I havent spent enough time around liberals to know

I suspect, though, that what you call parasitism they would call rescuing from Fundamentalism. It all depends on your perspective, you see. The absolutely best sermon I ever heard on the Holy Spirit was given by (ironically) a Unitarian minister, who talked about the growth of the conservative churches. He said that this was due to the fact that the conservative churches make clear demarcations between holy living and worldly living. I'm not so sure this is entirely true, in fact – a lot of conservative churches seem to want to adopt modern culture uncritically – but I think he's right that any church that identifies itself wholly with the culture around it is unlikely to flourish. This is likely to be the danger of liberalism, just as refusing to see good in the secular world is the danger of conservatism. (Meaning, in both cases, that this is an unfortunate tendency rather than a foregone conclusion.) On the other hand, I think that a liberal church that sufficiently indicates its disagreement with the surrounding culture can do quite well indeed. I suspect that the churches that are most in danger are the middle-of-the-road churches that are comfy and unchallenging. Those churches only flourish in societies where church-going is part of the culture. Once church-going ceases to be part of the culture, they're in danger. In the D.C. area, the Episcopal churches that are flourishing are liberal, Anglo-Catholic, or evangelical. All of these churches tend to have strong social outreach programs. Middle-of-the road churches (lord, it's 3:30 a.m. and I can't remember the technical term for those churches, but you know what I mean), which often confine their social outreach to an annual bazaar, are losing their members rapidly. Heather [E-mail]   [Home Page]