By Cathy Lynn Grossman
Could re-branding rouse the dwindling mainline Protestant troops?
The dozen church groups under the mainline umbrella — including United Methodists, Episcopalians, Evangelical Lutherans, Presbyterians (USA) and American Baptists — have been flagging for years. Mainline Protestants made up 18 percent of U.S. adults in 2008. Fifty years ago, its members were the church of the Establishment.
Scholar and Presbyterian pastor Carol Merritt recently suggested a new name might stem the slide, especially if it conveys the Mainline’s rising diversity and social justice leadership:
“I, for one, am tired of pretending that we want to hang out at the Country Club and eat cucumber sandwiches in fancy hats. We are not some sort of upper-crust elite society.”
So we wondered what a new name might be.
Read more at http://www.religionnews.com/2013/10/04/make-pick-mainline-protestants-need-new-name/
2 Comments. Leave new
I had never heard of Carol Merritt, but this quote is just priceless:
“I, for one, am tired of pretending that we want to hang out at the Country Club and eat cucumber sandwiches in fancy hats. We are not some sort of upper-crust elite society.”
Really, Ms. Merritt? You’ve been pretending that? Do you feel that most members of the PCUSA, across the land, have been pretending that? This article says you think that changing the label could stem the membership slide. Do you really think the millions (literally) of people who have left the PCUSA over the past half century have done so because they didn’t like an unofficial label that was sometimes used to describe their denomination? You think that’s why they left? Really? And do you really think many Presbyterians even know the term “mainline” might have originated with the Philadelphia Main Line?
I guess I’ve said “really” enough times. I’ll stop now.
Irrelevant?