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.
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.
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.