Traditional churches: less conservative than contemporary churches?

It depends on the denomination, the leaders, the region, the church, and the community. We were Southern Baptist and the contemporary churches were slightly more laid back when it came to things like music, dress code, and other modern inventions, but their theology on things like female leadership and homosexuality wasn't a whole lot radically different than the "traditional" churches that didn't embrace dressing down, praise bands, etc.

Where I live, the more traditional a church, the more notorious they are for their extreme bigotry - especially the "fundamentalist independents." One church I attended briefly was basically a living/breathing Jack Chick tract.

It's all bells and whistles. They make it seem like it's a progressive place. "Come in your jeans. Bring your coffee. Bring your dog. Whatever. We have an electric band and our pastor has an earring."

They change the image but not the ideology. They're trying to change what church means in terms of tradition, but they don't budge with what they believe.

It's akin to a restaurant that overhauls the furniture but leaves the menu the same.

Some of the older denominations started to become more liberal back in the 1960s, 70s, and 80s. They tend to have pastors who went to a divinity school that takes academics seriously, so they are familiar with the Documentary Hypothesis and don't take the Bible as the literal word of God.

I think it was because of this that the more conservative Christians split off into other denominations, some of which became megachurch or praise band style churches.

The church I grew up in is now a mega church with free coffee and wifi, a worship leader that runs and jumps around and skits and videos and pyrotechnics ... but yes, they won't let women be pastors and they disapprove of gays etc... After that I attended a UMC church where we did liturgy, sang hymns with an organ and the pastor wore a stole and there were acolytes etc. But they have the most progressive values, accepting of LGBT and have been involved in things like Black Lives Matter. I don't know what accounts for this trend but I've noticed it as well.

I hadn't noticed that trend, but I also didn't attend churches at the extremes you mentioned. It's an interesting theory.

I suppose it could be that the traditional churches aren't actually more progressive; it's just that traditional views are so ingrained that they don't really have to think about or enforce them. When asked about female preachers or other issues, they can shrug and say, "Uh, sure?" because it's never been an issue and they don't expect anyone will ever change that. Contemporary churches, on the other hand, are actively trying to mingle with the rest of the world and constantly run into modern social norms telling them that their views are unacceptable, so they feel the need to be more vocal and adamant about those views.

Alternately, I keep hearing that there used to be a much more progressive branch of Christianity, but it largely died out as a political entity when evangelical Christianity organized itself into a movement. Perhaps these traditional churches are a remnant of that?

Every situation is unique, but I think its possible that the public message of more traditional churches may be less focused on culture war issues. If so, that would likely be due to the average age of the target audience. Those traditional churches have relatively few teens, college students, and singles that ever attend, thus you're much less likely to hear someone at the pulpit railing against homosexuality, abortion, or premarital sex. Such a church may find it a challenge just to keep their doors open, and as a result they really can't afford to turn anyone away. On the flip-side it's much more likely that you'll get harassed by the local church busybody who gets his/her nose in everyone's business.

This is just my own speculation. The older denominations (Catholic, Orthodox, mainline Protestant) have been around for centuries. They've been through many political and cultural changes. As a result, the things that they care about the most are their core theological concepts that define their denomination: the nature of God, Christology, soteriology, hamartiology, ecclesiology, and so on. These are foundational topics that aren't at the mercy of the current political outrage. Liturgy is often an important part of these older churches, so they use more traditional worship styles and don't see a reason to change every few years to conform to the culture.

In contrast, evangelical and fundamentalist denominations tend to be newer (less than 200 years old with many springing up in the last few decades) and are often products of cultural or political shifts. Therefore, they tend to focus more on these issues rather than the underlying theology behind them. This is why many evangelical denominations join together on matters like gay marriage, even though they may differ significantly on the doctrine of salvation (which is far more important from a theological perspective). These newer churches have fewer ties to church liturgy and tradition, but they want to spread their views to as many people as possible, so they use contemporary worship to get more people in the door.

Since Rush Limbah and neonconservatism in the 1980's churches have become more politicized and skizms between " libtards and fundies". In the past churches were a lot less inclined to take political positions. Now days its normal for modern churches to have republican=christian positions. Historical denominations like Luthern or Presbyterian which branched off Catholicism have a much more broad academic/critical view of christianity, more of a symbolic non literal personal spirituality thats seperate from politics. While modern evangelical christianity is all about black and white thinking. The traditional denominations have already been thru multiple historic social values/cultural pendulum swings back and forth thru the decades and are wiser for it.

I definitely have. Before I fully deconverted, I attended a Disciples of Christ church in South Carolina. It was fully traditional in terms of hymns and service structure, but the pastor was a woman whose vehicle was covered with Obama bumper stickers. I was married in that church, and even though I'm atheist/agnostic now, I honestly wouldn't mind visiting again. It was a very peaceful, friendly place that did a LOT for the poor and needy in the community.

The problem with faith is that if you truly believe it, you do exactly what the book say's. I mean hell is a shit place to be!(of course it doesn't exist, but you know what I mean). So my experience was that a young "hip" pastor would join that truly believes and actually tries to teach Christianity from the bible. Which is riddled with things like gays are bad and woman should be silent.

I would interpret it as the older denominations fearing falling into obscurity, and revamping their policies to stay relative in a modern, progressive society.

The newer "praise band" churches have just that: the rockstar image. They don't necessarily need to change their policies, because they draw people in with the relaxed picture that they paint for everyone to see, and retain members with that surface-level praise & worship high.