IT TAKES A VILLAGE

"I and the Village" by Chagall

This week from the Life of Meaning text, we take a look at Protestantism or what has come to be called the "mainline" churches. Our faithful guide is none other than Martin Marty, religion professor and church historian.
He first sets out some characteristics of the mainline churches as to beliefs, individualism and community. He compares the aspects of the need for both individualism and community. I am reminded of the saying that the prerequisite for rearing an individual is: "It takes a village."
Marty then distinguishes the mainline churches from the evangelicals and fundamentalists who at one time all resided in the same house of worship. Finally, in a separate interview section, Marty speaks to his own religious tradition, Lutheran, and their occupation with the experience of the daily world about us.
Below are some of his insights:

"The central idea of Protestantism is a gracious God."

"There is a strong sense that you can be forgiven and start over."


"The Bible is full of inner contradictions."

"Come with a sense of questioning, with a sense of seeking authority but not thinking they've finally found it."

"A great level of personal responsibility" from the foreparents of Protestantism.

"The priesthood of all believers" 

"You need freedom...to come to the kind of decision that makes you a responsible member of the body of Christ."

The division in the nineteenth century that became drastic in the early twentieth was between social and personal ethics."

"There is great suspicion of ideology (dogma, doctrine) in the modern world...they aren't so moved by them. They are moved by story.

"and an impulse to have experience."

Walter Morton for Terra Incognita