Comments on: Three Lessons from the Decline of Mainstream Protestantism

By: Three Lessons from the Decline of Mainstream Protestantism

Three Lessons from the Decline of Mainstream Protestantism — Sun, 22 Jul 2012 04:05:59 +0000

[...] Read More [...]

By: Graham Combs

Graham Combs — Sat, 21 Jul 2012 15:58:00 +0000

A few miles from where I live in downtown Royal Oak, is St. David’s Episcopal Church; built during the late 50s, early 60s building boom. There is plastic sign suspended over the old one declaring it is now the Community Evangelical Church. The other day I saw a group of young black, brown and white kids working on the lawn supervised by an elderly Chinese man. Then it hit me. There will never be another new Episcopal or Anglican church built in North America again. Ever. In a recent WSJ House of Worship column, the author claims membership in the US is now below one million. And the ECUSA headquarters in Manhattan on Second Avenue (I used to shop its religious bookstore when I worked at Image Books/Doubleday) is now for sale. Including its large penthouse apartment housing the presiding bishop. It’ll fetch a nice penny even in this market. A bishop wrote the Journal countering the facts of the piece except he didn’t actually list any specific corrections. Only repeated folksy anecdotes of social justice and outreach to the Other. The Other is all those individuals and families who quietly drifted away or, as I did, became Catholics.

By: That Was The Week That Was « The Pietist Schoolman

That Was The Week That Was « The Pietist Schoolman — Sat, 21 Jul 2012 12:55:34 +0000

[...] and other progressive bloggers explained it. (One more post on this topic I’d recommend: Timothy George’s, which offers three important lessons for [...]

By: ACS

ACS — Sat, 21 Jul 2012 01:10:51 +0000

Yes, those that call themselves Evangelical (and even Roman Catholic) should not be gleeful at the collapse of the mainline denominations because we are next. They may be farther down the path to perdition, but we are on the same trail. Our congregations are no less corrupt and worldly. We offer your best life now, health and wealth, a therapeutic Jesus, or a moralistic Jesus. God’s Word is little read nor given its rightful place of authority. We tell them that God has a wonderful plan for their lives, rather than take up your cross. We do have our god, but he is more of our creation. Indeed, we think that the liberals are in bad shape because they are hemorrhaging members and money. Yet, what profit do we have we have rich congregations full of goats and tares?

By: Three Lessons from the Decline of Mainstream Protestantism « GeorgePWood.com

Wed, 18 Jul 2012 23:00:53 +0000

[...] decline of liberal Christianity, and Diana Butler Bass’s response. Over at First Thoughts, Timothy George weighs in with an evangelical pespective on Douthat’s essay. What are evangelicals to make of [...]

By: Wendell Clanton

Wendell Clanton — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 19:40:59 +0000

Michael PS has it right.

The issue of authority will determine how the different ecclesial bodies will weather the sociopolitical storms that are challenging the very foundations of Christianity.

Since Holy Scripture requires an authoritative interpreter, protestant communities have no hope of defending the authority of Scripture because they lack the Magisterium protected by the Holy Spirit.

Adaptation to a worldly agenda is inevitable when Scripture is subjected to an eisegesis that merely mirrors a contemporary will to licentiousness, permissiveness and hyper-individualism.

Furthermore, the inane action of submitting doctrine to a vote in these relativism soaked times, as is the common practice in mainline protestant communities, has proven to result in ecclesial suicide.

Protestant pentecostal communities will fare no better since their praxis is hardly different from the mainliners. They naively think that the fundamentalist (bibliolatry) fist they have jammed into the leaking levee will protect them from disintegration. The fact that the Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada, for example, have caved on divorce and remarriage confirms that they are already digging sand out from underneath the berm to prop up the top of their teetering doctrinal tower of Babel.

By: WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON EDITION | Big Pulpit

WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON EDITION | Big Pulpit — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 16:35:59 +0000

[...] Three Lessons from the Decline of Mainstream Protestantism – Timothy George, First Things/First Thoughts [...]

By: Michael PS

Michael PS — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 14:33:21 +0000

I believe it is the question of authority that is central. The Reformers repudiated the authority of the teaching church, in the name of fidelity to scripture. That belief in the inspiration of scripture rested on the teaching of the Church and nothing else, they contrived to overlook. Will anyone seriously maintain it to be self-evident that the Epistle of Jude is inspired and the Epistle of Barnabas is not? It is not surprising that Semler, Ernesti and others should attack the inspiration of scripture, in the name of private judgment. The wonder is that it took so long.

A church founded on its rejection of authority can never hope to impose its authority on its own members. Why should the Thirty-Nine Articles or the Westminster Confession have more authority than the canons of the ancient councils?

By: Mick Lee

Mick Lee — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 13:29:50 +0000

And yet we are told that, if the Church would just loosen up or even jettison this or that old and stuffy (if not evil) doctrine, all sorts of moderners, post-moderns, gays, unmarried couples, blended families, singles, countless varieties of minorities, test tube children, “undocumented workers”, golfers, Sunday-morning-lay-around-in-bed drinking coffee New York Times readers, and university professors would flock to the pews–vastly expanding our numbers and outreach. That change never lives up to these promises only means that some other “old, stuffy doctrine” must come under the cross-hairs–then watch’em break down the doors!

By: James

James — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 12:26:18 +0000

I once saw an article written by a theologian from a mainline church who wrote, “The Bible should be taken seriously.” That was it! Take the Bible seriously. Once you’ve done that, you can preach and teach whatever you want. You can change Biblical admonitions and creedal statements, so long as you assert that you have taken what the scriptures “seriously.”