Thomas Oden, United Methodist, longtime Professor of Theology at Drew University and prolific author began what he called his “long journey home” from liberalism to things orthodox and evangelical in 1979. You can read about it in his book from that year, Agenda For Theology. Since then Oden has published like wild fire including a massive 3-volume Systematic Theology which remains an unparalleled tool for plowing back to the sources of historical theology, especially sources dating from prior to the year 600 A.D.
In a recent volume, Turning Around the Mainline: How Renewal Movements are Changing the Church, Oden taps decades of archived material to urge orthodox evangelicals tempted to bolt Mainline denominations to hunker down and stay put. Oden believes they have more company within and without their denominations than they realize and that real prospects for the recovery of historic, orthodox, biblically shaped and Holy Spirit empowered renewal are quite good, perhaps inevitable.
Protestants targeted by Oden include: Lutherans, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Methodists, Disciples of Christ, and (even though, technically, they are not of the Mainline) American Baptists. Could Oden be right? The slide toward liberalism was halted within the Southern Baptist Convention, but then, the structure of that denomination made the path to reform clear (not easy, just clear). What will it take to achieve something real and lasting in the Mainline? Oden addresses some of the difficulties in his book.
An American Baptist congregation I pastored in Indiana recently gave up on their decade long efforts (banded together with other likeminded churches) to see the long leftward slide of their denomination halted and reversed. Today they are Southern Baptist. If Oden is right, should I be happy or sad that they jumped ship?
Do any of you or your friends out there have experience with evangelicals “living in exile” within their Mainline denominations? What are your thoughts?
2 responses so far ↓
Ben Anderson // Feb 23, 2007 at 6:57 pm
This is a very interesting topic and one that I know plagues many conservative Christians in Denominations these days. My church had to answer that question in 1994. My church, a conservative rural Mennonite Church, found that a church within there denomination (The General Mennonite Conference) was accepting homosexuals as members of their church. The issue here was that the denomination was silent about this and did nothing about this church in anyway ( and still has not over 10 years later). The way our church decided to handle the matter was to have a vote on leaving the denomination before the congregation. They ended up getting a unanimous vote to leave the conference. Consequently all my view on what to do when you disagree with your denomination is to cut and run but that may not be the best thing to do. In one sense you will no longer have any impact and are letting your denomination stray misleading many people. On the other hand you are no longer supporting a cause that you do not agree with.
Dr. Mark DeVine // Feb 23, 2007 at 8:10 pm
Ben
It is a very difficult thing. I suppose each local congregation must pray and agonize and make its own decision. No easy answers in most cases I suspect.
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