Posted on 03/09/2012 12:54:15 PM PST by unspun
Update:
This update is made simply to point out the problem with Rick Santorum's speech, excerpted below, as many are apparently having difficulty seeing it. I apologize for not making it clearer, earlier.
The problem lays in two sentences:
“And of course we look at the shape of mainline Protestantism in this country and it is a shambles. It is gone from the world of Christianity as I see it.
It was almost an excellent and critically important speech, but then...
(Excerpt) Read more at gulagbound.com ...
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.
“Mainline”, not “mainstream”. Mainline is not mainstream. And, as you point out, does anyone seriously think that the Episcopalians, for example, denomination are Christian? Sodomites and heresy everywhere.
Furthermore, please pimp your blog elsewhere.
It’s one thing for you and me to say it. There is a time and place to say these things. A Presidential stump speech is NOT the place to say it. For about a 1000 reasons.
Protestants are Protestants.
Catholics are Catholics.
In either case, their churches tend to be split, as I stated in the article. I’m sure there are “liberals” and “conservatives” in each, who prefer to think of their beliefs as “mainline.”
However, I hope none are bigoted or haughty enough to dictate which handfuls of tares, and the wheat along with it, may be uprooted, and called “gone from the world of Christianity.”
Pleasant pondering with the Lord. I suggest the entire article. Then again, I wrote it. ;-> Also, the comments beneath it.
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.
Last time I was in the Methodist church of my youth it was full of bulletin boards plastered with flyers screaming for “eco justice” and celebrating diversity.
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.
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