Source: Amazon
A new book by educator and former Illinois elected official Michael J. Bakalis is causing a growing discussion and debate among religious leaders of the Eastern Orthodox Church in the United States. Bakalis has served as Illinois State Superintendent of Education and Illinois State Comptroller. President Carter appointed him deputy undersecretary to the United States Department of Education. He later became a professor at Northwestern University and is currently the president of a not-for-profit educational management and consulting organization.
Michael Bakalis’ book, A Church at the Crossroads: The Crisis in American Orthodox Christianity and the Decisions Needed for Renewal, has revealed a dramatic exodus of parishioners and adherents to Orthodox Christianity in America. The book reports the alarming statistic that of all living Americans who were baptized into Orthodox Christianity, almost 50% now have no involvement or connection to the Church. While declines in adherents in every branch of American Christianity continue, none are experiencing the rate of losing parishioners, as is Orthodox Christianity. The book also reports that even among those who still officially are part of the Church, only 27% can be considered “regular” church attendees.
The book discusses many reasons for this, such as the growing American secularism, but also targets the problems connected with an American obsession with material consumerism and the various sexual financial scandals that have impacted many Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox branches of Christianity. Bakalis addresses the specific reasons for parishioner disenchantment with Orthodox Christianity, citing things such as excessive ethnic identity in some churches or foreign language services, which the increasingly younger generation does not understand. “We are long over being an “immigrant” Church,” Bakalis says, “while the major ethnic identity of Orthodox Christians had originally been from Eastern Europe, Greece, Russia, and Ukraine, most of those families have been in America now for almost 150 years. We must stop thinking of ourselves as hyphenated Americans, but rather as Americans who are proud of this country and equally proud of our ancestral heritage.” The author says Orthodox Christianity will grow in the United States only by this kind of thinking.
In his book, Bakalis cites the fact that Orthodox Christians represent a small 0.5% of Americans and yet are a divided entity. Orthodoxy in America is divided by ethnicity with parishes under the control of separate Greek Orthodox, Serbian Orthodox, Russian Orthodox, Bulgarian Orthodox, Romanian Orthodox, Ukrainian Orthodox, and other administrative and authority structures, The author argues that only a united “American:” Orthodox Church can survive and grow in America and play a major role in the American religious landscape.
The book offers a unique and interesting set of proposals to renew and grow Orthodoxy in the United States, citing changes in seminary education, the need to train priests to give dynamic and relevant church sermons, the creation of an Orthodox Clergy Institute for the continuing lifelong education of clergy, and an entirely unique and interesting chapter on how to “market” Orthodox Christianity through a unique “positioning” strategy.
The book proposes realistic and politically achievable optional approaches to uniting all the separate Orthodox jurisdictions into one American Orthodox Church. “The Orthodox Church must make some crucial decisions,” Bakalis says, “we have already lost an entire generation of younger people, and this will continue unless we take some immediate action.” Referring to the title of his book, the author concludes, “Orthodox Christianity in the United States is at a crossroads. Two paths are before the Church: one will lead to continued decline, the other to vibrant growth and renewal. Which road will the Church take?”