Study: Demographics Explain Decline

http://www.livingchurch.org/publishertlc/viewarticle.asp?ID=1413

[The Living Church] September 29, 2005--Demographics, not doctrine, has lead to the decline in communicants of the Episcopal Church and other “mainline” denominations, a recent study finds. Writing in the Oct. 4 issue of the Christian Century, three sociologists — Michael Hout of the University of California-Berkeley, Andrew Greeley of the University of Arizona, and Melissa Wilde of Indiana University — found that support for progressive causes was “irrelevant” in the decline of the Episcopal Church and other mainline churches.

The following will give you an idea of The Christian Century's position in today's debates:

Leap of imagination: Christopher Herbert, the Anglican bishop of St. Alban's, is troubled by strident Christian voices. "There is a noisy, almost angry, literalism around desires to define and codify who is, or who is not, a 'real Christian,' and what seems to accompany this is a plodding, narrow biblicism which is punitive in tone and joyless in character." Apprehending the beauty and truth of God, which involves paradox and apparent contradiction, takes faith, but also playfulness and imagination (Anglican Theological Review, summer).

The findings of this study may be liberal wishful thinking!