Political theorist/theologian Charles Mathewes reviews a book on the public witness of the mainline and its decline. He makes what seems to me a crucial point: the ineffectiveness of much of the mainline is in large part a function of the fact that the denominational bureaucracies often don’t represent the people in the pews. And DC polciy makers know this. (The comparison with the Religious Right, Mathewes says, is instructive; politicians paid attention to Jerry Falwell because they knew he spoke for a large constituency.)

This points, according to Mathewes to a fundamental problem with the mainline denominations: they see themselves as speaking to the public at large rather than to the people in their congregations. Thus Christian formation is not a priority. This may be a legacy of the mainline’s former status as the de facto establishment; you didn’t need to form Christians when everyone was more or less Christian by default. (Or at least it could seem that way, but see, inter alia, the works of Søren Kierkegaard!)

Whatever you might want to say about the merits of that situation, though, it no longer obtains. Consequently, mainline churches need to be much more intentional about Christian formation. Incidentally, I don’t see this as meaning that the mainline should become more “conservative.” Rather that they should become more Christian. That means immersing its members in prayer, Bible study, Bible-based preaching, works of mercy, etc. The public witness of the churches would, then, grow organically out of this formation, rather than coming from top-down denominational diktats.