The Monk and the Institutional Church

The dismal outlook on the mainline’s future has sparked a discussion about the future of the “institutional” church between New York Times columnist Ross Douthat and progressive Christian author Diana Butler Bass. Douthat respondedto Butler Bass’ rebuttal today. He emphasized that the culturally and doctrinally orthodox churches are still the fastest growing in the US:

“Some of these congregations, it’s true, are more theologically and politically liberal than the evangelical norm, in the style of ‘emergent church’ figures like Brian McLaren and hip pastors like Rob Bell, and to the extent that liberal Christianity seems to have any kind of future at the moment it’s more likely to be found in the liberal wing of evangelicalism than in the faded Mainline. But overall, most of the vitality and growth in American Protestantism is still concentrated in congregations that are culturally and politically conservative, if not necessarily orthodox or theologically rigorous.”