Liberal Branches of the Faith are Trying to Push Back



A group of liberal Baptist preachers recently formed a group, not a denomination, to push back against Christian Nationalists. Many of the preachers serve mostly black churches. They are almost missionaries in a foreign country. 

Religious conservatives often crow about the loss of numbers in denominations like Presbyterians, Episcopalians and Lutherans. It is true their numbers have dropped dramatically. Numbers in conservative denominations like Catholics and Southern Baptists have dropped dramatically as well. What is unknown is where the numbers will be ten or twenty years from now.

I find the You Tube channel "Mormon Stories Podcast" so interesting I watch it too much. There, former Mormons tell of their loss of trust in the information provided about the origin of the denomination, The tale of Joseph Smith finding tablets telling him to start the denomination is so blatantly stolen from Moses' stone ten commandments it is laughable. All to the polygamy in the denomination's history and one has a story easy to doubt. The numbers leaving are huge. 

Why would people with any critical reasoning ability accept the Bible? While the Bible's tall tales supposedly took place some thousands of years ago and this may make them more plausible, they are no more believable than Joseph Smith's stone tablets and God's message to him he should have sex with several wive. It seems to me the literal Bible will run into the same brick wall as Mormonism and be scoffed at in the same way. 

In a sense, the liberal branch has a long-term advantage over conservatives. It does not have to defend walking on water as a historical fact. Yet, the liberal wing faces the same head winds as conservatives. It's economics. People in the U.S. have limited time and money. In the past they gave a lot to their churches. Now the competition is stronger and religion is losing.  

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