Churches in Decline
Charlotte Allen (of The Independent Women's Forum and Beliefnet) explains why the churches that lurch toward a watered down, liberal Christianity are killing themselves in an excellent piece here.
One particularly insightful observation pertains to the composition of the "new" Episcopal Church. If it weren't for disaffected Catholics and gays and lesbians, church numbers would be even lower than they are, as cradle Episcopalians are leaving in droves.
The problem is that the Episcopal Church's traditional willingness to tolerate some doctrinal tensions within its communion has allowed disaffected former adherents of other religions to flood the church and attempt to impose the theological and doctrinal "changes" on the Episcopal Church that their former churches wouldn't tolerate.
The problem, of course, is that when doctrinal flexibility is abused, theological commandments are downgraded to mere suggestions. And then, there's really no reason to pay attention to any of it, is there?
One particularly insightful observation pertains to the composition of the "new" Episcopal Church. If it weren't for disaffected Catholics and gays and lesbians, church numbers would be even lower than they are, as cradle Episcopalians are leaving in droves.
The problem is that the Episcopal Church's traditional willingness to tolerate some doctrinal tensions within its communion has allowed disaffected former adherents of other religions to flood the church and attempt to impose the theological and doctrinal "changes" on the Episcopal Church that their former churches wouldn't tolerate.
The problem, of course, is that when doctrinal flexibility is abused, theological commandments are downgraded to mere suggestions. And then, there's really no reason to pay attention to any of it, is there?
posted by LadybugUSA at 9:28 AM
4 Comments:
Amber:
The doctrinal flexibility of the Episcopal Church has nothing to do with the circumstances under which it was founded -- it has to do with its organization as a "communion" worldwide. Unlike the Pope, the Archbishop of Canterbury has no overriding power to impose a central doctrine on the rest of the Church.
Likewise, with respect, it's a misstatement to say that "most of their doctrine is wrong," because orthodox Episcopal churches still uphold what you term "Biblical truth."
I'm not sure that I would agree that a lot of what is happening is from the outside of the Episcopal Church. The heretical Bishop John Shelby Spong is a fifth columnist from withing. Many of those who are leading the church away from Basic Christianity 101 are infact Cradle Episcopalians. But there is some truth to this being players from the outside of the Episcopal Church. Also, tension is one thing but when the liberals constantly change the rules and thus make those of us who stay more-and morally-confused, all I can say is that C.S. Lewis must be rolling his his grave to see whay the Anglican Communuion-and the Episcopal Church-has become.
Amber, it is helpful to remember not to get into too much theology with Carol. She seems more concerned with religion as a concept, or as a way to burnish her conservative credentials, than in its teachings.
Also, she doesn't like it when people call the church's congregants "Episcopals," as you did. They're Episcopalians.
As both an evangelical and a political progressive, I can make a comment about this.
While it is true in some cases that the "liberal" denominations have experienced decline, census figures show that the amount of Episcopalians increased by 13.4% between 1990 and 2001.
Members of the Congregationalists and United Church of Christ (the latter a very "liberal" denomination) grew by 130.1% over the same period.
These figures can be checked at the relevant Wikipedia article.
What needs to be pointed out, however, is that the actual amount of Episcopalians and UCC members in relation to the rest of the population is very small. Episcopalians represent around 1.8% of Americans while figures for the UCC are even smaller.
The Southern Baptists, despite their conservative theology and large influence, declined in number between the same period.
In 1990, 19.8% of Americans identified themselves as being Baptist, while 17.2% did so in 2001. Actual numerical growth declined by 0.4%.
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