Interesting article on the issue of turning around the mainline in ChristianityToday. Seems like the long habit of those who are biblically conservative to opt out of their denominations and start new ones is slightly shifting toward trying to preserve the orthodoxy of the existing denomination. A few years ago, I would have been wholly on the side of those who would vote with their feet to leave any denomination that might flirt with theological or moral nonsense such as denial of essential beliefs about God or radical sexual permissiveness.
What gives me pause is the fragmentation that exists in the Christian world. We cannot speak to society with a unified voice if every time there is a controversy we start a new organization. We become more "pluralistic" than the society, it sometimes appears. We have no credibility on major issues if we are hopelessly divided on so many things.
So I am encouraged that some are willing to fight for their denominations and try to force the new and novel ideas out, to allow those who would alter Christianity to be the ones to leave and to seek a common consensus on that which Christians have held to be true for 2000 years.
We don't know where it will end in the Presbyterian and Anglican churches, but maybe there is a new model for conflict being worked out before our eyes.
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