

"Methodism and American Empire investigates historical trajectories and theological developments that connect American imperialism since World War II to the Methodist tradition as a global movement. The volume asks: to what extent is United Methodists’ vision of the globe marred by American imperialism? Through historical analyses and theological reflections, this volume chronicles the formation of an understanding of The United Methodist Church since the mid-20th century that is both global and at the same time dominated by American interests and concerns. Methodism and American Empire provides a historical and theological perspective to understand the current context of The United Methodist Church while also raising ecclesiological questions about the impact of imperialism on how Methodists have understood the nature and mission of the church over the last century. Gathering voices and perspectives from around the world, this volume suggests that the project of global Methodism and the tensions one witnesses therein ought to be understood in the context of American imperialism and that such an understanding is critical to the task of continuing to be a global denomination. The volume tells a tale of complex negotiations happening between United Methodists across different national, cultural, and ecclesial contexts and sets up the historical backdrop for the imminent schism of The United Methodist Church."

I am very impressed by the contributions to this volume of all the authors, and I think the book will make an important contribution to some really significant conversations going on in The United Methodist Church (and beyond). It was also a joy to work with Filipe Maia on this book. You can hear some more of his reflections related to it on this Bar of the Conference podcast. I'm proud to have worked on this book, and I hope you will check it out.

Call for Papers: Methodism and American Empire Project

From the start of North American colonies of European powers, empire has characterized the American experience. The role of empire in shaping the United States extends far beyond its origins as an imperial hinterland itself or its turn-of-the-20th-century heyday of possessing its own colonies. Empire as concentrated, top-down power that seeks to control others for the sake of its own agendas is a constant within US history. Empire goes beyond particular political parties, presidential administrations, or theological groupings. The impulses and perspectives of Empire have characterized and continue to characterize American politics, economics, culture, and religion in a thorough-going way. US imperialism has functioned and continues to function both within and beyond the territorial boundaries of the United States as a nation-state. Empire is a basic strategy by which those with power in the United States have sought to unite larger groups for the sake of asserting power over others, even as those within these in-groups often act against their own interests by participating in such imperial projects. Thus, empire is a technique of exploitation of those within and beyond the empire, especially those on the margins.

Scholars in postcolonial and decolonial theologies as well as recent developments in political theology have insisted that empire shapes religious traditions and imaginaries. In the case of the United States, the entanglement between imperialism and US Christianity runs deep in the powers and principalities of this world. The impact of empire on US Christianity has been most evident among those closest to its levers of power—historically speaking, straight, white, male citizens of the dominant class. Though the impact of imperialism is not limited to this group, the work of resisting imperial Christianity requires attention to communities that stand on the underside of US imperialism.

As significant expressions of US Christianity, Methodist and Wesleyan traditions in the United States have been and are shaped by the imperial practices and mindsets of their US members, even when they aspire to be “global” denominations. US empire has shaped other expressions of Methodism as well, even those that are not historically connected to the United States. Methodism’s relationship with empire is at times ambiguous, and there are ambiguities and ambivalences in how Empire has played out historically. Those on the margins of empire have appropriated the openings created by empire for their own purposes. Nevertheless, the exploitation and injustice that are inherent to empire go against basic tenets of Christianity, especially in its Wesleyan expressions.

Writing from within Methodist traditions, the authors in this volume provide testimonies of a “theological surplus,” as Joerg Rieger has termed it, in the tradition: while imperial forces seek to control everything, God’s work exceeds the grasp of empire. This volume will include historical and theological reflections that elevate these experiences and that showcase Methodism as a denominational tradition that has historically resisted US imperialism even as it often times succumbs to it.

This volume therefore suggests that resistance to empire is a biblical imperative. The Bible makes it clear that God’s power does not stem from domination over but from identification with God’s interactions with God’s creation. These interactions are marked by love, justice, service, and freedom. This biblical depiction of God inspires us to our own work of resisting empire and crafting alternatives to it, especially within the church. These alternatives to empire are indeed the first fruits of God’s new creation. By so doing, we join in partnership with God and others in the work of doing God’s will on earth as in heaven, and we open ourselves to the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit, who helps us grow in our love for others.

Given the impact of Empire on the American church and on Methodism as a historically and predominantly American denominational tradition, and given the Christian imperative to resist any system that identifies a Lord other than Christ, we intend to develop a book project that will serve as a resource for the work of resisting Empire. We intend that this resource will be primarily geared toward a popular audience, rather than a scholarly one. The goal is to bring along people for whom a critique of Empire does not come naturally but who recognize on some level the problems of imperial Christianity and who are open to trying as Christians to live in a new way.

We envision a collection of writings that draw upon a variety of disciplines: biblical studies, theology, history, missiology, etc., that will help readers better understand how the forces of empire have impacted Methodism (in its various expressions) and its practices and how the church can move towards a non-imperial manner of being and acting. To do so, we anticipate that authors will explore different forms of empire—not just political and military might, but also economics, culture, media, and other forms of “soft” empire. Moreover, we recognize that imperial power is not static but grows, fluctuates, and declines over time. We also anticipate that authors will explore the ways in which empire interacts with other categories of analysis such as race, class, nation and nationalism, geography (rural/urban, for instance), sexuality, the environment, and the body. Again, the goal of this analysis is not primarily to advance conversations in the academy but to use the resources of the academy to help educate and equip the church broadly. Finally, recognizing that the ills of empire cannot be fully cured solely by those at the centers of the imperial system, we hope for contributions from Methodists around the world.

Themes
We invite contributions for essays or resources that relate to the following themes:  

1.    Historical essays tying Methodist missionary activity and the expansion of United States foreign interests. Case studies could include US missionaries in Puerto Rico, Western Africa, the Philippines, the impact of US expansions on the church in the United States, and international structures of Methodism, etc.
2.    Theological and ethical reflections on Wesleyan theology, Empire studies, and political theology.
3.    Liturgical, worship, and ministry resources (sermons, liturgies, litanies, biblical studies, Sunday school lessons, etc.) for church communities to engage in anti-imperial reflections.
4.    Practical resources on activism, advocacy, and mission focused on Methodist communities and contexts.

Timeline
Essay proposals are due August 31, 2021. Proposals should include 300–400-word description of the project and ought to be submitted as an email attachment to the editors, David Scott (dscott(at)umcmission.org) and Filipe Maia (fmaia(at)bu.edu). Accepted proposals will be communicated to authors by September 30, 2021.

On Comparing US and Majority World Politics

Today's post is by UM & Global blogmaster Dr. David W. Scott, Mission Theologian at the General Board of Global Ministries. The opinions and analysis expressed here are Dr. Scott's own and do not reflect in any way the official position of Global Ministries.

A week ago, violent, pro-Trump insurrectionists stormed the United States Capitol, disrupting Congressional certification of the presidential election, and forcing evacuation of the country's highest legislative body. This event was rightfully and widely condemned, both in the United States (including by United Methodist leaders) and around the world (including by the Pope, the World Council of Churches, the Lutheran World Federation, and the World Communion of Reformed Churches).

In their condemnations of the attack, some secular commentators in the United States compared it to what happens in "third world" countries. That comparison deserves some unpacking, as it and the sense of American exceptionalism behind it are worth critiquing in themselves and are moreover relevant to The United Methodist Church.

First, it should be noted that "'Third World' is an offensive term" to many people from the broad but vaguely-defined set of countries indicated by that term, as it is seen as linked to a hierarchical sense of the worth of different countries. Thus, this post will instead use the term "majority world."

The sense of hierarchy contained in the term points to the broader history of American exceptionalism behind the comparison. American exceptionalism is the belief that the United States has a unique role to play in the world-historical stage, a special, even God-given, mission that it is uniquely equipped to carry out because of its supposed moral and cultural superiority.

The belief in American exceptionalism is one way in which people from the United States have seen themselves as better than people in other countries. This sense of superiority applies to both other developed countries in the "Old World" of Europe and to the Majority World in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. When used with regard to those in the Majority World, a belief in American exceptionalism posits that the United States is richer and more economically developed not because of good fortune but because of some sort of moral, cultural, political, or other superiority.

To note similarities between current United States politics and political crises in certain Majority World countries thus is to draw attention to a disconnect between those US politics and how the United States has traditionally seen itself in relation to the rest of the world. There are two ways to resolve the cognitive dissonance of that disconnect, though.

One of those ways actually reaffirms the United States' sense of American exceptionalism. "Yes, there is a disconnect at this moment, but we will and must behave better to show that we still are better than the rest of the world," this line of reasoning goes. While this line of reasoning aims at good outcomes for American democracy (less violent unrest), it does so at the expense of America's ongoing relationship with the rest of the world (through a continued sense of superiority).

The second way to resolve the cognitive dissonance is to jettison or reduce the belief in American exceptionalism. This approach would say, "I guess there isn't as much difference between us and the rest of the world as we thought." There is a danger that such an approach could lead to political fatalism, but there is also an opportunity that it can lead to greater learning from others' experience with democracy and to greater resolve in work to sustain the United States' own democracy, not because it is inevitable, but because people in the United States realize that if they do not work for democracy, they will lose it, just like anyone else.

This second way to resolve the cognitive dissonance thus can work toward the reaffirmation of US democracy while at the same time strengthening relationships, solidarity, and identification with others around the world who are working to support their own democracies.

The question of how those in the United States process the cognitive dissonance between their sense of American exceptionalism and the events of last Wednesday has implications for The United Methodist Church as well as US democracy. The church is notably US-centric, indicating that a belief in American exceptionalism does not stop at politics but applies to the religious as well.

If US United Methodists resolve their cognitive dissonance in a way that reaffirms their sense of American exceptionalism, then the sorts of US-centric thinking and US domination of General Conference are likely to continue, with the dysfunctions and injustices entailed therein.

If, however, the events of last Wednesday prompt US United Methodists to take a good, long look at the national character in a way that mitigates their sense of American exceptionalism, then there will be benefits to The United Methodist Church as well.

If US United Methodists loosen their sense that they are morally superior and the standard around which the church should be organized, then there will be new opportunities for the church to listen to each other across national and cultural boundaries to discern the moving of God's Spirit and be faithful to God's will. There is the opportunity to better be the global church we aspire to be.

If, that is. If.

Rationales for a Non-Imperial American Christianity

Today's post is by UM & Global blogmaster Dr. David W. Scott, Mission Theologian at the General Board of Global Ministries. The opinions and analysis expressed here are Dr. Scott's own and do not reflect in any way the official position of Global Ministries.

In December, I wrote a pair of pieces about American Christianity as an imperial religion and routes forward toward (a) non-imperial version(s) of American Christianity.

Since writing those pieces, I have come to realize that they had a very "sociology of religion" feel to them that failed to provide a specifically Christian rationale for why the work of constructing non-imperial American Christianity is important.

Thus, I would like to attempt to do that in this piece. I want to lay out three such rationales for that project: one theological, one moral and ethical, and one evangelistic

A Theological Rationale
The theological rationale is the most basic: A religion that is primarily about empire cannot be primarily about Christ, as Christianity should be. You cannot serve two masters.

Yet it is clear which master imperial religion serves. I defined imperial religion as follows: "[A]n imperial religion [i]s one whose symbols serve to affirm the reality of the imperial ordering of the world within its orbit." Thus, the symbols of an imperial religion point primarily toward the empire.

In true Christianity, on the other hand, the symbols of the religion point primarily toward Christ. There are many different ways to use the symbols of theological language, ritual, art, and the like to point to Christ, but true Christianity is about orienting believers to a way of being in the world that is ordered around Christ.

Imperial Christianity, in contrast, may use Christ as a symbol, and a powerful one at that, but its goal is not to orient the adherent toward Christ, but to use the symbol of Christ to orient the adherent towards ways of behaving that conform to the imperial ordering of the world.

Thus, on a theological analysis, American Christianity cannot be an imperial religion and be true Christianity. Thus, for American Christianity to be true Christianity, it must take non-imperial forms.

A Moral and Ethical Rationale
Empires are built upon power and the interests of the powerful. Those interests almost always go against the interests of those without power, at least on some important points. Thus, empire is about the use of power to further the interests of a few at the expense of many others. It should be obvious that this is a system rife for moral and ethical catastrophe.

Imperial religion, as a handmaid to empire itself, takes on all of the moral and ethical ambiguities and failures of the empire itself. Indeed, one of the important functions of the symbols of an imperial religion is to deny or mitigate the sense of moral catastrophe involved in empire. Thus, imperial religion amounts to a form of aiding and abetting the misdeeds of the empire.

Yet true Christianity involves a system of ethics and morality that transcends and is not swayed by the interests of the powerful. Christianity promises that all alike are created in the image of God and that all alike stand under the judgment of God.

There are plenty of forms of moral failure possible for non-imperial versions of Christianity, but it is impossible to practice imperial Christianity without accepting moral failure as a basic feature.

An Evangelistic Rationale
Both of the previous two rationales combine in the third rationale: the evangelistic.

Evangelism involves pointing others towards Christ and aiding them in walking in that direction. Imperial Christianity disrupts both of those efforts.

First, as noted in the theological rationale above, imperial Christianity points not toward Christ but towards the empire as its most important point of orientation. Thus, evangelism as pointing others towards Christ becomes difficult if not impossible when all of the signs that say "Christ" on them are actually pointing to the empire.

Second, to the extent that one can successfully point toward Christ even amid a system of imperial Christianity, the moral and ethical failures entailed in imperial religion represent a major roadblock for those seeking to walk toward and with Christ. This is especially true in the attempt to do evangelism with those on the underside of empire.

For both of these reasons, then, imperial Christianity is a major hindrance to evangelism. Again, it is possible that non-imperial versions of Christianity may also have their own evangelistic problems, but the problems of imperial Christianity are clear and must be avoided.

Thus, for all three of these rationales, I do not believe it is possible to faithfully propagate an imperial version of Christianity.

Yet we are called to Christian faith. Thus, to be faithful to Christ and to our calling, we must try to be Christian in non-imperial ways, even if it is a difficult process or goes against the prevailing cultural forms of the faith. Our Christian faith must impel us toward non-imperial forms of that faith.

Routes Forward from Imperial American Christianity

Today's post is by UM & Global blogmaster Dr. David W. Scott, Mission Theologian at the General Board of Global Ministries. The opinions and analysis expressed here are Dr. Scott's own and do not reflect in any way the official position of Global Ministries.

Last week, I suggested that it is possible to interpret American Christianity as an imperial religion, that is, a religion whose symbols have served and continue to serve to affirm the ways in which the United States as an empire has sought to order the world and the power structures that have allowed the United States to do so. Moreover, I suggested that interpreting American Christianity in this way offers an account for the current decline of Christian adherence in the United States--it is a function of the declining imperial power of the United States.

In my analysis, I highlighted a conundrum for American Christianity: If American Christianity remains an imperial religion, it will continue to decline as American imperial power continues to wane. However, merely critiquing the imperial meanings behind the symbols of American Christianity will not transform it into a non-imperial religion. Instead, it will leave those symbols meaningless, leading to further decline.

For those interesting in the vitality of American Christianity as a religious tradition, the path forward must involve adding new, non-imperial meanings to the symbols of American Christianity. In this post, I would like to suggest three important ways in which that can happen: through contextual theology, cross-cultural theology, and constructive theology.

First, though, two important caveats:

1) American Christianity is an amazingly diverse religious tradition with many different symbols and adherents of many different social backgrounds. This short blog post cannot adequately account for all of the ways in which this diversity intersects with the project of constructing a non-imperial American Christianity.

2) While a full accounting of the diversity of American Christianity is beyond the scope of this post, race must be recognized as a critical factor. For white American Christians, as Robert P. Jones has shown, American Christianity has functioned not only as an imperial religion, but as a religion of white supremacy. The two phenomena are closely connected. This makes the challenge of creating a non-imperial religion that much harder for white American Christians.

On the other hand, because the Christian traditions of other racial/ethnic groups in the United States contain elements that are opposed to or distinct from the ordering of the world to which white Americans have aspired, those elements constitute resources for the construction of non-imperial religion, as evidenced by higher resilience in Christian adherence among many non-white groups.

These non-imperial resources within what have traditionally been labeled "contextual theologies" (at least by dominant white theologians) represent the first path forward for constructing a non-imperial theology. These symbols that either directly resist imperial orderings or direct the attention of believers to aspects of the world outside the imperial order are important sources of meaning that are not tied to the continued success of the empire. They are meanings that can and should take on more importance within a non-imperial American Christianity.

(Though anti-imperial meanings are in some way still dependent upon the empire for their significance. Thus, a religion that is merely a protest against empire may face challenges similar to an imperial religion upon the decline of that empire--loss of meaning stemming from loss of its central referrant point. That is why pointing beyond empire is in some ways even more important than resisting empire.)

Another resource for elaborating new, non-imperial meanings within American Christianity is cross-cultural theology. Theologies from outside the direct reach of American imperial power are especially valuable resources for creating a non-imperial Christianity because they are already relatively separated from the imperial power structures of the United States. Not all of these religious meanings will be able to be easily imported into American Christianity, but they represent an essential trove of theological riches that should be eagerly examined by those interested in the future of American Christianity.

The need to import and thus adapt religious meanings from other cultures leads to the third important way in which a non-imperial American Christianity can be fashioned: through constructive theology. This constructive theology, ideally using the resources of contextual and cross-cultural theologies, must rebuild American Christianity on bases of meaning not dependent upon secular imperial power. This project of constructive theology should thus engage seriously with themes neglected by imperial theologies focused on the power and success of empire. Thus, theological topics like suffering, pain, loss, death, weakness, and trauma will probably take on increased importance within this type of constructive theology.

Because of the diversity of American Christianity and because of the way in which transitions between paradigms happen, it is likely that what will be necessary, at least in the short term, is a proliferation of various attempts to construct new non-imperial meanings within American Christianity. Some of these attempts will ultimately prove to be more successful than others.

There are several open questions with regard to this approach. First, there is the large question of whether those at the imperial center, even if they recognize on some level that they and their religious system are in trouble, will have the humility to open themselves to learning from those at the imperial margins. Empire does not cultivate that sort of humility, so it goes against the conditioning of those at the center to be willing to learn in this way.

It is also an open question whether any of these new meanings or even all of these new meanings together will be enough to reverse decades of decline within Christian adherence in the United States. The 60+% of Americans that were members of Christian churches in the early 1960s may stand as an all-time high water mark. Nevertheless, such contextual, cross-cultural, and constructive theologies remain the best hope for an alternative to the hastening obsolescence of imperial American Christianity.

Moreover, whatever happens to American Christianity, the good news is that Christianity as a world-wide religious traditions is sufficiently diverse and well-distributed that it will keep going, with or without a robust American Christianity. What I am suggesting is not about how American Christians can save the world; it is about how they can save their own souls. And giving up the notion that God will save the world through you and instead admitting that you need God to save you through the world is the first step towards God's grace as it breaks in to imperial decline.

American Christianity as an Imperial Religion

Today's post is by UM & Global blogmaster Dr. David W. Scott, Mission Theologian at the General Board of Global Ministries. The opinions and analysis expressed here are Dr. Scott's own and do not reflect in any way the official position of Global Ministries.

Last week, I offered a definition of imperial religions and suggested why and how they decline along with the imperial power structures that support them. This week, I would like to extend that analysis by looking at American Christianity as an imperial religion and drawing out some of the consequences for American Christian numerical decline from this analysis. Next week, I will examine some thoughts about what this analysis means for alternative futures of American Christianity.

I suggested that an imperial religion is "one whose symbols serve to affirm the reality of the imperial ordering of the world within its orbit. Put another way, imperial religions are those which accept and promote the power structures of empire." Thus, to say that American Christianity is an imperial religion is to suggest that American Christianity does serve and has served to affirm the ways in which the United States has sought to order the world and the power structures that have allowed it to do so.

Some may object to the premise of this analysis by asserting that the United States has never been an empire in the sense of holding vast territories. Yet, there are two problems with this analysis: First, Filipinos, Cubans, and others can quickly point out that the United States has indeed held territory outside its imperial center. Second, most analyses of empire examine it as about the exercise of power rather than direct control of territory. The British did not formally control Indian territory until 1857, but India was under the influence of the British Empire long before.

If American Christianity has functioned as an imperial religion, then there should be similarities in the trajectories of American Christianity and American foreign power. Indeed, that is exactly what one sees looking historically. Overall religious membership was low in the American colonies and early decades of the United States. US church membership began to increase significantly at the end of the 19th century, just as the United States became more influential internationally through expanded economic and political power. That upward trajectory continued through the 1950s, as the United States won two world wars and created an international political and economic system structured around its interests.

Decline in religious membership began at about the same time that the United States was proving unable to assert its international interests through the Vietnam War. While anti-Communist evangelical Protestantism and conservative Catholicism saw continued growth in the midst of the context of the end of the Cold War and its immediate aftermath, decline for all religious groups has accelerated in recent years, as the United States has again experienced vulnerability and setbacks in its foreign policy objectives, especially through, though not limited to, the 9/11 attacks and the War on Terror.

The decline of Christianity has been most marked among white liberals, who are also most likely to be critical of neoconservative ideas about America's place in the world. It is more resilient among white conservatives, who are more likely to hold an "America first" attitude about the United State's place in the world. It is highest among racial and ethnic minorities where religion serves as a marker of those group identities in addition to its function as a religion of American empire.

Of course, this may all be correlation rather than causation. Still, the fit seems close enough to warrant indulging further in this line of thinking.

At this point, it seems that, while the United States will continue to be an influential player in international politics and economics, the American century of unquestioned American predominance has ended. China is effectively challenging US economic predominance. Increased nationalism at home and abroad undercuts US cultural soft power. The mid-20th century post-war order built on a system of international alliances and institutions is looking increasingly rickety.

Along with this diminution of American imperial power, American Christian membership is continuing to decline significantly and shows no signs of reversing any time soon. Younger generations are increasingly secular, and almost all population groups within the United States are moving away from Christian affiliation. This trend thus continues the correlation between imperial power and religious strength, at least as measured by membership, though now in a downward fashion.

Thus, it makes sense to presume that, given anticipated decline in US imperial power, American Christianity will continue to decline in terms of members, as well as less easily-measured aspects such as practice and belief. Denominational reorganizations, changes in or affirmations of sexual teaching, trendy new styles of worship, and other revitalization strategies may make some difference for individual congregations or Christian groups, but these are all paddling against the current and unlikely to reverse the overall trend.

One might presume that if American Christianity is to avoid further decline as US international influence wanes, it must transform into a non-imperial religion. Yet that is much easier said than done. It is extremely difficult to de-couple an imperial religious tradition from empire.

Imperial underpinnings are not just about one or two doctrines that can be easily rejected or amended. They are woven into the practices, symbols, assumptions, and meanings of a religious system, often in ways so subtle that they are difficult to detect by those at the imperial center. Empire is the lens through which those at the imperial center see the world, including their religion. It is not easy to see the world from another perspective, let alone to see oneself and one's assumptions from another perspective. To create a post-imperial future depends on much more than loudly proclaiming that one will now be "de-colonial" in one's approach to the world. American Christians of all theopolitical stripes have proclaimed how they (unlike their opponents) are not colonial, all the while behaving in ways that continue to presume their preeminence as people from the imperial center.

Moreover, even if one were somehow successful in removing the imperial meanings from an imperial religion, that would leave the religion empty of meaning (and thus devoid of followers) unless something else is added back in. Because imperial conceptions give meaning to the symbols of an imperial religion, taking away those imperial meanings leaves nothing behind without new meanings taking their place.

If this analysis of American Christianity as an imperial religion holds, then the future continuation of American Christianity depends just as much if not more so upon American Christians' ability to add new, non-imperial meanings to the religion than it is upon their ability to sufficiently critique and root out imperial meanings within the religion. I will say more about that possibility next week.

What Is an Imperial Religion, and Why Do Imperial Religions Decline?

Today's post is by UM & Global blogmaster Dr. David W. Scott, Mission Theologian at the General Board of Global Ministries. The opinions and analysis expressed here are Dr. Scott's own and do not reflect in any way the official position of Global Ministries.

Back in June, I wrote two pieces ([1] and [2]) that suggested the reason why religious adherence in the West has declined in recent decades was because Christianity has functioned as an imperial religion for the West and the decline in the West's imperial fortunes in the past eighty years has led to a decline in affiliation with, belief in, and practice of Christianity as an imperial religion.

I think this argument is worth revisiting, and in this post I'd like to do so by trying to define more precisely what counts as an "imperial religion" and what that definition can suggest about why imperial religions decline along with their empires.

To do so, I'll draw on Clifford Geertz's definition of religion. In his essay, "Religion as a Cultural System," Geertz said that a religion is "(1) a system of symbols which acts to (2) establish powerful, pervasive, and long-lasting moods and motivations in men by (3) formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and (4) clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality that (5) the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic."

Two pieces of this definition are especially relevant: that religion is connected to conceptions of order, and that religion makes those conceptions seem factual or realistic. It is also important to note the broad sense of "symbol" with which Geertz worked. For Geertz, symbols included not only visual symbols (such as a cross or star and crescent), but also language, rituals, stories, pictures, etc.--anything that served to embody and convey meaning.

Empire is critically about a political, social, and economic order, and while empires exercise force to maintain their orders, for the most part, empires operate because people accept that ordering of the world as fact, whether or not they like the ordering. Force is used to keep people in line, but empires do not run on force alone; they are ultimately commonly accepted ideas.

Thus, one might define an imperial religion as one whose symbols serve to affirm the reality of the imperial ordering of the world within its orbit. Put another way, imperial religions are those which accept and promote the power structures of empire. Under this definition, part of the meaning of the symbols of an imperial religion is derived from conceptions of the empire. That may not be the entirety of the meaning of those religious symbols, which may also convey other meanings divine and human, but it is nonetheless an important part.

It is this connection between the conceptions of an empire and the meanings of the symbols of an imperial religion that explains why that religion declines as a result of imperial decline.

When an empire goes into decline, the conceptions associated with it become less commonly accepted. People stop believing in the empire and in the way in which it has ordered the world. Again, military defeats, political infighting, economic troubles, cultural change, and the like are important factors in the decline of an empire, but ultimately empires fall because the idea of the empire becomes implausible.

When the idea of an empire becomes implausible, that drains meaning from the symbols of an imperial religion. Because the symbols of that religion derive part of their meaning from ideas about the empire, when those ideas are rejected, those religious symbols lose meaning. And when those symbols lose meaning, then people stop using that religious language, stop participating in those religious rituals, stop telling those stories, etc. In other words, practice, belief, and adherence to the imperial religion declines.

It is possible that an imperial religion may survive the collapse of its empire, but only if the religion contains (or can adopt) enough meaning beyond that which it derived from the imperial order. If there are enough other sources of meaning within a religious tradition, then some people will continue that tradition because of the meaning they find in it independent of empire, even if others lose faith because of the loss of meaning derived from empire.

Religions are likely to contain more forms of meaning if they have been adopted by multiple groups of people with varying relationships to the empire. When new groups of people adopt a religion, they always infuse it with new meanings. Thus, cross-cultural religious traditions such as Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism have continued despite the fall of many empires (even if certain sects or sub-traditions have died out), because they are large enough traditions to contain a variety of meanings appreciated by a variety of groups of people.

Other traditions, such as post-exilic Judaism or post-Persian Zoroastrianism, have been reworked sufficiently after an imperial collapse so that their meaning was no longer centered on a particular socio-political order and could thus continue independent of whatever socio-political order reigned.

This post has looked in very broad terms at imperial religion. Next week, I will look more closely at what this discussion of imperial religion means for 21st century Christianity.

Whatever Happened to Marduk?

Today's post is by UM & Global blogmaster Dr. David W. Scott, Mission Theologian at the General Board of Global Ministries. The opinions and analysis expressed here are Dr. Scott's own and do not reflect in any way the official position of Global Ministries.

When Facebook first introduced the option to list one’s religious views, a theological school friend of mine jokingly listed his as, “Whatever happened to Marduk?”

The quick answer to that question is that Marduk went the way of the Babylonian Empire that worshipped him. The Babylonian Empire fell, and Marduk, its imperial god, did not long survive that fall.

Nor is Marduk the only deity to meet such a fate. Marduk has been joined in his fate by the likes of Ra, Zeus, Jupiter, Mithros, Quetzalcoatl, Pachamama and others. While at one point, each of these deities presided over an empire of devoted followers, when their empires collapsed, so did their religious cults.

The reasons why imperial religions go into decline with their empires are probably many and vary by the individual. For some, imperial religions have taken on an air of coercion, and newly freed people are eager to be rid of religious coercion along with political coercion. For others, the truth claims a religion makes about the order of the world no longer seem credible when the imperial order collapses and the world becomes chaotic. For others, the religion is no longer able to deliver the this-worldly goods, especially power and prestige, expected of it when it can no longer access those goods through decayed imperial structures. For others, the religion may just take on an air of the past, and they look for something more contemporary.

Whatever the reasons, there is a clear historical correlation between imperial decay and the decline of belief in and practice of the official or predominant religion(s) of a declining empire.

One may wonder why then we expect imperial Christianity to be different than other imperial religions.

These historical and interreligious comparisons are another reason to take seriously the idea that the secularization experienced in the West (first in Europe, then in its colonies such as Canada and Australia, and most recently in the United States) is more a function of those societies’ diminished secular and political role in the world than it is a product of modernity.

That may in some ways be bad news for Christianity in the West. The West is unlikely to regain its imperial power any time soon, nor should it, and one might fairly expect a rather lengthy post-colonial religious hangover. Europe’s has been going on for half a century and shows no signs of letting up.

Yet, at the same time, this analysis is good news for Christianity as a whole. Under this explanation, global religious belief is not doomed to some pre-determined decline based on increasing standards of living or the advance of science and technology. Instead, falling levels of religious belief are associated with particular historico-political situations, and outside those situations, one may fairly expect religion to continue to flourish, as it has in various forms for the duration of human history.

Moreover, there have been instances in which a religion has survived the collapse of an empire. Yet it almost always does so outside the core of that former empire.

One such example is Buddhism after the end of Ashoka’s empire in India. The Emperor Ashoka was a strong proponent of Buddhism, at least in his latter reign. But after his death, his empire began to fracture. When his grandson set about to rebuild the empire, it was Jainism rather than Buddhism that occupied the favored religious spot.

Yet despite its lack of support in India after Ashoka, Buddhism flourished in Sri Lanka, where Ashoka sent missionaries. Indeed, Buddhism continued to spread throughout Southeast Asia. The missionary impulse was strong enough in Buddhism, and the religion was flexible enough, that others were able to find value in it that extended beyond its associations with a single imperial system. They were able to make it their own and use it for their own purposes unconnected to Ashoka’s empire.

In a similar way, people around the world first encountered Christianity in its imperial version associated with Western economic and political expansion. But the missionary genius of Christianity, like Buddhism, has been that those who have encountered it have been able to take it out of its imperial trappings, make adjustments as they see fit, and make it their own.

This process is, of course, widely affirmed by contemporary missiology. Whether called inculturation, contextualization, or something else, the importance of people making Christianity their own is almost universally recognized. This process is important both for the sake of the people appropriating Christianity, that they may fully connect to it, and for Christianity itself, so that it may continue to cross cultural, political, linguistic, and other borders. The endurance of altered forms of imperial religion beyond the borders of empire is just another reason to affirm the continued adaptation, translation, and appropriation of Christianity by peoples around the world in ways that make sense to them.

As people continue to make Christianity their own, some will probably make of it an imperial religion for new empires, and those versions will eventually suffer for it. But the continued endurance of Christianity will come in its ability to connect with the lowly as well as the mighty, the poor as well as the rich, the marginalized as well as the central. Christianity will endure, not because of the might, power, or wisdom of its most vociferous proponents. It will endure because it continues to speak good news to people wherever they are, especially on the margins.

Secularization and the Collapse of Empire

Today's post is by UM & Global blogmaster Dr. David W. Scott, Mission Theologian at the General Board of Global Ministries. The opinions and analysis expressed here are Dr. Scott's own and do not reflect in any way the official position of Global Ministries.

Within the sociology of religion, the secularization thesis states that religion becomes a less significant part of societies and individual lives as history progresses. The evolution of religion in Europe in the past century has been the main evidence cited in support of this theory, though recent declines in religious belief and identity in the United States have injected new life into this debate.

A variety of causal mechanisms are suggested as the driving force(s) behind secularization. These include modernity broadly, the rise of science and de-mythologizing of people's worldviews, urbanization, religious and social pluralization, the rise of market capitalism, an increase in individualism, and others. I will not rehearse the details of this debate here.

But as I've been thinking about the relationship between religion and power recently, another possibility has occurred to me: What if the process of secularization in Europe and the United States was actually related to the collapse of empire?

In this version of the theory, a decrease in collective and individual religiosity within a society is connected to a decreased sense of national power and efficacy brought on, at least in these recent cases, by the collapse of formal or informal imperial systems. In Europe and North America, there has been a lengthy and tight relationship between Christianity and government. When European empires expanded, Christianity traveled with them, though it was admittedly a complicated relationship. Given that sustained history of connection, we should not be surprised, then, if a decline in imperial power should have implications for the religion which for so long had been connected to it.

This explanation would make sense of the timing of secularization in most of Europe (1950s and 1960s) and its later onset in the United States (2000s and 2010s), despite similar levels of modernization on other scales. It would also explain the greater resilience of religion in Eastern Europe (which had lower participation in the age of imperialism) than in Western Europe, though there are certainly individual outliers, such as the Czech Republic.

Moreover, this explanation might account for the different trajectories in the United States between mainline Protestants and Catholics, on the one hand, and evangelical Protestants, on the other, given that mainline Protestants and Catholics were impacted by post-colonial critiques much earlier than evangelical Protestants, who were forced to reckon with the United States' changed role in the world more significantly only after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. It also could explain differences between white and non-white religiosity. The religiosity of white Americans, who have been the primary beneficiaries of American empire, has declined faster than that of people of color, who have been farther from the seats of American imperial power.

This explanation also fits with general impressions I have about the difficulty that American Methodism has with providing a theological accounting of failure of any type and the difficulties that British Methodism has faced in providing an accounting for Britain's changed role in the world since the 1960s. In both cases, a loss of confidence seems to be both cause and effect of membership decline.

This thesis (and secularization theory in general) may well be incorrect. I have not done extensive research to substantiate it. But if there is at least a kernal of truth in it, it has several implications for the fields of missiology and World Christianity.

First, the amount of research that missiologists have done on the relationship between Christianity and empire makes them well-prepared to investigate this connection. While most of this research has looked at the relationships as they have played out in imperial territories, there is more of this story to be written about the relationship between Christianity and imperial power in imperial metropoles, and mission historians could easily be the ones to write it.

Second, if secularization is caused by the relationship between Christianity and secular power and declines in that secular power, rather than modernization or other factors, that would give scholars of World Christianity curious or concerned about the future of Christianity outside of Europe and North America a new set of indicators to pay attention to.

Rather than wondering whether economic development will undercut religious belief, this thesis would lead scholars to pay more attention to the relationship between Christian groups and local political power and the power trajectories of nations. In many cases where Christianity is far from political power, there should be little concern about secularization. Furthermore, even when Christianity is proximate to political power, but that power is not waning, Christianity should (at least for the time being) be unaffected.

Finally, such a connection would give missiologists another consideration in setting evangelistic strategy as it relates to proximity to secular power. The proper relationship between Christianity and societal elites has been a debate for hundreds of years within mission circles, with pros and cons enumerated on both sides. This thesis would, however, suggest that those "who take the sword will perish by the sword."