The more I read from certain of the emergent movement, the more I get the sense that they simply want the world to know how much more clean they are than all those other nasty Christian religionists.

What a terrific and fruitful way to begin a movement! May they prosper, just as much as they wish all other Christians to prosper.

Whoa…there’s a mistake here that wants correction asap. The Episcopal Church and/or Episcopalianism is not a denomination and never has been. It is the expression or corporate presentation of Anglicanism in the US. I am perfectly aware that that error in naming has been going on for decades, just as I am perfectly aware that the confusion about essence really did not make a huge amount of difference, effectively speaking, until fairly recently. Now it does matter that we use correct labels, esp. about Anglicanism and esp as we find more and more Emergence Christians turning toward Anglicanism as the tradition not necessarily to affiliate with, but from which to draw tradition and heritage and praxis. Robert Webber’s EVANGELICALS ON THE CANTERBURY TRAIL of forty years ago was inaccurate only in that it/he lacked at that time the terms “Emergence” and “Anglimergence” and the perspective from which to separate evangelicals into their emerging tribes or sub-groups.

Tickle overlooks that the Episcopal Church, although technically belonging to the Anglican Communion, is functionally separate – and I expect, sooner than later, will be pruned from the tree. The development of the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) has accelerated the decline of the Episcopal Church, attracting many of the evangelical or conservative Episcopalians. Senior leaders in the Episcopal Church – perhaps even the Presiding Bishop – have thumbed their nose at Canterbury and said they are prepared to go their own way in order to lead a new movement of the Spirit (translation: Zeitgeist).

The most interesting point I learned is that the decline of mainline Protestantism didn’t begin in the 1960s but in the 19th century. According to Stark, two factors have contributed to the decline:

The first is modernist theology. The theology that prevailed in the mainline churches changed dramatically. If you take Paul Tillich’s view of God, in which God is essentially something imaginary, then why do you bother to hold a church service in the first place? If there’s nothing there to pray to, why do it? The liberal clergy lost their faith, but they continued to hold church.

The second factor was, when the clergy in the mainline denominations decided that they could no longer save souls — because there were no souls to save — they decided that they should save the world instead. They switched from religion to politics, and that was a politics of Left-wing radicalism.

It’s fine, of course, to be a Left-wing radical. But it was far out of step with the people in the pews. The people in the pews still believed in God, and the people in the pews did not believe that they needed a socialist government next week. Consequently, they stopped sitting in those pews and started going to other pews.

I tried attending an Episcopal Church in Santa Barbara but could not stay because week after week the rector’s message was indistinguishable from the agenda of the United Nations. When I go to church, I want to hear about the Gospel – not Leftist politics.