Monday, March 12, 2007

A Prairie Home Companion to Evangelical Denominations

Catholic apologetes often decry the number of Protestant denominations. This is their trump card to falsify the Protestant rule of faith (sola Scriptura).

However, our greatest living theologian—by whom I mean, needless to say, Garrison Keillor—has proposed a scientific taxonomy of Protestant denominationalism which is simplicity itself, and one that reduces the superficial diversity to just one fundamental difference. So, the next time a Catholic polemicist wheels out the tired old objection, refer him to the Keillor Classification System of Evangelical Denominations:

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Q: Speaking of Charleston, what is the biggest difference you've found between Midwesterners and Southerners?

A: Southerners are less cautious about bringing up unsavory things.

Q: Is that a nice way of saying we lack tact?

A: No, no, no. They're very tactful. Very polite. To give you an example, I was with a group of Southerners who brought up a man who had hung himself with a garden hose in his garage. I just can't imagine Lutherans discussing that.

http://v2.charleston.net/assets/webpages/departmental/news/Stories.aspx?section=preview&tableId=133394&pubDate=3/8/2007

1 comment:

  1. It may be an unfair exaggeration to say there are 30,000 unique denominations, as is sometimes quoted. Still, there ARE thousands, which is considerably more than 1 that existed a thousand years ago. Just the other day I was talking to someone from a major protestant group in the Phillipines, who among other wierdnesses, only partakes communion once per year.

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