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Immorality in the Church

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Carl Emerson

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FireDragon76 said:
The parable of the wheat and the tares isn't even necessarily about people in the Church. It's a reiteration of the themes in the prophets, especially Daniel.
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Yes the field is the world but that doesn't mean tares stop being tares if they come into fellowship - Paul speaks of folk who have departed fellowship and considers them unsaved.
 
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FireDragon76

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Carl Emerson said:
Yes... but it is not a 75% problem unless I see evidence to the contrary.
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In the US, it's not that hard to believe. They've done studies of credit card transactions and a surprising amount of traffic occurs in the Bible Belt here.
 
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Carl Emerson

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FireDragon76 said:
In the US, it's not that hard to believe. They've done studies of credit card transactions and a surprising amount of traffic occurs in the Bible Belt here.
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Yes I appreciate that, but what % of folks in the Bible Belt are Christian leaders?
 
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FireDragon76

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Carl Emerson said:
Yes I appreciate that, but what % of folks in the Bible Belt are Christian leaders?
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Low. However, I don't think pastors or ministers differ that much from the general population.

I am skeptical of the 75 percent figure myself. According to Barna, about half of all pastors view porn. That seems much more credible.
 
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Carl Emerson

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If your claim is correct we are witnessing a seriously sick church...
 
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FireDragon76

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Carl Emerson said:
If your claim is correct we are witnessing a seriously sick church...
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In the US, at least.

Alot of what is preached here is more like self-help mixed with reactionary political conservativism, and maybe a little smattering of God or Jesus. The US has had a cult of self-help for at least a century. Norman Vincente Peale brought it into the Christian mainstream in the US in the 50's, and it became a cornerstone of alot of the church growth movement in the 70's.

In some sermons I have watched on Youtube, the sermons now are almost entirely political theology based. The message seems to be, to be saved means voting the right way.
 
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FireDragon76

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Carl Emerson said:
I think one of the reasons for the demise is that the church growth movement resulted in the appointment of multitudes young pastors thus bypassing a whole generation of more senior candidates.
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I think it's alot more ugly. There was alot of watering down of religion, allowing felt-needs of politically-conservative leaning Americans to drive the agenda, to the exclusion of traditional Protestant religion. Now that the Boomer's kids are growing up, they don't necessarily share their political views or even goals in life (Boomer's were extremely materialistic, somewhat security oriented, Gen Z tends to have different goals that are harder to define. Some have said they are "post-materialist"). So Gen Z are dropping out of church altogether in large numbers.

All that's left in some churches are people trending older (Gen X or older tend to still go to church here, though perhaps not every sunday) and/or more politically conservative, that have been mostly surrounded by this kind of conservative felt-need version of religion and see anything else as "woke".
 
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