squashed:

sds had an interesting contribution to an ongoing discussion (originally) about the role of faith in a democracy.

Generally, mainline denominations are more liberal in theology than conservative evangelical Christianity. While many mainline churches pay lip service to the orthodox creeds, in practice they tend to flout traditional/historical interpretation.

As one of those infamous main-liners, I have to take exception to this.  I would say that my denomination (PC-USA) pays very careful attention to all of church history and tradition.  We recognize that it is both rich and diverse.  My objection to certain voices in the evangelical community is that they often talk about church history without knowing any church history before, say, C.S. Lewis.

There is a lot of dissent within church history.  The Catholics pay very careful attention to church history as well.  So do the Eastern Orthodox.  The insight that the main-liners have is that what divides us is less important than what brings us together.  The main-line offers a large table, and is willing to give everybody a voice.  This does not mean that the beliefs of any are the beliefs of all, but it does mean that good-faith dissent is anticipated.  This allows a bit more self-reflection and internal critique than some denominations have.

Dissent, discussion, self-reflection and internal critique are all invaluable aspects of a healthy Church; no doubt all denominations could do better. But there’s a difference between “giving everybody a voice” and allowing heretical ideas (which have already been decided upon within historical orthodoxy) to be allowed or advocated as theological options. There are plenty of issues where orthodoxy ranges and dissent is perfectly allowable. Christ’s divinity, Christ as the only means of salvation, and the innerancy of Scripture, for example, are not among those. If these are optional, what is left of the Christian faith? Flirting with religious pluralism is a quick and easy way to make religion meaningless. Fortunately, it appears that most of those flirtations are limited to the national church leaderships rather than the laity—as documented in this immensely fascinating article.