One winter night in Brooklyn in 1974, Peter Berger and Richard John Neuhaus played a game. As Berger later recalled, “Neuhaus and I thought it would be fun to make a list of the major themes in mainline Protestantism that irritated us.” At the time, Berger was on track to become one of the greatest sociologists of the twentieth century. Neuhaus was the pastor of a church in Brooklyn and a prominent voice in the civil rights and anti–Vietnam War movements. Both were Lutherans deeply concerned about matters of religion and public life. Later they would say that they put into writing the “pervasive, false, and debilitating” notions which they believed were undermining contemporary Christianity and its influence in society.

Over fifty years ago, two dozen theologians met in Hartford and identified thirteen heresies threatening the church. You may find them familiar.