What a church teaches has consequences. Resolutions a denomination approves have consequences. They will either help people grow spiritually, and therefore attract people; or they will confuse and inhibit spiritual growth, and therefore drive members elsewhere.
We’ve been looking at differing approaches to the Bible and traditional Christian teachings as background to answer the question, “Is Jesus the only Savior?” We’ve seen that some people who go by the name “Christian” not only think that Jesus is not the only Savior, they think there is no such thing as a “savior” at all. They present a Jesus who was invented by the early church rather than the Jesus of the New Testament who was faithfully remembered and recorded by the church.
This article in the Los Angeles Times shows what happens when churches (or whole denominations) depart from “the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints.” (Jude 1:3) Here are some key sections:
“The accelerating fragmentation of the strife-torn Episcopal Church USA, in which several parishes and even a few dioceses are opting out of the church, isn't simply about gay bishops, the blessing of same-sex unions or the election of a woman as presiding bishop. It also is about the meltdown of liberal Christianity. … as all but a few die-hards now admit, all the mainline churches and movements within churches that have blurred doctrine and softened moral precepts are demographically declining and, in the case of the Episcopal Church, disintegrating.”
And again, “When a church doesn't take itself seriously, neither do its members. It is hard to believe that as recently as 1960, members of mainline churches — Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Methodists, Lutherans and the like — accounted for 40% of all American Protestants. Today, it's more like 12% (17 million out of 135 million).”
And this critical piece, “When your religion says "whatever" on doctrinal matters, regards Jesus as just another wise teacher, refuses on principle to evangelize and lets you do pretty much what you want, it's a short step to deciding that one of the things you don't want to do is get up on Sunday morning and go to church.”
The ABC-USA is not one of the “mainline churches” mentioned in the article. However, the story sounds familiar with what has been going on in the ABC-USA recently.
For the sake of our study, I would like some help. Would someone who disagrees with the article please point out what you see as errors.
Help us, who have concerns about our own denomination’s future, understand alternate explanations for the decline of “mainline churches”.
From the data, it appears that today “mainline” no longer means “mainstream”. Why?
The article presents one explanation. Is there another?
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