Peter Corney is a leading evangelical Anglican in Melbourne. He takes a look at Anglican decline and especially the decline of the Anglo-Catholic movement within the Anglican church.
Here is his (edited) list of trends that have contributed to Anglo-Catholic decline:
1. Anglo-Catholics drifted away from the credal and biblical orthodoxy of its founders and gradually embraced [...]
Scott Stephens offers a lament to the lowest common denomination — his own Uniting Church of Australia.
Unfortunately the trend goes back even further than Scott realizes.
The decline of the Protestant mainline in America began over 150 years ago. It has continued ever since, picking up momentum since the 1960s.
We don’t really need more evidence, but here it is courtesy of George Barna’s latest report.
A generation ago the Protestant landscape of America was dominated by the six major mainline denominations (American [...]
In 1927 Robert Wilder resigned and returned to the mission field. He was the first and last of the founding leaders. The Student Volunteer Movement continued to distance itself from the missionary ideals that had launched it.
At the 1928 SVM convention in Detroit, Sherwood Eddy publicly repudiated the founding vision of the movement: “The Evangelization [...]
How are we to account for the decline of a once great missionary movement? One important factor was the acceptance of a more “relevant” gospel.
Just before World War I, the Social Gospel movement led by theologians such as Walter Rauschenbusch (above) began to influence the thinking of the Student Volunteer Movement. It became a dominant [...]
During the 1920s the Student Volunteer Movement suffered its first reverses.
The first quadrennial convention following World War I was held at Des Moines, Iowa, in 1920. This was the year that the SVM reached its zenith. Attendance climbed to 6,890 at the Des Moines Convention. Within twelve months 2,783 students enrolled as missionary volunteers.
It was [...]
I recently encountered a group of denominational leaders who held views on biblical authority and sexual ethics that were diametrically opposed to the vast majority of their members and churches.
How is such a situation sustainable? Easily.
Most of the members are unaware of the views shared by their denomination’s leadership. The conspiracy of silence is maintained [...]
Jim Collins has a new book out on the fall of great companies. Here’s what the slippery slope looks like:
Stage 1: Hubris Born of Success
Stage 2: Undisciplined Pursuit of More
Stage 3: Denial of Risk and Peril
Stage 4: Grasping for Salvation
Stage 5: Capitulation to Irrelevance or Death
Movements become institutions and institutions decline. The mighty today are [...]
According to Phillip Jenkins, the particular shape of Christianity with which we are familiar is a radical departure from what was for well over a millennium the historical norm: another, earlier global Christianity once existed. For most of its history, Christianity was a tricontinental religion, with powerful representation in Europe, Africa, and Asia, and this [...]
Photo: Brendan Esposito
The Sydney Morning Herald reports that Niall Reid, the head of the Uniting Church in NSW, has implored his church to start selling its underutilised churches, manses and halls and give the proceeds to the poor and disadvantaged.
Faced with dwindling congregations and conceding the church could all but disappear in 30 years, the [...]
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