Why Christendom Starves Spiritually

● In Christianity and Crisis (edited by U.S. Protestantism’s most renowned theologian, Reinhold Niebuhr) Congregational Minister Clarence Kilde defends three Wisconsin pastors who were tried for doubting some Lutheran dogma. Preacher Kilde suggests that the three might not have got into trouble if they had been “more concerned with building financial and membership statistics. After all, a sister synod of the Midwest, the Evangelical Lutheran Church, has reported establishing a new parish every 18 days. . . . Go ahead and repeat the Apostles’ Creed, but be sure to be oblivious to people’s inarticulate disturbance over the meaning of the creed. At denominational headquarters it is statistics that are important, not spiritual sincerity or theological integrity.”—Time, January 2, 1956.