Pew report shows American Christian numbers in decline

awitch said:

I'm dumbfounded that in 2015 there are Americans who think their personally chosen religious beliefs entitle them to discriminate against fellow citizens for failing to pass their personally designed and arbitrary morality tests.

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It's called freedom. There is a limit to what the regime should be able to do with your life. I am amazed that some people can't seem to appreciate such a basic concept--until it happens to them, that is. When it does, many suddenly become anarchists or libertarians.

Albion said:

It's called freedom.

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Not for the people the Christians are discriminating against. But there going to hell anyway, amirite?

Albion said:

It's called freedom. There is a limit to what the regime should be able to do with your life. I am amazed that some people can't seem to appreciate such a basic concept--until it happens to them, that is. When it does, many suddenly become anarchists or libertarians.

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And it is also freedom when Christians are refused service at businesses too, right?

As far as the original intent of this thread goes, when it is mentioned that church attendance/membership numbers are on the decline, or that there are fewer Christians in the US my only real response is, "So what?"

It's not that I don't care. And I think there are reasons for it that should be addressed that I think often aren't. It's that I've never considered faith to be a game of numbers. Christianity began, basically, as a group of twelve nobodies. People leave the Church/leave the faith for all sorts of reasons, and those different reasons can and ought to be addressed in different ways.

Sometimes it's just that someone though raised in a Christian home just never really took that faith seriously and so, as an adolescent or in their early 20's didn't feel any reason to stick around, they didn't have a bad upbringing in the Church, it's just that faith didn't "stick" as it were. Sometimes, as in the Parable of the Sower, the seed hits the soil and withers before it takes root, or start to takes root and dies. Sometimes people who never really take their childhood faith seriously do, later in life, come back.

Many times people are driven out of the Church because, let's face it, the Church can often be her worst enemy. There is a quote often attributed to St. Augustine, "The Church is a harlot, but she is also my mother." The Church exists as a paradox of faithlessness and faithfulness. She is at once unfaithful, and like Israel of old chasing after false promises and idols; and at the same time she is a mother to all the Faithful, the instrument by which God brings us into His family by Baptism, nourishes us with the Word of the Gospel, and feeds us the body and blood of Christ in the bread and wine of the Supper. The Church is both rightly criticized for its failure to look after the poor, the weak, the abused, and the broken--but the Church has also been there in the trenches feeding, clothing, and housing the poor, the weak, the abused, and the broken. Faithless and faithful. The paradox that is true of the Christian--simul iustus et peccator (simultaneously saint and sinner)--is true of the Church as a whole. We confess in the Creed that she is the Unum Sanctum (the One Holy), the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church; but very often her actions are far, far less than holy.

I have a number of friends who are no longer Christian or, at least, no longer church goers. One my closest friends left the church because the youth pastor and other leadership of the church, effectively, told him he was unwanted (this was when he was a teenager)--this is also the same church that kicked my family out when I was only a child. Many times we've spoken, and he has been frank that he never stopped believing in Jesus, but that the church wrecked him spiritually.

I also see what many churches have become due to things like the Church Growth Movement. The whole point of the Church Growth Movement is that church "growth" (i.e. new numbers) is a measure of spiritual competence. Programs are designed specifically to bring in new faces, these are often larger or mega churches, the sorts you will find with book stores and gift shops inside the narthex, where the entire worship service is designed as a concert light show, where every attempt is made to appeal directly to the emotions of people and manipulate them into coming again and again. Some stay for the long run in these churches, but I imagine burn out results in a high rate of overturn. Particularly when rather than focusing on being and doing church the focus is on membership numbers, and maybe join a small group (or maybe not, depending on what sorts of cliques exist).

Being now a member of a Mainline Protestant church (ELCA) I can understand how numbers drop. I think our church can seat maybe 200 people, and we only have a packed house on Easter Sunday, most Sundays there's somewhere between 40 and 50 people on average. And aside from a few college students and a couple of families, I'm arguably one of the youngest people I see on any given Sunday. My church isn't exciting, it's just church. We don't have concert light shows, we have a small choir and an organist, and we sing hymns like:

"To be your presence is our mission here,
To show compassion's face and list'ning ear.
To be your heart of mercy ever near,
Alleluia!

To be your presence is our mission bold,
To feed the poor and shelter homeless cold,
To be your hands of justice right uphold,
Alleluia!"

A great little hymn, but not exactly this (thank God!):


But I would say, fortunately, there are many younger people who honestly want substance over show, and the big mess in the video above isn't the sort of thing that can last the test of time.

-CryptoLutheran

bhsmte said:

And it is also freedom when Christians are refused service at businesses too, right?

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Sure.

Albion said:

Sure.

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Easy to say when about 70% of the population identifies as Christian and 95% of the government identifies as Christian.

ViaCrucis said:

We confess in the Creed that she is the Unum Sanctum (the One Holy)

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I did a double-take when you wrote that because I immediately thought of the Papal Bull Unum Sanctam where Pope Boniface claimed political power over all of Christendom.

smaneck said:

I did a double-take when you wrote that because I immediately thought of the Papal Bull Unum Sanctam where Pope Boniface claimed political power over all of Christendom.

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Didn't even think of that. Though I imagine that encyclical is so-named for the same reason I used it; "Unam Sanctum" is just shorthand Unam Sanctum Catholicam et Apostolicam Ecclesiam, in the Latin translation of the Nicene Creed.

-CryptoLutheran

awitch said:

I'm dumbfounded that in 2015 there are Americans who think their personally chosen religious beliefs entitle them to discriminate against fellow citizens for failing to pass their personally designed and arbitrary morality tests.

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You seem to imply that because it's 2015 we therefore live in the enlightened period of mankind... Rather ironic considering that you choose this thread lamenting the fact that Modern liberal freethinking Christianity is on the decline, while the Christian religions who continue to hold to a more rigid dogmatic lifestyle are actually on the increase; i.e. Mormons, JWs, SDA?
There is nothing new under the sun.... Immorality and morality in all its definitions has always existed from the beginning.
You get me wrong... I do not believe people are "entitled" to discriminate, I just agree with their right to choose for themselves whether they will do so... as long as there are alternatives out there.
I myself as a Mormon do not drink, smoke, do illegal drugs, gamble, believe in gay marrage, shop on Sunday, etc. However I have always advocated that we do away any such laws which deny people the freedom to make these choices on their own.

It's called Freedom, a freedom to choose, (within reason of course as I am not advocating anarchy) and we believe that even God will not take that right to choosefrom us, so what gives you the right to say you can? After all, how are you going to implement your beliefs if Ido not agree with them? Force me to comply by threatening to take away my physical freedom, or my freedom to engage in commerce with whoever I want?
That is the contradictions of enlightened modern America. And as I said if I am to error, I will always error on the side of personal freedom.

Theway said:

You get me wrong... I do not believe people are "entitled" to discriminate, I just agree with their right to choose for themselves whether them will a do so as long as there are alternatives out there.

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So do you oppose the Civil Rights Act?

Theway said:

You seem to imply that because it's 2015 we therefore live in the enlightened period of mankind...

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Better than when we had segregation. And most definitely better than the bronze and iron ages. We have a long way to go, though.

You get me wrong... I do not believe people are "entitled" to discriminate, I just agree with their right to choose for themselves whether them will a do so as long as there are alternatives out there.

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There's no difference. You agree that people can be allowed to discriminate by denying service to anyone if they fail an arbitrary purity test based on the proprietor's personally chosen religious beliefs. How about first responders? Should a Christian police officer or medic be allowed to refuse service to a gay person or non-Christian? If not, are the Christian first responder's rights not as important as a Christian baker's?


I myself as a Mormon do not drink, smoke, do illegal drugs, gamble, believe in gay marrage, shop on Sunday, etc. However I have always advocated that we do away any should laws which deny people the freedom to make these choices on their own.

]quote]It's called Freedom, a freedom to choose, (within reason of course as I am not advocating anarchy) and we believe that even God will not take that right to choosefrom us, so what gives you the right to say you can?[/quote]

The Civil Rights Act.

After all, how are you going to implement your beliefs if Ido not agree with them? Force me to comply by threatening to take away my physical freedom, or my freedom to engage in commerce with whoever I want?

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The government fines you for violating the law. The law you would have agreed to when you established your business that provides public accommodation.

That is the contradictions of enlightened modern America. And as I said if I am to error, I will always error on the side of personal freedom.

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Yeah, YOUR personal freedom (at the expense of the freedom of other citizens)

smaneck said:

So do you oppose the Civil Rights Act?

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That depends... Which part? And who is that part of the law impacting?

Theway said:

That depends... Which part? And who is that part of the law impacting?

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I'm talking about the whole thing. And what difference does it make who it is impacting?