In response to my blog of last week, “America’s Great Division (And How I Missed It),” one of its readers who I think is a non-college grad got in touch to comment about her experience at Plymouth Church in Seattle, where I was then the Senior Minister.
She wrote, “I was reminded [by that blog] of the time I was attending Plymouth in Seattle. As much as I enjoyed participating, I always felt somewhat on the outside. I remember asking your assistant pastor ‘where are the bus drivers, hairdressers, and taxi drivers?’ There was no doubt the congregation was very intellectual. They were generous and kind, but I am not sure many had a deep understanding of what it was like to live from paycheck to paycheck or not to own a car. Or how their sense of eliteness automatically set up an invisible barrier. What would it take for a church like this to attract more working-class people?”
“Where are the bus drivers, hairdressers and taxi drivers?” Indeed! But here’s the irony — we touted our diversity! In my second year (1991) we had a consultant do some work with us. He noted how often church members spoke of the church’s great “diversity.” He then said to me, “Hell, there’s more diversity on the average city bus than there is in your congregation.” He was right.
When people spoke then (’80s and ’90s) of “diversity,” what it really meant was that people were all over the map in terms of their views on central affirmations of Christian faith, e.g. Jesus is divine, the Son of God, the resurrection, etc. Yes, we were open to those who had doubts and questions (who doesn’t really?), and that’s good. But too often the skeptics regarded themselves as the enlightened and looked down on those of a more orthodox faith. For me, it was a smugness that grew tiresome.
When that consultant delivered his report to church leaders, he noted there were “a couple of problems.” One, he said, was that, “You have a Christian in the pulpit and a lot of people are upset by that!” (He used “Christian” not as a moral term, but in terms of beliefs.)
Something similar was true of the larger denomination, the United Church of Christ. The old joke, not all that far off, was that UCC really stood for wasn’t “United Church of Christ,” but “Unitarians Considering Christ.”
As time went on “diversity,” both for Plymouth and in the UCC, expanded to include emphasis on sexual (LGBTQ) and racial diversity. But not social class, i.e. the working class, the non-college educated. Sure, there were some at a church as large as Plymouth, but I expect they felt, as did the reader quoted above, “somewhat on the outside.”
And in my experience, working-class people who are Christians tend to be more orthodox or evangelical in their faith. The idea that Jesus being the Son of God could be up for grabs didn’t really cut it with most. So the very diversity we touted tended, sadly, to be a barrier to working class people. Our “diversity” and “inclusion” were not quite what they were cracked up to be.
And just as the Democrats have lost the working class, the non-college degreed, so too have liberal Protestants. That’s a big, but largely unacknowledged, factor in so-called “mainline decline.”
There are, to be sure, exceptions to these generalizations. Some of our congregations are more inclusive of working class folks. I remember one congregation with which I worked in Minnesota. Their minister had become the unofficial chaplain for a local group of Harley riders, aka “motorcycle gang.” Then they started coming to his church, which mixed things up in delightful ways. Other churches lessen barriers by being a center or home for AA and NA groups.
When Plymouth had a mid-week jazz service we also got more working class people from the nearby downtown offices and retail stores.
The last two Sundays we have worshiped at Tolt UCC in Carnation, Washington, which was my first church post-seminary. Our son Nick and his family are active there. The grandkids were in the Christmas pageant, and Grandma and Grandpa were, of course, there.
But I mention Tolt because their long-serving pastor, Stephen Hadden, has done a great job, in part by connecting with working-class people (and just generally making the church less stuffy). It’s a great mix there these days, and a lively place.
I would welcome it if the UCC, and liberals more broadly, were more honest about the limits of our diversity and inclusiveness, as well as being aware of our own “invisible barriers.”
Having said that I would add, I’m not sure that every congregation or group can or needs to be for everyone or ought to deny shared commonalities. But a shared commonality of culture, language, or an intellectual bent shouldn’t be made the basis of claiming superiority or viewing those who differ as inferior.
I wonder if this theme of ever-more-diversity has run its course. The opposite of such diversity is focus and coherence.