"Christian Post: Mainline Protestant pastors more likely to be liberal than their congregants - It’s been this way for over a century. And the same is true in evangelical churches too."
The latter assertion here rings false to me. Yes, if you're a conservative Evangelical who places a high priority on orthodoxy, then Twitter will supply you with a limitless stream of disheartening worldly compromises made by Evangelical pastors somewhere in America. But there are TONS of people in Evangelical churches (especially megachurches) that are far to the left, theologically and politically, of what their pastors are saying openly. And my guess is that there are many pastors whose unspoken beliefs are more conservative than they are confident asserting in front of their congregations. Generally, I think pastors, both liberal and conservative, mislead as to their true beliefs mostly through omissions, not through openly lying about things they claim to believe in but don't.
Here's an illustrative example that was quickly forgotten: a few years back, the pastor of Church of the Highlands, Chris Hodges (who, despite leading a top megachurch, has always had a rather small national profile) got in trouble for liking some TPUSA Twitter posts. Which seemed out of character for a seeker-sensitive church that cultivated its apoliticism, that wasn't too focused on culture war topics, and that had a fairly high black attendance. My guess is that Hodges is the opposite of the more-liberal-than-he-appears Mainline pastor: his instincts are politically much more conservative, more troubled by leftist culture war advances, than he lets on, and for a moment he let the mask slip. But he thinks more people will be brought to Christ by projecting a more -- dare I say, "winsome" -- image for his church, which is why he bent over backwards to apologize.
The trend of pastors being left of their congregations is so well established that I'd be very surprised if it weren't true in the PCA. Some of James Davison Hunter's research showed the higher education was highly correlated with more liberal views, and by definition the pastoral class is more highly educated than their flock.
I can believe you're right about the PCA. Average age: 59, and a denomination that selects for orthodoxy in its members, both by being smaller than PCUSA and by being a denomination that one with an explicit interest in orthodoxy is disproportionately likely to consciously select in the first place.
My comment is going to apply most strongly to non-denoms and quasi-non-denom SBC megachurches, which I'd call the statistically modal Evangelical experience. Much younger and bigger than conservative Presbyterianism is.
To a first approximation, you can probably guess at the conservative/liberal gap just by comparing age of lead pastor to average age of congregants.
On Trevor Bauer, who for what it's worth I didn't remember until he started trending this week:
1. Agree 100% that a man who disciplines his sexual urges will not end up in that situation.
2. I saw a lot of evangelical types on Twitter/X who were content to say that he and the woman involved were both equally guilty of sin. The charitable conclusion I came to is that those types are lazy and don't want to do the work of discerning that in severity of sinfulness, fornication < fornication + bearing false witness + slander. But I'm sure there's also some reluctance to admit that women are capable of doing evil.
To your first point, all pro sports leagues have education seminars for players to help them avoid women like the one Trevor Bauer ended up with. From what I have read a lot of agents try to do the same thing with their own guys. Part of Bauer's problem may have been he was always standoffish with teammates and didn't have trusted friends around him who could warn him about this woman.
I first read about it in Sports Illustrated something like 20 years ago. Here is a recent article I found about what the NBA does. A lot of it is financial literacy, they let them know how much they are going to pay in taxes and encourage traditional investments rather than your buddy's new business, etc. The initial article I read talked about warning them about groupies and women trying to take advantage of them. This one doesn't mention that, but I assume they still cover it. The one I found for baseball says the teams only send the guys they think are the most likely to get called up to the majors. Seems like a lot of guys could miss out on it that way. ESPN ran a special on former pro athletes going broke around 10 years ago too. At one point the rate in the NBA was close to 75% filing bankruptcy after their careers ended. Child support payments are a major reason why.
"Christian Post: Mainline Protestant pastors more likely to be liberal than their congregants - It’s been this way for over a century. And the same is true in evangelical churches too."
The latter assertion here rings false to me. Yes, if you're a conservative Evangelical who places a high priority on orthodoxy, then Twitter will supply you with a limitless stream of disheartening worldly compromises made by Evangelical pastors somewhere in America. But there are TONS of people in Evangelical churches (especially megachurches) that are far to the left, theologically and politically, of what their pastors are saying openly. And my guess is that there are many pastors whose unspoken beliefs are more conservative than they are confident asserting in front of their congregations. Generally, I think pastors, both liberal and conservative, mislead as to their true beliefs mostly through omissions, not through openly lying about things they claim to believe in but don't.
Here's an illustrative example that was quickly forgotten: a few years back, the pastor of Church of the Highlands, Chris Hodges (who, despite leading a top megachurch, has always had a rather small national profile) got in trouble for liking some TPUSA Twitter posts. Which seemed out of character for a seeker-sensitive church that cultivated its apoliticism, that wasn't too focused on culture war topics, and that had a fairly high black attendance. My guess is that Hodges is the opposite of the more-liberal-than-he-appears Mainline pastor: his instincts are politically much more conservative, more troubled by leftist culture war advances, than he lets on, and for a moment he let the mask slip. But he thinks more people will be brought to Christ by projecting a more -- dare I say, "winsome" -- image for his church, which is why he bent over backwards to apologize.
The trend of pastors being left of their congregations is so well established that I'd be very surprised if it weren't true in the PCA. Some of James Davison Hunter's research showed the higher education was highly correlated with more liberal views, and by definition the pastoral class is more highly educated than their flock.
I can believe you're right about the PCA. Average age: 59, and a denomination that selects for orthodoxy in its members, both by being smaller than PCUSA and by being a denomination that one with an explicit interest in orthodoxy is disproportionately likely to consciously select in the first place.
My comment is going to apply most strongly to non-denoms and quasi-non-denom SBC megachurches, which I'd call the statistically modal Evangelical experience. Much younger and bigger than conservative Presbyterianism is.
To a first approximation, you can probably guess at the conservative/liberal gap just by comparing age of lead pastor to average age of congregants.
On Trevor Bauer, who for what it's worth I didn't remember until he started trending this week:
1. Agree 100% that a man who disciplines his sexual urges will not end up in that situation.
2. I saw a lot of evangelical types on Twitter/X who were content to say that he and the woman involved were both equally guilty of sin. The charitable conclusion I came to is that those types are lazy and don't want to do the work of discerning that in severity of sinfulness, fornication < fornication + bearing false witness + slander. But I'm sure there's also some reluctance to admit that women are capable of doing evil.
To your first point, all pro sports leagues have education seminars for players to help them avoid women like the one Trevor Bauer ended up with. From what I have read a lot of agents try to do the same thing with their own guys. Part of Bauer's problem may have been he was always standoffish with teammates and didn't have trusted friends around him who could warn him about this woman.
Boy I’d like to sit in on one of those seminars. Any idea what they teach?
I first read about it in Sports Illustrated something like 20 years ago. Here is a recent article I found about what the NBA does. A lot of it is financial literacy, they let them know how much they are going to pay in taxes and encourage traditional investments rather than your buddy's new business, etc. The initial article I read talked about warning them about groupies and women trying to take advantage of them. This one doesn't mention that, but I assume they still cover it. The one I found for baseball says the teams only send the guys they think are the most likely to get called up to the majors. Seems like a lot of guys could miss out on it that way. ESPN ran a special on former pro athletes going broke around 10 years ago too. At one point the rate in the NBA was close to 75% filing bankruptcy after their careers ended. Child support payments are a major reason why.
https://boardroom.tv/nba-rookie-transition-program/
https://www.mlbplayers.com/rookie-career-development
"This mentor saw a diamond in the rough guy and made it his business to polish him up. "
OK. You've spilled a lot of ink on how great mentors are and what they should do, but little to nothing about how to get one.
So far as I can tell, the most important part is to have some high ranking exec realize you have innate potential.
Barring some high level rando realizing your innate greatness, how can the rest of us poor schlubs get someone to believe in you and help?
"If mainstream society wants to reach men, it needs to elevate male voices"
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laconic_phrase#Uses