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This book underlines the unique nature of present-day mainline Protestantism. While Killinger bluntly examines the urgency of the current situation, he does not sensationalize it. Killinger notes that inasmuch as mainline churches for so many years established the social and political norms in our country, as well as the spiritual norms, any crisis in their existence becomes a major crisis in modern Christendom, and, by extension, in American life as a whole. In the opening chapters of the book Killinger creates a general understanding of the malaise now affecting our churches. He then extrapolates from that understanding a sense of the moods and feelings affecting the people in America's congregations. Answering the question of what influence the disintegration of the mainline church has on the psyche of the persons attending these congregations, he places the preacher in a better position for thinking about preaching and what its hallmarks must be in order to speak truly and effectively for the gospel in our time.
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