Religion: Last Train to Babylon

The saints of suburbia are the gogetters. Under their influence suburban church life has become so thriving, says the Rev. Gibson Winter of Brighton, Mich, in the Christian Century, that it “has become the controlling force in American Christianity.” What effect has this shift had on the church’s spiritual message? Answers Episcopalian Winter: “Despite the strength it has produced, this domination is a threat to the church’s witness to Christ’s lordship.

“Suburbia has introduced its concept of success into the very center of church life . . . The task of the churches as witnesses to Christ’s lordship . . . has been submerged . . . The test of every parish enterprise is whether it will bring monetary and numerical progress.

“The church’s captivity to [suburbia] is the death blow to recovery of the Biblical view of corporate life, corporate sin and corporate salvation . . . ‘Salvation’ and ‘redemption’ are disturbing to suburbia . . . Whatever the reason, the Biblical faith is rarely met with in suburbia despite growing church membership and activity.”

American suburbs are growing so quickly, says Winter, and suburbanites are joining the churches so fast that there is not enough time to indoctrinate new members as Christians. “Despite a nominal church background, this is an unconverted, untrained mass of people who make the problem of church membership comparable to what it was in the time of Constantine, when Christianity became a recognized institution of Roman society . . . Moreover, they and their clergy are too busy to stop to hear the Gospel.

“The anti-Christian forces dominating the leadership introduced into the churches by the suburban captivity far offset the numerical and financial gains . . . The captivity of the church is a national tragedy of the first order, for it occurs at a time when America’s position of world leadership requires a prophetic church at home . . . [It] may well be God’s word of judgment upon us as his church. For our trespasses and complacency, we have been delivered to Babylon.”