Dying Denomination Abandons Global Missionary Efforthttps://pjmedia.com/chris-queen/2025/04/25/progressive-denomination-abandons-global-missionary-efforts-n4939246Mainline Protestant denominations have been in steady decline for decades, and it’s largely due to the denominations’ embrace of theological liberalism. Trading in scriptural truth and sound doctrine for social justice and the cultural whims of the day is no way to reach people for Jesus — and it shows.
One denomination has made a massive move that shows how bad its decline is. The Presbyterian Church USA (PCUSA), a radically progressive denomination, is shutting down the vast majority of its global missionary operations.
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The Presbyterian World Mission is laying off 54 of its 60 missionaries and is assigning 30 office staff to serve as “global ecumenical advisors” in the new organization, which weirdly sounds like a government agency. The PCUSA has seen a drop of over 10% in membership between 2020 and 2023, and the ensuing drop in tithes and offerings necessitated the change, in part. Other concerns include missionaries serving in dangerous areas.
“The denomination, due to budget cuts and changes in emphasis, now expects Christian work to be done mostly by indigenous leaders around the globe, rather than by U.S. missionaries sent to foreign countries,” Garrison reported. Parachurch organizations will take up some of the slack as well.
My thoughts on this are equivocal:
1. That PCUSA supports just 60 missionaries seems to suggest that,
A, PCUSA does not believe they have a vital message to tell the world, and,
B, PCUSA is not inspiring its members to go out into the world. Liberal theology, with all its rejections, has rejected the message that people need salvation and that there is a Christian life worth living.
2. Many parachurch ministries that PCUSA seems to think will pick up their slack are actually Evangelicals who communicate the messages that PCUSA has rejected. Larger examples that come to my mind quickly are Samaritan's Purse, World Vision, Youth With A Mission, and Mercy Ships; smaller Evangelical mission groups abound.
3. It's not a new idea that indigenous leaders are needed in churches. This was done by the 1st Century Apostles as they went about their part of the world. They took their message to cities, set up congregations, trained and appointed leaders, and then moved on, giving advice/correction by means of letters. This process kind of got lost in the 18th or 19th or previous centuries, but started being followed again in the 19th and 20th Centuries.
4. One of the ironies of mainline Protestant churches' century-plus descent into liberal theology (PCUSA is not alone in this descent) is that a bit over a century ago, as the Presbyterian and Methodist denominations in the US were picking and choosing teachings of Scripture to reject, missionaries of those churches still teaching the Gospel in Korea suddenly experienced many Koreans coming to faith in Jesus. Hopefully, despite some Presbyterians' concerns that missionaries won't be spreading their liberal
gospel-surrogate, at least some of the 54 missionaries being cut loose by PCUSA were actually teaching the Gospel and will find means to continue their ministry.
5. The decline of mainline Protestant churches that embrace so many rejections of Scripture is bitter-sweet to me. At the surface level, their decline means fewer are hearing and embracing their Christianity-surrogate. At the congregations level, it means struggle and grief in pretty much every congregation. People who invested time, energy, and $$ - sometimes over several generations - into their congregation and their denomination are being driven out by actions and teachings they cannot support or even tolerate and congregational leaders they cannot follow. Individual decisions to leave happen after discussions/arguments and sometimes or often entail loss of friends. When congregations leave a denomination it often happens after working through a warehouse full of open 55-gallon drums of worms.
