The Withering Away of Liberal Mainline Protestantism
I read this first on Dr. Gene Edward Veith’s blog, who read it at Joe Carter’s blog, who in turn found it on the Internet. OK, now that we have the hat tips out of the way, here is a great interview with Rodney Stark.
Read this interview with sociologist Rodney Stark on how the so-called “mainline” liberal denominations have dwindled into irrelevance: Are Evangelicals the New Mainline?. Among the many interesting points he makes is that the only congregations in those traditions that are doing well are those with conservative pastors. And when “evangelicals” decide to go liberal, as in the emergent church or progressive evangelical movement, they decline too. He goes into the history of this phenomenon and finds that it goes way, way back.
He says toward the end of the article that if he were taken blindfolded into a church sanctuary and then had the blindfold removed, he could tell if the congregation was liberal or conservative. Hymnals in the pews would indicate a liberal church.
Evidently he hasn’t been in many LCMS congregations.
I’ll add my own hat-tip when I write about this on my blog. Maybe we can set some kind of record for the longest hat-tip string!
It is interesting to watch how every election year the secular media frets about the influence of “Religious Right”. To hear them tell it, right-wing Christianist theocrats can be found under every bed in America.
The truth is that liberal Christianity has been involved in secular politics for a very, very long time, and in my opinion to a much deeper degree than conservatives. The Episcopal Church and the ELCA are more like secular left-wing political parties than churches. Talk to the leaders of these denominations about the Trinity or the Divinity of Christ, and the reaction will be mostly boredom. But mention immigration reform or the Iraq War, and they come alive.
To me, this is the danger of too much church involvement in politics. Rather than turn the United States into some kind of theocracy, the influence of politics is far more likely to destroy the church by making it an appendage of a secular political party or one of its factions. In other words, a state-controlled church rather than a church-controlled state.
The funniest line was when he said that one reason to be a progressive evangelical is that “Martin Marty will invite you to the banquet.”