Religion: The Bishop’s List

At the urging of the editors of the Christian Century, Lutheran Bishop Eivind Berggrav, retired Primate of Norway and one of six co-presidents of the World Council of Churches, set forth some of the criticisms European Christians are apt to make of American Christians “without attempting to say,” wrote the bishop, “whether or not they are justified.” His list:

¶ “American Christianity is too often institutional rather than personal . . . congealed into a block rather than grounded in individual convictions.

¶ “American Christians appear rather self-assured about their own efficiency so that God sometimes seems to be about as much dependent on them as they on God.

¶ “To some European Christians, the American churches occasionally appear to have two altars, one for the dollar and another for God.

¶ “American Christianity often looks confused, lacking a truly creedal structure, and seeming to have no very clear conception of the place and role of Jesus as Savior and Redeemer.

¶ “American Christianity looks very much divided even within the several official denominations, as among Methodists, Baptists and Lutherans, for example. Such divisions often appear to be determined more by sentiment than motivated by sound theological reasoning . . .

¶ “The outlook of American Christianity often looks to us rather earthbound, expecting the fulfillment of God’s Kingdom here on earth—one might even say . . in the U.S.A. . . .”

Bishop Berggrav concedes that European churchmen are staggered by the fact that U.S. churches are steadily growing while church influence is declining all over Europe. “Perhaps,” he muses, “we are like the son who said Yes, but did not do what he had promised, while the Americans are like the other son who said No, but did go on to do the Father’s will. Is it perhaps that the Americans are weak in thinking things out, but quick and firm to act, while we are sound in our reasoning, but weak to carry through?”