QuackQuack

The Claremont (CA) School of Theology recently hosted a gathering of leaders from thirty Protestant denominations, who looked at the downward trends in the “Mainline” Protestant churches.

Friends aren’t generally considered part of the “Mainline” churches, but the term itself comes from Philadelphia. The Pennsylvania Railroad’s “Main Line” suburbs became the address-of-choice for Protestant elites and feature the historically Quaker institutions of Haverford and Bryn Mawr. There’s been a lot of cross-over style with certain types of Friends and an overlap of issues.

Claremont professor Philip Clayton attended the recent meeting and compiled the stories into nine challenges Mainline Protestant churches face. Follow the link for more in-depth descriptions of each point:

1. People no longer believe that church attendance is socially necessary, that is, necessary for the social health and perhaps even the economic survival of individuals and their family.
2. People no longer believe that church attendance provides the only or the most important means of establishing and maintaining a sufficiently strong connection with God.
3. Many of the institutions that once lay at the center of our society are equally endangered.
4. The classic modes of church teaching — reciting language together and listening to a man talk for twenty minutes — are no longer effective modes of communication for Americans.
5. The traditional church was a family unit. It included not only mom and dad but also the grandparents, aunts and uncles, etc.
6. Most of us do not live in one place long enough to put down real roots.
7. Our communities are not only continually in flux but massively diverse in their beliefs, values, and social identities.
8. Pastors today are generally not viewed as moral authorities in their communities, and theologians do not speak for and to the nation.
9. We are no longer blending powerful theologies with transformative ministries in the world.