4 ms·
Not sharing orthodox beliefs may not be an impediment to joining and participating, as you say, but it will be a dividing factor over time, unless you 1) fake i
by euroclydon 10y ago
Not sharing orthodox beliefs may not be an impediment to joining and participating, as you say, but it will be a dividing factor over time, unless you 1) fake it, or 2) go to a liberal church. The problem with liberal churches is they're small and don't grow.
People are attracted to confidence, so when the preacher, members and staff continuously and confidently proclaim their certainty in that which is difficult to believe, attendance and membership swell. People with marginal faith would fit in better at a liberal church, but mostly they're turned off by it.
- VLM 10y ago"The problem with liberal churches is they're small and don't grow." Hmm I've actually been to Catholic Mass where the congregation is exclusively white haired and the local prosperity gospel rock music church where the average congregation age must have only been 25. You can guess the long term demographic result. I'll throw out a dissenting opinion to the majority view that only non-mainline churches are possible. I met a very cool Catholic priest who had a long entertaining presentation along the lines of if you can't stand one guy on TV or can't stand one guy at your local Catholic church, that's OK because there's a billion of them and if you can't find one part per billion that offends you, you're not paying enough attention, and if you can't avoid that one part per billion, you're just complaining for fun and are not trying hard enough.
- euroclydon 10y agoI mean theologically liberal: * Not agreeing with the doctrine of Eternal Conscious Suffering * Not agreeing with Substitutionary Atonement * Not agreeing with the Exclusivity of Salvation through Christ