Reston Patch notes that "Reston Interfaith" is changing its name of some 40 odd years. That prompts me to wonder the title.
Back in the middle 60's the ecumenical movement was all the rage among the established denominations. For a while it seemed all the big Protestant denominations would merge into one happy family. Running a Google ngram viewer shows two peaks for use of the term: one in 1964 and one in the middle 1870's. One could argue that the movement presaged the decline of these denominations; if their core beliefs were not unique, then there wasn't much point in choosing one over another. So instead we get the mega-churches, the service churches which don't push any specific theology I'm aware of, but which provide fellowship and community along with a diffuse spirituality.
(I wonder, from the above can one tell I'm an atheist with familial roots in a Calvinist theology?)
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