Backward Mutters

Category: Church

  • A Shrinking Condundrum

    An Associated Press article which came out this week entitled,  Methodist survey aims to stop membership decline NASHVILLE, Tenn. — It’s the conundrum Protestant denominations with declining memberships and shrinking budgets are desperate to solve: How to stem the decades-long losses and attract new worshippers.The United Methodist Church, the third…

  • American Teenage Mutant Christians

     Thanks Nathan G for pointing to this. ( via CNN) — If you’re the parent of a Christian teenager, Kenda Creasy Dean has this warning: Your child is following a “mutant” form of Christianity, and you may be responsible. Dean says more American teenagers are embracing what she calls “moralistic therapeutic deism.”…

  • Are You Hip?

    Article in the Wall Street Journal by Brett McCracken earlier this week on hipster Christianity here. He concludes, “If the evangelical Christian leadership thinks that “cool Christianity” is a sustainable path forward, they are severely mistaken. As a twentysomething, I can say with confidence that when it comes to church,…

  • Camping and Community

    The first time I went to Carolina Hemlock Recreation Area was when I was the age of my 13 year old son — that was over 30 years ago. What is impressive is the significance of place for the establishment and longevity of community. I am connected to a network…

  • Cataracts of Nonsense

    In his sermon, “Learning in Wartime“, C.S. Lewis said the following: Most of all, perhaps we need intimate knowledge of the past. Not that the past has any magic about it, but because we cannot study the future, and yet need something to set against the present, to remind us…