I'd propose these questions: would Newt Gingrich, political leader that he is, have said such a thing?
Or, John Adams?
Thomas Jefferson?
John Kennedy?
Al Smith, for that matter?
I've read The Cost of Discipleship, and in it Dietrich Bonhoeffer had sharp criticism for his Hitler era Lutheran Church. I don't however recall him saying that Luteranism is "gone from the world of Christianity."
I wonder what these mainline Protestants would think:
C.S. Lewis
Francis Schaeffer
Dr. D. James Kennedy
Well, that's unfortunate. Excerpting your blog here. Why, I wonder?
I'll have to post just an excerpt. It is not convenient to do a lot of reformatting, since I have already formatted this article the way I chose, thanks.
Gee, maybe you should have just written & formatted things right here instead of on some slap-mammy blog.
Just a thought.
This mainline Protestant happens to agree with him. My grandmother walked away from her lifelong Methodist church when the pastor tossed the bible on the floor during a sermon while declaring it irrelevant in today’s world.
Ping for comnents
I refer to those as “mainstream” and true Bible-believing churches as “evangelical” or “orthodox” or “fundamental”.
I'm in the south. I am fairly sure I'll be voting for Santorum on Tuesday.
D. James Kennedy - PCA, not mainline (PCUSA is mainline)
C.S.Lewis - different era and no fan of Anglican liberalism.
Schaeffer - what mainline denomination did he actively champion? Also, a different era.
As a member of an SBC church, I’d say Santorum is right. Of course, the RCs were wrecked theologically as a consequence of Vatican II. The SBC is trending in the same wrong direction as the mainline denominations.
The PCUSA is considered the "mainline" Presbyterians. In fact, most times when the word Presbyterian is used in the press, they are speaking about the PCUSA. And yes, the PCUSA has ‘Gone from’ Christianity.
In fact, in most conservative churches I have been in, the word "mainline" is a synonym to "liberal", and the liberal church has definitely ‘Gone from’ Christianity.
The sooner the better. This is a very good thing. And does it really surprise anyone? He’s been talking like he was running for head preacher rather than president.
And I agreed with a lot of what he was saying. Well, up to that.
Santorum is spot on...and I’m sorry your blog needs pimping.
Santorum doesn’t really want the nomination, because he is killing his chances every time he brings up religion. Maybe he had bills to pay and needs the campaign cash to do it.
Actually, Thomas Jefferson had issues with both Protestants and Catholics.
“Happy in the prospect of a restoration of primitive Christianity, I must leave to younger athletes to encounter and lop off the false branches which have been engrafted into it by the mythologists of the middle and modern ages.”
Monticello, July 19, 1822
If he’s referring to the Evangelical Lutheran Church, The Presbyterian Church, and The Episcopal Church with it’s revisionist interpretation of Scripture, I’d have to agree with him.
Furthermore, please pimp your blog elsewhere.
Are you completely oblivious to the crisis between the High Episcopal Church, Anglican Communion, and the low Episcopals of non-British nations?
The FR religious forum, of which I conscientiously do not read by choice, has had articles about the collapse of mainline Protestantism for the last 5+ years.
Even myself, not even a Christian, know dang well that mainline Protestantism no longer exists as a Christian denomination.
You need to read up on the complete failure of Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, how the remaining bastinos of the Anglican communion in Africa and other developing nations have officially cleaved themselves from the rotting rump of mainline Anglican conferences, and how those African, Asian, Central and South American Communions no longer see themselves as part of Anglican mainline as defined by Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams and other Bishoprics in the UK and core Commonwealth.
Protestant Churches need to take a look at what is happening. Feel good churches and churches embracing homos are growing in numbers.
We used to be able to say that just Jews and Catholics bought into leftism.
No longer true.
Here we go again.
Santorum has an amazing ability to continue to say things, (whether you agree with them or not) to very easily be taken out of context, and then become another non-issue firestorm, and the focus gets taken off the serious issues.
And he does it to himself.
He’s learned absolutely nothing throughout this whole process.
Let’s all wake up and see him for what he is.
If he’s the nominee, we got problems.
I have an idea, why don’t you go through Romney’s speeches and get a couple of gotcha lines for your blogs.
I have to agree with him too. I won’t enter the door of the “mainline” church I was part of when I realized that it had started to embrace radical leftist ideology rather than the Word of God.
Your Profile says Wisconsin, WHAT THE ^*&^% DO YOU KNOW ABOUT THE SOUTH??!!