The Church of SpongeBob

We recently ran an article about the United Church of Christ -- the group that didn't want to demand that its ministers believe in the divinity of Jesus.

We’ve run across a rather irreverent commentary on the General Synod of the denomination, held earlier this month.

The 1.2 million member United Church of Christ (UCC) became the first major Christian denomination in America officially to endorse same-sex nuptials, when its General Synod met July 1-5 in Atlanta.

The General Synod also targeted Israel for sanctions (forgetting, among so much else, the philo-Semitism of its Puritan forbears) and opposed Israel’s new security wall. And for good measure, it opposed privatization of Social Security, opposed President Bush 2006 budget proposal, urged the United States to support the International War Crimes Tribunal, and advised Bush to nominate a “moderate” Supreme Court justice.

The UCC didn’t say yes to every proposal. It rejected a resolution defining marriage as the union of man and woman.

And the UCC decided to remain Christian! It voted to affirm its continued belief in Christ and to retain a cross on its official logo.

The UCC attracted major media attention late last year with its controversial television ads featuring bouncers outside a church turning away racial minorities, the disabled, and a same-sex couple. The implication was that the UCC, unlike other churches, was inclusive and tolerant.

Despite the UCC’s boasts of inclusivity, it has lost nearly one million members since 1960. It lost another 30,000 last year alone. The ongoing membership hemorrhage notwithstanding, the UCC’s president celebrated his denomination’s “extravagant hospitality” and “evangelical courage.”

The UCC is rather typical of “Mainstream Protestantism:” a denomination dominated by very liberal church bureaucrats, with declining numbers of people in the pews, chasing after the fads of the secular politically correct crowd, going through the motions of Christianity.

The future of Protestantism clearly belongs to more conservative denominations and movements.