{"id":24556,"date":"2014-06-16T13:11:04","date_gmt":"2014-06-16T17:11:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/?p=24556"},"modified":"2014-06-16T13:11:04","modified_gmt":"2014-06-16T17:11:04","slug":"the-third-law-of-mainline-protestantism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2014\/06\/the-third-law-of-mainline-protestantism.html","title":{"rendered":"The Third Law of Mainline Protestantism"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone  wp-image-24557\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/exploringourmatrix\/files\/2014\/06\/The-Third-Law-of-Mainline-Protestantism.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"672\" height=\"504\"><\/p>\n<p>The above is based on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2012\/12\/the-third-law-of-theology.html\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\">the earlier meme image I created for the \u201cThird Law of Theology\u201d which states that \u201cFor every theologian there is an equal and opposite theologian.\u201d<\/a>\u00a0I made it in response to some comments made by a mainline Protestant on Facebook about mainline Protestants, which reflected a different experience of this broad and diverse tradition than my own. And that, of course, is precisely what the above is intended to illustrate \u2013 the range of viewpoints among mainline Protestants is surely so diverse that it reflects the entire spectrum of Christianity. And that is potentially both a strength and a weakness.<\/p>\n<p>With there having been so many famous mainline Protestants, I had a hard time deciding whom to choose to illustrate the contrast. But two figures who represent a rejection of vs. involvement in the seeking of military solutions seemed as good a choice as any. If N. T. Wright did not have such a strong Evangelical bent, I suppose that I could have made one with him and John Shelby Spong. But denominationally that contrast would work just fine.<\/p>\n<p>What other figures could be included in such a meme, to indicate the contrasts in and diversity of mainline Protestantism?<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The above is based on the earlier meme image I created for the \u201cThird Law of Theology\u201d which states that \u201cFor every theologian there is an equal and opposite theologian.\u201d\u00a0I made it in response to some comments made by a mainline Protestant on Facebook about mainline Protestants, which reflected a different experience of this broad [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":24557,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42,164],"tags":[2008,2742,6878,6880,7062,8194,13394],"class_list":["post-24556","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-humor","category-protestantism","tag-colin-powell","tag-diversity","tag-mainline-protestantism","tag-mainline-protestants","tag-martin-luther-king","tag-non-violence","tag-violence"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Third Law of Mainline Protestantism<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The above is based on the earlier meme image I created for the &quot;Third Law of Theology&quot; which states that &quot;For every theologian there is an equal and\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2014\/06\/the-third-law-of-mainline-protestantism.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Third Law of Mainline Protestantism\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The above is based on the earlier meme image I created for the &quot;Third Law of Theology&quot; which states that &quot;For every theologian there is an equal and\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2014\/06\/the-third-law-of-mainline-protestantism.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Religion Prof: The Blog of James F. McGrath\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/religionprof\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-06-16T17:11:04+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"James F. McGrath\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@ReligionProf\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"James F. 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