Anglicans / Episcopalians, Lutherans are all not going to exist in 50 years. They have allowed their beliefs to be interpreted in any of 100 different ways, and to be used as cloaks for ever-changing secular purposes. They stand for everything and nothing at the same time. The Catholic Church must continue to point out clearly - who is following the faith, and who is not.
***Anglicans / Episcopalians, Lutherans are all not going to exist in 50 years.***
Well, certainly not in any sort of numbers. There will be splinter groups scattered about the landscape, though, who will claim to be the true church.
***The Catholic Church must continue to point out clearly - who is following the faith, and who is not.***
It is one of our responsibilities, given to us by Jesus and the Holy Spirit, along with the authority to exercise them. Authority is not given to any Tom, Dick or John who happens to wander in out of the rain.
The more conservative Lutheran bodies, such as the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod and the Wisconsin Synod, Evangelical Lutheran Church, have a longer life expectancy than the liberal Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Epsicopalianism will survive only in the conservative splinter groups, either Anglo-Catholic or evangelical, and as a refuge for the Catholic Left, as long as Benedict XVI and his successors continue to adhere to traditional Catholicism. It may also survive as a refuge for rebels against conservative evangelicalism. Homosexuals, lesbians, and various metrosexual types do not reproduce, and therefore leave no human legacy. The old Robber Baron era trust funds that kept the Episcopal Church and other old line denominations afloat are no longer sufficient to keep them running in an era of diminishing membership and contributions. Recently, an Episcopal seminary in New York City had to sell a portion of its urban campus to developers just to stay afloat financially.
Theological liberalism is as much a dead end with respect to financial matters and long term survivability as it is with respect to spiritual matters.