Every Part Is an "I"
How will the Body function in an age of rising individualism?
by Lyle Schaller | posted 7/20/2005

Out behind the sanctuary on the grounds of most churches in the snowy north there used to be a long shed. Covered on the top and three sides, it was usually open on the south side. That's where church attenders stowed their horses and buggies during the service.

They started tearing down the sheds around 1915. I've read a lot of church histories, and many report how the space was needed for automobiles. I remember as a child seeing a few of the sheds used for storage, but the records say by the mid 1920s most were demolished.

The horse shed gave way to the parking lot. But those same histories don't report the paving of the lots until the 1950s. You can imagine during the intervening 30 years the rainy Sundays when the old horse lot was a muddy mess.

In our time, a lot of walls have come down. And we don't yet know what to do with the space that has been created. And if the sheds are any lesson, it will be some time before we know what, if anything, will replace them.

One Nation, Individual

The Berlin Wall was demolished in 1989, and eventually a divided nation was stitched together. The new Germany has made much progress, but reunification is an ongoing process. The new nation is not like either the former western-oriented republic or the eastern-dominated state. Germany today is a very different and evolving entity.

In our time many walls are falling, and the effects are felt in the church. Trade agreements are making allies of enemies. Travelers can cross the borders of some European Union countries without visas. Several nations, Germany among them, are debating sanctioning dual citizenship. Israel already has it. More and more we see ourselves as citizens of the world.

Racial barriers are down, and interracial marriages are on the rise. Walls around ideologies are dropping, and people move easily between faiths and denominations. Migration of second, third, and fourth, generation Catholics into Protestant churches is increasing. So is the departure of Protestant Christians to non-Christian faiths. Institutional loyalty is dead.

Rising from the debris of our lost values is the new value on the individual. The "me" generation has given way to a "me" world. The question is, how will the church, the ultimate "we" organization, adjust?

United, Rising

Part of this individualism is classic adolescent rebellion. When we asked the young lady who became our daughter-in-law what she liked about our son, she replied, "He's opposed to most of the things my father favors."

Likewise, a nation of individuals has arisen from rejection of the things that united the generations who endured the depression and world wars: appreciation for conformity, commitment to a cause, and sacrifice for the greater good.

We once built community, especially in the first half of the twentieth century, through the sense of belonging. Clubs once popular—Lions, Kiwanis, Rotary—are struggling because of decline in institutional loyalty. Even Sunday school, which operates in some sense on the club model, is in trouble.