I see it another way.

In Australia, trade unions have been largely been diminished in terms of raw power through numbers, yet Australia still retains some decency towards fair wages, albeit the climate is tougher these days and suits corporations more.

I think if the key tenants of religion for decency and so on are evident in the society, then declining numbers at churches do not matter.

Maybe you should write an article and discuss whether the moral fabric of our societies have fallen away over time.

Why not read these boundlessly "theologically" liberal essays instead.
http://www.dabase.org/up-1-1.htm
http://www.dabase.org/up-5-2.htm
http://www.dabase.org/up-5-1.htm
http://www.aboutadidam.org/articles/secret_identity The Secret Identity of the Holy Spirit of God

Thank you Spencer.

Guess what Spencer, I don't give a shite how many willfully ignorant positions you take! Or how many times you break the "rules" of grammar and syntax! Or your extreme right-wing/Neonazi interpretation of the Christian ethic?

And if you then destroy the very thing you claim as sacred with your brainwashed or willful misinterpretation of biblical text? So be it! I like many former Christians, I just don't care anymore

If the church would reform itself to better represent the teaching and example of the master and far more inclusive brethren, then it needs to see you and yours as a cancer that needs to be cut out of all Christian establishments!

Take your sacrilegious poison and peddle elsewhere!
Alan B.

Where would one start with a response to Spencer Gear's accusatory article. Perhaps start gently by noting the change in church attendance from the 1960s from which time women entered the public workforce in greater and greater numbers. Should supernaturalist Christians send them back to domestic confinement? Is that superrnatural religion in practice? It was certainly the practice for nineteen centuries of Christian orthodoxy.

Then there are the biblical explanations for such events as earthquakes, famines, wars (and massacres). There is no absence of supernatural theological explanations for these phenomena. Does Spencer Gear also deplore the contemporary silence on these texts in non-liberal churches?

And the biblical silence as regards domestic violence against women and children. That is another issue which liberals seem to be so upset about. Are we, being faithful to supernatural inspiration of the bible, to perpetuate the biblical silence in that area?

These are just a few immediate thoughts on the accusations.

Let’s look at Spencer’s arguments.

It does not require breaking grammar and syntax to take a “liberal” approach to the Bible. It just requires a non-literal interpretation of parts of the Bible. I don’t think Balaam really had a talking donkey (Numbers 22-24), or Than Jesus really wants us to hate our husbands/wives and children (Luke 14:26). Does Spencer?

Liberals do not deny Jesus' resurrection, though many deny it entailed the physical reanimation of Jesus’ corpse. There is Biblical evidence to support this. The failure of disciples to recognise Jesus on the Emmaus road (Luke 24:13-35), Mary mistaking him for a gardener (John 20:11-18), and Matthew’s admission that some disciples “doubted” that they were seeing the risen Jesus (Matthew 28:17) all suggest the resurrected Jesus was not a physical continuation of the pre-crucifixion Jesus. If I thought my best friend had died, but then she knocked on the door, I would recognise her instantly.

It’s true that if I took all of the Bible as literally binding and valid for modern Christians I would be ashamed of some of its content. So should Spencer. Do we really think that rape victims should be forced to marry their assailants (Deuteronomy 22:28-29), that menstruating women should be kept apart from society (Leviticus 15:19-30), that disobedient children should be stoned to death (Deuteronomy 21:18-21), and that polycotton trousers are a sin? (Leviticus 19:19 - ok, that one may be debatable).

It’s true that mainstream churches that lean towards theological liberalism are losing members, while some smaller denominations are holding ground or even growing. But that doesn’t mean liberalism is wrong, still less that fundamentalism is right.

Spencer considers liberalism to be heresy, but apart from a largely irrelevant excursion though the word’s etymological evolution, he gives no evidence of that. The literalism and supernaturalism of fundamentalists, along with their fierce insistence than only they are able to interpret scripture correctly, looks to me much more like the sects and heretics of old than most modern theological liberals.