I like the term post-Protestant, but I would call it post-anthropomorphism to incorporate the droves of people from all denominations, both ecumenicals and fundamentalists, who have evolved away from the anthropomorphic model of spirituality. (I refuse to use their preferred sanitized term Evangelical.)
Many view the increased militancy of the fundamentalists in our midst as the last gasp in a dying corpus. Martin Marty's own Missouri Synod openly acknowledged during their 2016 convention that the only way to maintain or grow the denomination is by having current believers having more babies!
From Missouri Synod President Matt Harrison at the 2016 convention:
----"The bru- tal fact is that the growth of the LCMS has overwhelmingly occurred via childbirth. The brutal fact is, we could elevate our evangelism performance to that of the Mormons, and we would still be looking at numerical decline in 33 of our 35 districts. Sober facts. These are not excuses. These are facts."----
A response from the Mission Professor of Historical Theology, William Schumacher:
---- “One may, without caricature, summarize the view of (LCMS) women and their education in these studies thus: The overeducated white women of the LCMS are responsible for the denomination’s numerical decline. Our women get too much education, which leads them to want to work professionally, raises their aspirations for material prosperity, burdens them with student debt, makes them too persnickety in their choice of husbands, and delays their proper Christian work of child-bearing.”----
Would Hollinger agree that in an ever-shrinking world by way of technology the ability to maintain an institution that depends upon congregant ignorance is a tall order indeed! Would love to know what Hollinger thinks about the impact of the pandemic on church decline. Will it come back to pre-pandemic numbers or is it as I suspect another nail in the coffin? Unfortunately I am busy tomorrow. Will the event tomorrow be recorded for later viewing?
I like the term post-Protestant, but I would call it post-anthropomorphism to incorporate the droves of people from all denominations, both ecumenicals and fundamentalists, who have evolved away from the anthropomorphic model of spirituality. (I refuse to use their preferred sanitized term Evangelical.)
Many view the increased militancy of the fundamentalists in our midst as the last gasp in a dying corpus. Martin Marty's own Missouri Synod openly acknowledged during their 2016 convention that the only way to maintain or grow the denomination is by having current believers having more babies!
From Missouri Synod President Matt Harrison at the 2016 convention:
----"The bru- tal fact is that the growth of the LCMS has overwhelmingly occurred via childbirth. The brutal fact is, we could elevate our evangelism performance to that of the Mormons, and we would still be looking at numerical decline in 33 of our 35 districts. Sober facts. These are not excuses. These are facts."----
A response from the Mission Professor of Historical Theology, William Schumacher:
---- “One may, without caricature, summarize the view of (LCMS) women and their education in these studies thus: The overeducated white women of the LCMS are responsible for the denomination’s numerical decline. Our women get too much education, which leads them to want to work professionally, raises their aspirations for material prosperity, burdens them with student debt, makes them too persnickety in their choice of husbands, and delays their proper Christian work of child-bearing.”----
Would Hollinger agree that in an ever-shrinking world by way of technology the ability to maintain an institution that depends upon congregant ignorance is a tall order indeed! Would love to know what Hollinger thinks about the impact of the pandemic on church decline. Will it come back to pre-pandemic numbers or is it as I suspect another nail in the coffin? Unfortunately I am busy tomorrow. Will the event tomorrow be recorded for later viewing?