Comment on Evangelicals in the US vs Protestants ib Europe?

Nemo@slrpnk.net ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

There are a bunch of what are called “mainline” Protestant denominations in the US, which typically includes Lutherans, Methodists, Church of Christ, and by tradition Episcopalians (among others). These churches are part of a larger denominational heirarchy that provides them support but also sets bounds on their doctrine or behavior.

Evangelical churches are typically one-offs with no greater body of faith to report to, reducing accountability and oversight, and often no overhead organization providing funding, meaning they need to constantly raise money to be financially solvent. They also typically have a greater emphasis on evangelism, because they need to constantly recruit to maintain numbers, hence the name.

Mainline churches display a gradient of attitudes on social issues, from very progressive (United Church of Christ) to the very conservative (one of the Lutheran synods) but typically a church professing that denomination will fall into the same stripe as other churches in the denomination.

Evangelical churches are all over the place, though typically radical in some way. Most are very strict on sexual purity, but other than that it’s hard to predict. Some have women in leadership roles, some only allow men to preach. Some reinforce class heirarchies and some sel to abolish them. Some prioritize good stewardship if the earth and her creatures, some advocate dominion over it. Without a greater structure, it often comes down to the priorities of the founding members of that specific congregation.

Now to compare with the Roman Catholic church in the US. The RCC seems to vary somewhat from archdiocese to archdiocese with some leaning more progressive than others. When they do lean more progressive, it tends to be in areas like economic justice, ecological protection, and defense of immigrants (who make up a lot of the RCC in the US these days). They are still very backwards on anything related to sexism, misogyny, and reproductive health.

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