A couple of years ago United Methodist Bishop Sprague of Chicago called the imminent U.S. overthrow of Saddam "morally lamentable" and "theologically reprehensible." In Methodist theology, we must assume, it is morally lamentable to overthrow tyrannical murderers who are responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of their own countrymen.
Meanwhile, millions of Methodists, too morally untutored to appreciate the grievous wickedness of what Bush did, simply ignored their denominational leadership and voted in 2004 for the man who liberated 50 million Afghans and Iraqis from oppression.
Maybe one reason mainline protestant denominations are in decline is that the people who are supposed to be the sages of the church too often come across as shallow ideologues whose theological wisdom is pretty much informed by whatever the current liberal political fashion happens to be.
