Kenneth A. Briggs

Regarding a 'mainline' slide (yet again), a noted journalist raises questions to ponder

Regarding a 'mainline' slide (yet again), a noted journalist raises questions to ponder

A previous Religion Guy Memo looked at Canada's spiritual landscape as it celebrates its 150th anniversary.

That item provoked an e-mail response worth pondering by journalistic analysts. The writer is Kenneth A. Briggs, a competitor and friendly colleague as religion editor of The New York Times during the Religion Guy’s early years writing for Time magazine’s religion section. Briggs, also an award-winner for his work at Long Island Newsday, later became a college teacher, book author and independent journalist in varied media projects.

Importantly for this context, Briggs is a certified mainline Protestant as a Yale Divinity School graduate and an ordained elder in the largest U.S. mainline denomination, the United Methodist Church (which granted him a “special appointment” for journalistic work).

First, Briggs asks whether the Religion Guy was “suggesting cause-and-effect” in stating that  both Canada and the U.S. “show remarkable losses for ‘mainline’ churches that have floated leftward”? These Protestants’ gradual numerical decline and liberal shifts this past half-century are established facts, but Briggs says the two could be simply “coincidental,” rather than that liberalism caused decline.

The Guy -- yes -- meant to imply that a shift toward more liberal doctrinal beliefs was one contributor to the unprecedented membership losses, with breakaways by local congregations, outright schisms, and individual members switching to other options or forsaking church altogether. Meanwhile, conservatives often held steady or gained adherents (though note the past decade’s smaller, but significant, decline for the staunchly conservative Southern Baptist Convention). 

Briggs calls that scenario -- linking doctrinal changes and numerical decline -- “evangelical boilerplate.”

The Guy must quickly add that factors other than liberalism played into church trends.


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Seriously: Is the Bible so 'dangerous' it should be banned? What about burned?

Seriously: Is the Bible so 'dangerous' it should be banned? What about burned?

NORMAN’S QUESTION:

The Bible is the most-purchased and least-read book of any. What can we do to discourage the reading of this dangerous book? The medieval church kept it wisely in Latin. The damned Protestant Reformers wanted everyone to read it and look what evil that has accomplished!

Shall we burn it? Shall we prevent it being sold? I am serious.

THE RELIGION GUY’S ANSWER:

The Religion Guy would have ignored this one except for the last three words above that require us to take this seriously. Norman’s prior postings to “Religion Q and A” indicate he’s quite knowledgeable about intellectuals’ attacks against biblical Jewish and Christian tradition. With a tiny faction such thinking turns to hatred or intolerance toward Scripture (at a time when devotion to Islam’s Quran expands in secularized western natiuons).

If Norman is “serious” the answer here is easy. No, “we” won’t be doing any such thing, even if “we” are not Bible fans, certainly in the U.S. given the Constitution’s freedoms of publishing and speech. (However, upholding, defining, and applying the freedom of religion guarantee is hotly contested.) The right to publish and read the Bible in common languages was a hard-fought freedom centuries ago. Access fostered widespread literacy and is normally regarded as a boon to civilization.

The theme is timely in this 200th anniversary year of the American Bible Society, which has distributed 6 billion copies, and next year’s 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation. Yes, both the Reformers and the society “wanted everyone to read it.”

Reverence or at least respect toward the Bible remains strong.


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