c. 1997 Religion News Service

(Pamela H. Long, a writer and teacher, is a former religion reporter for the Mobile Register in Mobile, Ala.)

UNDATED _ A caller once asked me a question that has dogged me ever since. Why, she asked, did she keep seeing the word”mainline”attached as an adjective to some church bodies and not others _ especially her own Southern Baptist Convention.”Why don’t they consider us Baptists mainline?”she asked.”After all, we are the largest Protestant denomination in the country.” She had me cornered there.

Her question reminded me of other instances when my use of the term was misconstrued or caused confusion. Once in a conversation, for example, I referred to a certain church as not being among the mainline denominations. My listener thought I meant it was a cult _ a label equally subject to differing constructions and connotations.

In my mind, the term”mainline”means all of those historic Protestant churches that flowed from the Reformation _ Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Methodists, Congregationalists, Lutherans.

You know, where the pastors wear robes, the choir members wear robes, and it’s easy to fall asleep during the sermon.

That’s true to a point. It turns out that”mainline”is really a convenient term we journalists use because we think everyone knows who we’re talking about when we use it.

But scholars have stopped using it because it’s too”problematic,”says E. Brooks Holifield, a professor of church history at Emory University in Atlanta.”It’s clear that the term `mainline’ bears a certain evaluative weight. It sort of sets certain denominations at the center and makes others marginal,”he says.

Holifield says the term arose as a way to designate those Protestant denominations that had”numeric and cultural dominance” in America during the 19th century.”They were the institutions that at one time spoke for American Protestantism,”he says.

But that’s no longer exclusively true.

The term”mainline”also causes problems because its definition will vary regionally, Holifield says. A group that has been large and powerful in one area _ say, Latter-day Saints in Utah _ might be considered”mainline”there but not in other regions of the country.

The historic”mainline”denominations are also the ones suffering the greatest losses of membership, while Mormon, Roman Catholic and Southern Baptist memberships are growing. Some critics now refer to the”mainline”churches as”sideline.” The Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches defines”mainline”as”liberal denominations with predominantly white memberships.”That’s no help, since predominantly black churches like the African Methodist Episcopal Church are among the most culturally influential in the country.

Since Baptists and other”non-mainline”groups are those eclipsing the old”mainline”churches in growth, Holifield suggests some new term may have to be invented _ or redefined _ to designate the culturally and numerically strongest churches.

Another word to define the old”mainline”churches that some historians and sociologists have been using, Holifield says, is”ecumenical Protestants,”which he says signifies those denominations that”recognize the equality of other Christian groups, that don’t make a claim that they have any kind of special purchase on the truth, or that their origin is freed from or transcends the flow of historical development.” Well, that may leave those robe-wearing”old stuffy”denominations but it still looks down bespectacled noses at some very culturally significant churches _ like my caller’s Baptists.

Certainly, the Baptists probably should be considered a”mainline”denomination simply because they now meet the numbers and cultural impact requirement. In the South, author Edward L. Queen says, they are”the center of gravity.”

MJP END LONG