Quotable

More from Diana Butler Bass in The Practicing Congregation (Alban Institute, 2004)

As Protestant theology "froze" around the fundamentalist-modernist controversy, the Protestant vision of congregations also "froze" around the social congregation of the same period. The years 1870 to 1950 proved so successful for the Protestant mainline that both the theology and the congregation patterns of that time were enshrined as the tradition of "the Protestant establishment." Because of their very success, the traditions of established Protestantism lost the flexibility and creativity of earlier generations. Did such inflexibility lead to the decline of the 1960s? And, as a result, could the second half of the twentieth century, with that decline and its conflicts, be understood as a thawing-out of the old patterns—and the development of a new culture of being church?

So if you are part of a mainline congregation that is out of touch and fails to appeal to younger generations, you have an excuse (and a motivation to be creative and flexible).

Discuss.