The utter failure of Christian influence.

RDKirk said:

The South deliberately intended to institute the society of ancient Greece, one part of which was "you sit in you station of life by the will of the gods."

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Amazing what happens when humans use God for their own purposes and not His. Anyone can call themselves a Christian but few understand being one runs contrary to the ways of this world we have made in our own image

It occurred to me recently that this wing of conservative Christianity (I genuinely can't tell if it's more the conservatism driving this or the Christianity) suffers from a lack of self-confidence, which it tries to make up for by seeking control and validation. I suspect it's partly that insecurity that leads it to being an ineffective witness.

We've already discussed the control aspects, but regarding the validation - look at how these folks latch onto any celebrity who'll give them the time of day. I recall noticing it when I was a kid, whenever a celebrity would so much as mention God, there's be a bunch of hopeful chatter about whether so-and-so was a Christian, which struck me as odd, because the same group was also pretty quick to label as "not really Christian" any sect that didn't hew closely to their preferred doctrine. Like, Catholics aren't really Christian and Mormons... lol no.. but now you're all atwitter about some celebrity who, for all you know, may be praying to a bunch of crystals? The first name I can recall being attached to this phenomenon was Brian Welch from Korn (as if anybody in these fundie circles was a fan of Korn prior to that), though I know he wasn't the first.

More recently, there's been Scott Baio, James Woods, and Kevin Sorbo. Donald Trump was a step up from them, but not a big one.

These are the people at the front of your movement? Really?

I think this insecurity has also influenced the ways in which this segment has interacted with other elements of culture including media and academia. For a long time, Christian music was just a poor quality knockoff of secular music. That's changed somewhat as production techniques have improved, P&W has carved out a niche for itself, and a lot of popular music has turned to drivel; but Christian film and tv are still abysmal, which is sad, because they don't have to be. A Christian indie filmmaker is never going to be able to compete with a vfx-heavy tentpole release, but they should have no problem at all putting out the sort of well-written, lower-budget dramas that high brow film types love. The Christian faith is loaded with themes that get explored in these films all the time.

Ditto with academia: instead of actually doing the research and putting in the work to develop a solid body of academic literature, they run away to their own enclaves and put out material to be consumed by layfolk ignorant of the subject matter.

If you don't have confidence in yourself and what you believe, how are you going to convince others of it?

iluvatar5150 said:

If you don't have confidence in yourself and what you believe, how are you going to convince others of it?

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Perhaps it is an insecurity rooted in knowing that this version of Christianity is a self feel good sham. It is an appropriation of Christianity to validate personal political bias, self-centeredness and has very little to do with Christ.

Akita Suggagaki said:

Perhaps it is an insecurity rooted in knowing that this version of Christianity is a self feel good sham. It is an appropriation of Christianity to validate personal political bias, self-centeredness and has very little to do with Christ.

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eh... idk about that. IME, they believe their version of Christianity is real; they just act like it's fragile because they don't have the tools to explore it and apply it. The movement tends towards to a top-down dissemination of information, spoon-feeding the adherents everything they need to know and rejecting thinking or research that questions the dogma, going so far as to label contradictory ideas as not merely incorrect, but corrosive to the very fabric of the faith. "Research" constitutes reading apologetics books that start with a conclusion and cherry-pick evidence to get there. There's a very strong affinity for certainty and a rejection of anything that would cause doubt; and when you already know all the answers, you don't spend much time thinking about the work it takes to arrive at those answers, which means you can't very well adapt it to new situations or teach it to others.

The following dawned on my after my last post about differing denominations and even churches working with each other.

In the SE US you have (in very rough figures) between 100,000 and 130,000 churches and 55 to 60million people that identify as Christian.

Great!! That's a HUGE army to spread Christian influence! Right?! Well, not so fast....

An army requires some kind of leadership from top down and cohesion to accomplish whatever missions it has. That doesn't exist for churches and Christians on that scale.

At best, what you would have are 100,00 to 130,000 tiny armies. The soldiers armies would be made up of a sub-set of those 55 to 60 mil (25 to 29 million) that attend church. Each tiny army may do anything from a lot to nothing to spread Christian influence in their area. The remaining roughly 29 million soldiers are "lone wolves", not part of any army (church). Again, they may do something, or nothing, to spread Christian influence.

JustaPewFiller said:

The following dawned on my after my last post about differing denominations and even churches working with each other.

In the SE US you have (in very rough figures) between 100,000 and 130,000 churches and 55 to 60million people that identify as Christian.

Great!! That's a HUGE army to spread Christian influence! Right?! Well, not so fast....

An army requires some kind of leadership from top down and cohesion to accomplish whatever missions it has. That doesn't exist for churches and Christians on that scale.

At best, what you would have are 100,00 to 130,000 tiny armies. The soldiers armies would be made up of a sub-set of those 55 to 60 mil (25 to 29 million) that attend church. Each tiny army may do anything from a lot to nothing to spread Christian influence in their area. The remaining roughly 29 million soldiers are "lone wolves", not part of any army (church). Again, they may do something, or nothing, to spread Christian influence.

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There may not be an official church head, but there are plenty of religious media figures who hold enough sway that they could function as a sort of de facto leader.

iluvatar5150 said:

There may not be an official church head, but there are plenty of religious media figures who hold enough sway that they could function as a sort of de facto leader.

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You ever try to herd cats or chickens?

Herding Baptists is about the same, except they Baptists tend fight among themselves more. More than cats even. I was surprised at that...

JustaPewFiller said:

You ever try to herd cats or chickens?

Herding Baptists is about the same, except they Baptists tend fight among themselves more. More than cats even. I was surprised at that...

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And yet, many of them seem to fall in line when told.

iluvatar5150 said:

which means you can't very well adapt it to new situations or teach it to others

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The Kingdom was rejected early on and people were taught to follow worldly institutions rather than said Kingdom. The end of this world as we know it is a split between the Kingdom and adversity where the Kingdom will know adversity no more, two separate worlds, like Heaven and earth when adversity was cast out eons ago. A new split which we personally get to choose and prove our allegiance by our actions here and now. There are no loopholes.

iluvatar5150 said:

It occurred to me recently that this wing of conservative Christianity (I genuinely can't tell if it's more the conservatism driving this or the Christianity) suffers from a lack of self-confidence, which it tries to make up for by seeking control and validation. I suspect it's partly that insecurity that leads it to being an ineffective witness.

We've already discussed the control aspects, but regarding the validation - look at how these folks latch onto any celebrity who'll give them the time of day. I recall noticing it when I was a kid, whenever a celebrity would so much as mention God, there's be a bunch of hopeful chatter about whether so-and-so was a Christian, which struck me as odd, because the same group was also pretty quick to label as "not really Christian" any sect that didn't hew closely to their preferred doctrine. Like, Catholics aren't really Christian and Mormons... lol no.. but now you're all atwitter about some celebrity who, for all you know, may be praying to a bunch of crystals? The first name I can recall being attached to this phenomenon was Brian Welch from Korn (as if anybody in these fundie circles was a fan of Korn prior to that), though I know he wasn't the first.

More recently, there's been Scott Baio, James Woods, and Kevin Sorbo. Donald Trump was a step up from them, but not a big one.

These are the people at the front of your movement? Really?

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Regarding people we select to look up to:

“He must manage his own family well and see that his children obey him, and he must do so in a manner worthy of full respect.
He must not be a recent convert, or he may become conceited and fall under the same judgment as the devil.”
-- 1 Timothy 3:4-6

A lot of christians admire celebrities and public figures and will be quick to defend them and demand you give them a chance while withholding grace from their own. I think many of these public confessions are nothing more than marketing or deception. Christians have a lot of spending power and companies want a piece. They're not opposed to paying someone to appease the audience if the end result is sales or the success of their agenda.

~bella

bèlla said:

I think many of these public confessions are nothing more than marketing or deception.

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You mean like proclaiming rehab or seeing the light will get them out of a court date and we are to accept that as a given. Actors all.

Maine Progressive said:

Yes, we really do differ. I do not subscribe to a morality which places credal morality ahead of results based morality. By credal, for example, it is argued that chastity is the only moral path. Therefore, as you point out, there may be sinful underage intercourse occurring but reduced by birth control pills. The sinfulness makes it worse even if the harm is avoided. This I can't agree with. I do think parents and their children and society should seek to build a healthy and emotionally stable understanding and responsibility about the subject at an early age. And I would never fault anyone who chose chastity as a path. But for an underage girl having chosen chastity and then becomes pregnant, I don't fault the child. I fault the people who sold her that line of thinking. I don't think inflexible chastity with resulting increase in underage pregnancies is moral.

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The point is avoiding sex in the first place is what prevents the pregnancies. If we go back to the same region or any region where they perhaps were more in line with Christian morals and teen sex was less prevelant we see far less teen pregnancies.

If your measure is that high stats on teen pregnancies is evidence of the region being being less Christian or not practicing Christian values. Then the low stats for teen pregnancies in the past when they thought teen sex was wrong is evidence of Christianity working.

One of the main reasons teen pregnancies are down in secular regions is because of contraception and abortion. Are you saying we should promote contraception and and abortion and ignore abstenance as a way to reduce teen pregnancies.

iluvatar5150, #145​

What do you know about the multiple Mormon gods? Temple ceremonies?

stevevw said:

The point is avoiding sex in the first place is what prevents the pregnancies. If we go back to the same region or any region where they perhaps were more in line with Christian morals and teen sex was less prevelant we see far less teen pregnancies.

If your measure is that high stats on teen pregnancies is evidence of the region being being less Christian or not practicing Christian values. Then the low stats for teen pregnancies in the past when they thought teen sex was wrong is evidence of Christianity working.

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What stats? I already showed you that teen pregnancy rates in the 1940’s were double what they are now. Was the US less Christian then?

One of the main reasons teen pregnancies are down in secular regions is because of contraception and abortion. Are you saying we should promote contraception and and abortion and ignore abstenance as a way to reduce teen pregnancies.

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You’re just wrong. It’s been widely reported that sexual activity has been on the decline for years:

Rescued One said:

iluvatar5150, #145​

What do you know about the multiple Mormon gods? Temple ceremonies?

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I heard something about magic underwear?

iluvatar5150 said:

One, unless you have some stats to back this up, you don't know that secular society is more sinful in this regard.

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Are you saying that a society without God is just as sinless as one with God. ? If Christianity is the teachings of Christ and the disciples in Christ is just as sinful as secular ideology without God and those teachings then what is the use of those teachings ?

According to this logic there is no difference and in fact the teachings make for more sinners compared to secular ideologies without God. One would have to ask what is the basis for this.

To even make the claim that secular society is just as sinless or righteous we would needsomemoral basis. Which is appealing to and using Christian moals to even make a measure of morality as secular ideology has no basis for morality in the firsdt place.

If we look at the best example of Christianity at work then we can cite the early church after Christ. There was little to no divorce and teen pregnancies comparedto the secular pagan society who thought affairs and sex outside marriage was the norm and good. The only reason these things increased was because people stopped following the early church example and stats.

iluvatar5150 said:

Two, your perspective on divorce and godliness is extremely naive. Equating divorce rates with healthy marriages ignores all of the problems and all of the abuses that were hidden by the social pressure to stay married. Staying in an abusive relationship because nobody will rent you an apartment or let you open a bank account without a man present is not an indicator of high moral virtue; it's an indicator of victimhood.

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I think this is a false equivelance and conflating a non Christian idea with Christianity. Abusing women in marriage is also not Christianity. If we look at the Godly marriage as taught by Christ and the disciples we see Gods perfect marriage as the measure where the husband sacrifices himself in love like Christ for His church.

There are many good Christian marriages like this throughout history. You can't assume that any marriage that lasted was based on the wife staying with an abusive husband.

iluvatar5150 said:

This just isn't true. We absolutely did have more violent crime in the past. In the US, violent crime rates peaked in the early 90's. Globally, this is the most peaceful the world has ever been.

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The 20th century has been the most bloodiest in history. I don't think comparing the 90's with today is a true indication. Its still part of the decent of humans away from God and the incorporation of secular ideologies.

iluvatar5150 said:

Wars of conquest like what Russia is doing in the Ukraine are fairly rare now, whereas as recently as 80 years ago, they were commonplace, even by good "Christian" nations. Also more common then were other forms of abuse committed by governments against minority groups.

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I regard the entire 20th century as the worst in history as far as wars and conflicts. At present there are over 120 wars or armed conflicts around the world.

But what is even worse is that for western Christian nations there is a culture war that has been brewing over the last 20 odd years which has coincided with the rejection of God from the public square. Secular ideology has risen and has led to a direct conflict and attack on God and Christianity. Something the bible predicts asthe beginnings of the final great war between satan and Christ.

iluvatar5150 said:

Teen pregnancies in the US are lower now than at any time on record:

https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R45184

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I don't think just looking at stats gives us the full picture of why and how this happened. For one what is the basis for rises and declines in secular morals for lower pregnancies in teens. Its not morality as there is no basis for morality in secular ideology.

The rise of the Pill led to sexual freedoms like no other time where women could have protected sex. But generally more sex occured as a result of the sexual revolution. Abortion also allowed more pregnancies to be aborted. Including the increased availability of the morning after pill. So the rise in murdering innocents helped reduce teen pregnancies as this group would be the most likely to take the pill.

iluvatar5150 said:

Teen birth rates in 1960 were 7x higher than they are now. Back in 1940, they were more than double. That paper doesn't distinguish between married vs unmarried births, but I highly doubt that young marriages that were more common then would be enough to account for such a precipitous drop.

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Yes and the contraception pill came in the 1960s and coincided with a drop in all pregnancies. But if the true nature of teen pregnancies is sexual immorality then the sexual revolution and the pill masked the reality of increased sexual immorality and all its hartmful consequences.

iluvatar5150 said:

In fact, rates of all kinds of vices by teens have been dropping recently. That may be due to changes in socialization related to video games and phone habits, which may not be a very good tradeoff, but it's still noteworthy.

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No teens are having more sex today with the rise of contraception. We see the fallout in broken relationships and mental illness. The rise in porn and objectifying women as a norm with young people having access to online porn and other ideas about sex.

In fact if there is an actually decline in teen sex itrs because there is a rise in young people coming back to the church. Secular ideology has no moral basis to reduce sex. In fact sex is seen as a right to expressions of freedom of the self identity. We are seeing an increase in pedophelia and all sorts of weird sexual taboos like sissy porn ect. All said tyo be normal expressions and rights for sex.

Teen pregnancies is a symptom of the underlying decay or moral standards and attitudes towards sex. So using pregnancies is a false measure of the underlying problem or losing our moral compass in regards to marriage ans sexual relations.

Religious revival: Why young people around the world are finding faith again
From digital spirituality to gendered divides, faith seems to offer meaning and identity where secular culture has fallen short.

iluvatar5150 said:

Greed can manifest in a number of ways. Oppressing your lessers is also a form of greed, and that's been a hallmark of southern American society since the very beginning - first in slavery, then in Jim Crow, and even now in its anti-welfare and anti-labor efforts.

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Historians widely acknowledge that the Democratic Party was the political home to Southern segregationists who supported slavery and passed Jim Crow.

This led to identity politics and the culture wars.