Mainline decline: if I were a gambler...
I don’t blog to rag on mainline Protestants – all faiths have the rights to govern themselves and to their properties; libertarianism 101 – but when the MCJ told of a minister (rather prominent locally in his denomination) spinning Matthew 15:21-28 so that the Canaanite woman ‘teaches Jesus, changing him for ever’, it got me thinking that if I made bets I’d try putting some money on when most of the mainline will officially apostatise, voting themselves out of Christianity/going unitarian. According to their own principles they can do that. They’ll do it subtly. They won’t be upfront and say ‘we’re not Christian any more; you can’t believe that any more’ but change belief in the content of the creeds from a requirement on paper to an option. Making official the unbelief long in practice among them since the ‘Enlightenment’, like that minister, so among the few of them left, the change won’t be a big deal. But the Neuhaus principle will kick in: orthodoxy made optional is eventually banned.