DON’T TAKE THE BROWN ACID
Good GRAVY, the EpiscoLeft is thin-skinned. There’s being angry about that darn-near-legendary Ross Douthat New York Times column and then there’s Tom Ehrich. You know how some little kids have imaginary friends? Tom was so upset by Douthat’s column that he went out and invented himself an entire imaginarychurch:
Never mind — the most inconvenient truth — that mainline denominations began to decline in 1965, not because of liberal theology, but because the world around them changed and they refused to change with it.
Conservatives’ anti-change attitudes not only prevented necessary responses to a changing world, but their sky-is-falling venom fed a public perception of mainline churches as argumentative, judgmental, dull and old. It is that perception that young adults are shunning.
So the Episcopal Organization, the “church” that wouldn’t call Pike on his heresies because we don’t do “heresy” in this day and age, began its trip down the drain because it was too…conservative?!! Okay, I’ll play along. How so, Tom?
Denominations were slow to establish suburban congregations. In a fundamental management failure led by the anti-change cadre, mainline churches tried to preserve a neighborhood ethos. When they did establish suburban churches, their efforts tended to be hesitant, under-funded, and focused on replicating old ways, rather than responding to realities of suburban living.
Tom? Here in Webster Groves, five suburban congregations were established in one year, including the Episcopal one I used to attend. Know what year that was, Tom? 1867. Annunciation, the thriving Catholic parish just down the street from where I currently live, followed its people out from the City of St. Louis, arriving well before I got here. So I honestly don’t know where you’re hallucinating all that.
Even as women were entering other male bastions, conservatives resisted opening ordination to women.
Uh…what?! Tom, you do remember that the Episcopalians began ordaining women almost 40 years ago, right? Episcopal conservatives couldn’t(or wouldn’t) stop that idea or even slow it down. And that doesn’t seem to have reversed the Episcopal decline any.
Even as new cultural languages and forms were emerging, conservatives fought any adaptation of mainline liturgies and hymnody. As people sought new expressions of faith in response to changing times, traditionalists mocked “renewal” as “happy-clappy.”
My Episcopal parish was about as liberal a parish as Missouri had. Long before it became all that much of an issue with the national church, I can remember a rector there who supported gay ordination. In the 1970′s, we did a lot of guitar masses and things like that; my mom and I even sang in one of those folk choir things. But by the 80′s, the parish stopped doing that. Know why that was, Tom?
Nobody liked it.
It was those fights that drove people away. It was also the looking-backward attitudes that prevented church leaders from responding to cultural shifts, many of them painful, such as decimation of the middle class, collapse of disposable income for all but the very wealthy, collapse of employment and safety nets, and eroding infrastructure such as public schools.
In the mid to late 80′s, the economy was pretty good. The Episcopalians and the rest of the mainline declined. Democrats always tell me that Bill Clinton’s economies were hitting on all cylinders and, from all accounts, they were right. The Episcopalians and the rest of the mainline continued to decline. So Tom’s just typing out his narthex there.
The Episcopal Church’s decision on same-sex blessings wasn’t a leap beyond; it was the last gasp of old ways of thinking, namely, that Sunday worship and in-house protocols are what matter.
Once again…what?!! Homosexual marriage was a conservative move?!! And the last thing churches should concern themselves with is the worship of the living God?!! If the worship of the living God is not that important to you, you’re probably going to be sleeping in on Sunday mornings and not attending Episcopal or mainline churches at all so Tom may have something there. He thinks he does anyway.
Now leaders can look outward and onward. Conservatives will find themselves ignored, not because mainline traditions have lost their way, but because they are determined to find their way, and my-way-or-the-highway conservatives have cried wolf too often.
Whatever you say, big smacker. But credit where it’s due. ENS, which ran this story, also ran my comment on it which reads as follows:
Mainline Protestant churches are withering away because they were too conservative? Really, Tom? Interesting theory, insofar as the Roman Catholic Church is far more conservative than the Episcopal Church ever was and the Roman Catholics can pull more members out of their sofa cushions than attend any given Episcopal church on any given Sunday.
So there’s that.
Never mind — the most inconvenient truth — that mainline denominations began to decline in 1965, not because of liberal theology, but because the world around them changed and they refused to change with it.
Conservatives’ anti-change attitudes not only prevented necessary responses to a changing world, but their sky-is-falling venom fed a public perception of mainline churches as argumentative, judgmental, dull and old. It is that perception that young adults are shunning.
So the Episcopal Organization, the “church” that wouldn’t call Pike on his heresies because we don’t do “heresy” in this day and age, began its trip down the drain because it was too…conservative?!! Okay, I’ll play along. How so, Tom?
Denominations were slow to establish suburban congregations. In a fundamental management failure led by the anti-change cadre, mainline churches tried to preserve a neighborhood ethos. When they did establish suburban churches, their efforts tended to be hesitant, under-funded, and focused on replicating old ways, rather than responding to realities of suburban living.
Tom? Here in Webster Groves, five suburban congregations were established in one year, including the Episcopal one I used to attend. Know what year that was, Tom? 1867. Annunciation, the thriving Catholic parish just down the street from where I currently live, followed its people out from the City of St. Louis, arriving well before I got here. So I honestly don’t know where you’re hallucinating all that.
Even as women were entering other male bastions, conservatives resisted opening ordination to women.
Uh…what?! Tom, you do remember that the Episcopalians began ordaining women almost 40 years ago, right? Episcopal conservatives couldn’t(or wouldn’t) stop that idea or even slow it down. And that doesn’t seem to have reversed the Episcopal decline any.
Even as new cultural languages and forms were emerging, conservatives fought any adaptation of mainline liturgies and hymnody. As people sought new expressions of faith in response to changing times, traditionalists mocked “renewal” as “happy-clappy.”
My Episcopal parish was about as liberal a parish as Missouri had. Long before it became all that much of an issue with the national church, I can remember a rector there who supported gay ordination. In the 1970′s, we did a lot of guitar masses and things like that; my mom and I even sang in one of those folk choir things. But by the 80′s, the parish stopped doing that. Know why that was, Tom?
Nobody liked it.
It was those fights that drove people away. It was also the looking-backward attitudes that prevented church leaders from responding to cultural shifts, many of them painful, such as decimation of the middle class, collapse of disposable income for all but the very wealthy, collapse of employment and safety nets, and eroding infrastructure such as public schools.
In the mid to late 80′s, the economy was pretty good. The Episcopalians and the rest of the mainline declined. Democrats always tell me that Bill Clinton’s economies were hitting on all cylinders and, from all accounts, they were right. The Episcopalians and the rest of the mainline continued to decline. So Tom’s just typing out his narthex there.
The Episcopal Church’s decision on same-sex blessings wasn’t a leap beyond; it was the last gasp of old ways of thinking, namely, that Sunday worship and in-house protocols are what matter.
Once again…what?!! Homosexual marriage was a conservative move?!! And the last thing churches should concern themselves with is the worship of the living God?!! If the worship of the living God is not that important to you, you’re probably going to be sleeping in on Sunday mornings and not attending Episcopal or mainline churches at all so Tom may have something there. He thinks he does anyway.
Now leaders can look outward and onward. Conservatives will find themselves ignored, not because mainline traditions have lost their way, but because they are determined to find their way, and my-way-or-the-highway conservatives have cried wolf too often.
Whatever you say, big smacker. But credit where it’s due. ENS, which ran this story, also ran my comment on it which reads as follows:
Mainline Protestant churches are withering away because they were too conservative? Really, Tom? Interesting theory, insofar as the Roman Catholic Church is far more conservative than the Episcopal Church ever was and the Roman Catholics can pull more members out of their sofa cushions than attend any given Episcopal church on any given Sunday.
So there’s that.
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