What about that elephant in the religion-beat living room?

I’m talking about nondenominational evangelical and charismatic Protestantism. It’s everywhere. It shows up in story after story, from the January 6th riots at the U.S. Capitol to discussions of the future of the Southern Baptist Convention and other big religion name brands.

In the past week or two, here at GetReligion, we had: “NPR discovers megachurches! But, wait, there is one new wrinkle in this old story.” Or how about: “Many churches are vanishing, while others are growing. Trends worth covering?” Then again: “How many believers exit their childhood faith? And where are they headed these days?”

I could go on. But nondenominational churches play a major role in lots of stories and trends worthy of coverage.

So, as a weekend “think piece,” let me point readers to a must-read Christianity Today piece that Bobby Ross, Jr., plugged in last week’s Plug-In feature. Here’s the headline on that Daniel Silliman feature: “Nondenominational Churches Are Growing and Multiplying in DC.”

Now, this is a story about religion inside and close to that Beltway thing. But it’s also relevant to people trying to understand that nondenominational elephant (sorry for the political animal image). Thus, the overture:

The District Church could be a Baptist church. The lead pastor, after all, grew up as a Southern Baptist missionary kid and still has a lot of ties to that denomination.

It could also be Anglican, with the way it leans into liturgy and the church calendar. Or a social justice church, with its focus on the inequality so visible in Washington, DC, or charismatic, with its emphasis on prayer and sensitivity to the Spirit.

Instead, the church is a little bit of all these things. It is nondenominational, pulling together different Christian streams to minister effectively to the young white professionals who have moved to work in the capital, as well as the upwardly mobile Nigerians and South Koreans who’ve emigrated to the seat of the United States government.

“The strength of being nondenominational is there are fewer barriers,” said Aaron Graham, who planted the church with his wife, Amy, 13 years ago.

The thesis is just a few lines away from that.

Nondenominational churches like The District Church have been multiplying across America, according to the 2020 US Religion Census. Their numbers today dwarf the mainline churches that once dominated American public life. There are six times more nondenominational churches than there are Episcopal congregations, and five times more than Presbyterian Church (USA). If nondenominational were a denomination, it would even be larger than the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest denomination in the US.

The popular image of these churches skews suburban. People picture warehouses turned into worship spaces near Starbucks, Panera Bread, and Home Depot. But a lot of nondenominational churches are in cities, too. There are more than 300 in Seattle, according to Scott Thumma, the Hartford International University researcher who led the team counting independent congregations for the church census. There are 537 in Phoenix and 797 in Atlanta.

So the Washington, D.C., angle is real. Silliman notes that the number of generic Protestant churches doubled in the 2010-2020 decade. The size of the nondenominational flock “rapidly outpaced DC population growth.”

You get the picture.

But what about doctrine? What about specific answers to questions on specific issues? How do the pastors of these churches sell the LACK of answers to these kinds of questions?

Basically, the answer is: “We’re not those White Evangelicals” or even “We aren’t the people who attacked the U.S. Capitol.”

Read this carefully:

If the answer is “We’re nondenominational,” church planters can skip some esoteric history that goes down a rabbit hole explaining old divisions and ecclesiological differences. The nondenominational pastor can just start talking about the kind of church they want their church to be and how they hope it will serve the city.

Clearly explaining a vision for the city became especially critical after a mob disrupted the certification of the 2020 presidential election. Some of the insurrectionists waved signs that said, “Jesus saves,” and others stopped to pray and invoke the name of Jesus. For many in the city, that became their image of white evangelical.

Evangelical pastors in DC had to explain how they were different. It was easier if they could emphasize their independence and autonomy. But even setting aside the trauma of January 6, 2021, independence has been critical to outreach in the capital. 

Uh, but the people who stormed the U.S. Capitol, if you have paid close attention to the details, appear to have been (#WaitForIt) nondenominational Protestants. What links did the rioters have to mainstream evangelical denominations, seminaries, parachurch groups, publishers, etc.?

Still, read it all.