Turning Around Mainline Protestanism

Christianity Today ^ | July 25, 2003 | Michael Hamilton and Jennifer McKinney

[Zack Nguyen]

Elaine Pagels, the famous historian of early Christianity, once told a revealing story about the social world behind the scenes of high-powered biblical scholarship. As a young up-and-coming professor at the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature, she was invited to a closed-door, after-hours smoker.

The men there (Pagels was the only woman) were all prominent Bible scholars. Many of them didn't even believe in God, and those who still called themselves Christian were anything but orthodox. The liquor flowed freely, and as these men got in their cups, they began to sing old gospel songs. To her astonishment, they knew all the tunes and words by heart. Then it dawned on her—these atheist and liberal Bible scholars must have grown up in evangelical churches.

Had Pagels herself grown up in evangelicalism she might not have been so surprised. Evangelicals have long known that it is easy for individuals and institutions—especially professors and universities—to slide down the slippery slope from orthodoxy to infidelity. Once down the slope, there's usually no climbing back up. It's a one-way street from evangelicalism to liberalism, a street that many individuals and colleges, and all the mainline Protestant denominations, have gone down.

[Kolokotronis]

"Could someone defined "mainline Protestantism" for me?"

When I used the term I was thinking of the crowd which goes to Union Theological Seminary, the UCC, certain Presbyterians, ECUSA, certain segments of the Methodists, ECLA, the Unitarians; essentially the liberal Protestant left which has taken over the traditional old American Protestant denominations and think this woman Pagels is just the greatest.

[Campion]

Nice made-up history. Read the church fathers sometime to see how far off the mark you are.

sprinkling baptism about 600 AD (and sprinkling infants later)

We don't sprinkle, we pour, just as the Didache (written AD 80, not AD 600) describes. A cursory reading of the fathers proves that the baptism of infants was practiced well before AD 200. Justin Martyr mentions it in AD 150.

[Kolokotronis]

Um, Mikey, maybe you ought to ask your "pastor" who +Ignatius of Antioch was, when he taught, what he taught and who he taught with. While your at it, ask the good pastor when the first use of the term "Catholic Church" was recorded and what it described. As a final question, ask the preacher if he knows what the word "patristics" means. If he can't answer your questions, or he answers with what you posted, tell him a Greek Orthodox guy whose family has been living The Faith the same way for 1800 years said he ought to take up a new way of earning a living...and you ought to find a new ecclesial assembly.

[mikeus_maximus]

When I refer to the "church fathers", I'm referring to those in the second century-- still early enough for some to have been taught by John at the end of this life, and not to have been steeped in what the Roman church (or "Orthodox) churches were to become. In any event, one takes two approaches: justify my actions by God's word in His Scritpures, or rely on men to justify my doctrine and practices.

Which do you think glorifies God as Lord, and in which camp are you?