mainline Protestants

Margaret Bendroth tells the stories of mid-20th century women who fought patriarchy from within the church.

Revitalizing lay leaders to bring congregations new life

Teresa Hord Owens, a descendant of one of Indiana’s oldest free black settlements, is general minister and president.

We church leaders need to stop fretting about our future and immerse ourselves in the baptismal waters that proclaim perfect love.

Margaret Bendroth intends to rescue liberal Protestants from scholarly anonymity and the disdain that accompanies numerical decline.

At a reunion of our seminary's class of 1965, I talked to pastors who grieve that they have not left the mainline church better than they found it. They were faithful to their moment, but that moment blew away.

The mainline has long congratulated itself for being prophetic because it's good at voting for progressive agendas. But change happens at the local level.

Resident Aliens, a work of theology, was put to use as applied sociology. The description of life in the Christian colony became, paradoxically, a formula for success.

The image of a resident alien offers an important biblical corrective. But it isn't the only such image we need.

For decades, the notion of mainline decline has dominated interpretation of church life. But just how mighty were the churches before?

If you happened upon the front page of the Wall Street Journal [today] you saw the headline, “Evangelicals Push Immigration Path.” It’s one of several recent articles focused on white evangelicals’ changing tune when it comes to legal paths to citizenship. Megachurch pastors are willing to lose members over the issue. The National Association of Evangelicals is organizing a campaign to educate and prod congregations to political action.

The Barna Group's recent religious freedom poll is pretty interesting. Evangelicals overwhelmingly support religious freedom and are concerned about its possible demise—yet a majority of them also believe that "traditional Judeo-Christian values should be given preference."

"Ecumenical leaders of the 1960s took a series of risks," says historian David Hollinger, "asking their constituency to follow them in directions that many resisted."