Perhaps the Popularity of Christianity Has Been Overstated for Decades
Even more interesting is that parents of today's teens and twenty somethings did not indoctrinate their children with the same zeal as previous generations. The parents of today's young poll "Christian" as well as "Catholic", "Methodist" "Baptist", etc. Yet, by the evidence in front of us they were not enthusiastic members of those branches of the faith.
An explanation of this apparent inconsistency is that the parents, for all practical purposes, had left behind the religion of their parents. Yet, there remained a perceived obligation with today's parents to identify as not only "Christian" but also as belonging to a branch of the faith.
Their children, however, feel no need or obligation to identify with either so they express in large percentages "no affiliation with any religious group". The short name for their choice is "nones".
For almost a decade now "nones" have been increasing the membership in most branches of the faith has been declining. All this time optimists in the faith have been saying this would turn around. When the "nones" started families, it is said, they will return to their church.
That prediction makes a dubious assumption. It assumes there once was a church today's young people identified with.
To me it is appears their parents did not identify with the faith as the grandparents did. Thus, today's grandchildren may feel the most comfortable "home" is no faith at all.
As a cheerleader for atheism and anti-theism, there is a certain joy in Jon's reporting of these facts. One need only look to the many years of railing against Christianity in his blog to understand his animosity towards Christians, Catholics in particular. The Fargo Forum chose to publish a rather benign blog post from this noted religious bigot. Fortunately, those of us who are offended by this practice are emboldened in our Faith and pray for Jon and people like him.
ReplyDeleteMatt 7:43 "...many years of railing against Christianity..."
DeleteShooting the messenger does not address what needs to be done by those in the faith. I'm doing a favor to folks like you by pointing out that the status quo needs to change.
Telling a Catholic like me about worldwide trends in Christianity is like telling a math professor that 1+1 is 2. We know.
DeleteYour issue is that you are a bigot. Nonetheless, my Faith compels me to pray for my enemies. After all, your eternity is at stake. So is mine.
As for the "status quo" I will only address the Catholic Church. In the Catholic Church we have teachings that will never changed. They haven't changed since the institution of the Church by Christ and we're assured that our Church will never teach error in Faith and morals. That does not mean that even the hierarchy will be sinless or even close to sinless. We've seen many tempted and given in to that temptation in not only sexual matters but in other areas of the Faith. In that regard the status quo is changing and will continue to do so, even it means a change in Bishops or Cardinals.
DeleteYour concern for the Church is noted. I'm sure you won't feel offended if you are not invited to the meetings where changes are discussed and decided upon. I know I won't be offended at my own lack of an invitation.
While you are busy cleaning up the Catholic Church and the numerous Christian denominations, you might focus a bit on your pagan, atheist and anti-theist groups. You know, the ones with sex scandals in Congress, in Hollywood, in schools, in corporate America. Then there are the violent groups like antifa and BLM which are clearly not Christian-based. Include that all the serial liars trotted out by the Democrats during the Senate Judiciary hearings, the withholding of certain information until the 11th hour by US Senators, etc.
Miss your column Jon .. what is interesting to me is the faithful still keep that believing
DeleteIn forever without ever considering the actual meaning .
Just because one doesn’t belong to a religious group or denomination, it doesn’t mean you aren’t a Christian nor void of faith and spirituality. As someone who attends a non-demonitional Christian church often, I would have checked the none box on saidstudy of some people of some New York City high school demographic (which may produce entirely different results if conducted in the Bible Belt). This is misleading and also ignores the potential that people may identify as being not religious but still consider themselves to be Christians or spiritual.
ReplyDeleteI understand how offended Matt must be -- after all, without the moral leadership of the Catholic church, and the religious right in this country, how will young folks learn what is right or wrong?
ReplyDeleteBeasec, you bring up an interesting point in your effort to be critical of the Catholic Church. Where does a young person learn right from wrong? From TV, from the Xbox, from the Internet? Without any doubt, right from wrong is taught in Church, in reading the Bible, from parents, from friends and in schools. Schools can be awful places to learn morals but they can also establish some basic moral precepts like not cheating on tests, showing respect for others in the classroom, etc.
DeleteYou don't offer any alternatives to the Church or the "religious right" (your words) so I assume you don't have any alternatives.
The world would be a better place if people followed the Ten Commandments.
It is instructive to recall that, once, there was no Catholic Church. It was borne out of a Resurrection of a condemned Nazarene by the name of Jesus Christ. His followers were few. His apostles were mostly martyred after His death and Resurrection. Those who carried on his Gospel message were tortured, brutalized, terrorized and ostracized. They persisted. They kept the Faith. They nurtured the Faith. Today, the Catholic Church stands at around 1,000,000,000 members worldwide.
ReplyDeleteIf today an anti-Catholic force were to murder the Pope and a dozen Cardinals, burn the Vatican and drive out all from Vatican City, turn it over to the Muslims or some other group, the Church would still persist.
Christ never stated exactly how many would enter the kingdom of Heaven, only that the Resurrection guaranteed Heaven was open for all who follow Him, take up their cross and do their best to lead good lives in the model of Christ.
The Devil exists to steal souls from Christ.
Matt 8:46 "...It was borne out of a Resurrection of a condemned Nazarene...His apostles were mostly Martyred after his death and Resurrection..tortured, brutalized, ...."
DeleteThat is, if all that actually happened. It appears all or most of it was made up. It is so similar to tales repeated in earlier religions some of us are skeptical.
Jon, if you are looking for the demise of Christianity, as your recent thesis suggests, I offered proof of how Christianity rose from a single man 2000 years ago. Whether it is made up (as you state without proof) or genuine (as I state with spiritual but not scientific proof), there is no denying it actually happened. Even you can't deny that.
DeleteTherefore, Christianity was borne from one Man, one God, 2000 years ago. A decline in that growth in modern times is not unexpected even if it is unfortunate. So, instead of licking your chops and beating your chest, how about acknowledging reality? As of today, we're starting from about 1,000,000,000 Catholics and a few hundred million other Christians.
Imagine the pending persecution of the European Catholic Church that is going to unfold in the next 1-2 decades. That will probably lead to a revitalization of Catholicism. How about the growth of Catholicism in other parts of the world?
I harken back to the words of Anthony Quinn in his role as an archbishop in "The Shoes of the Fisherman?
George Faber : Do you see any hope then for the day when Christian faith, or more specifically the Roman Catholic faith, may be practiced freely in Marxist countries?
Kiril Lakota : I have no inside information as to how the Kingdom of God is going to be established.
Or this gem when discussing Karl Marx.
Kiril Lakota : Mr. Chairman, what is your revolution built on? What is Russia's revolution built on? One man who spent most of his life in the British Museum who is buried in a tiny cemetery in England. Karl Marx never carried a gun, he was never fought on the barricades. All he had was words, words and an idea, which in 60 years has changed the face of the earth.
Christians have been trying to destroy the Church for centuries. The Church will last to the end of time. When your lights are turned out, where will you go?
"The Church will last to the end of time." That is, of course, your opinion. All religions of the past have eventually died. Nevertheless, some form of Christianity may survive a long time as has Hinduism and Paganism. Pagans were beaten up, their temples destroyed by Christians and yet some Pagans remain.
DeleteJon, let's test your statement, "All religions of the past have eventually died." It is a blatant lie and the proof is simple.
DeleteJudaism - dead or alive? There are millions of Jews. Alive.
Now let's pile on a bit.
Islam - dead or alive? There are a billion Muslims. Alive.
Catholicism - dead or alive? The are a billion Catholics. Alive.
Hindus, Buddhists, Protestants - all alive.
Does it matter when a liberal lies? Apparently, not.
I wish I could say you were doing stand up comedy. But, I know you really think you are putting up actual arguments. How long has Judaism been alive on the planet? What percentage of the history of humans has it existed? The answer is between 2 1/2 % and maybe 5%. All the religions that existed before Judaism died. Same with all the others, they are recent. The religions before them died.
DeleteEven when caught in a blatant, obvious lie a person like Jon will try to talk his way out of it.
DeleteMatt 6:23 "Even when caught in a blatant, obvious lie a person like Jon will try to talk his way out of it."
DeleteYou are referring to my blog statement all ancient religions prior to Hinduism, Judianism etc died out. There exist today cave drawings that are dated as early as 40,000 years ago. Much later than the first humans which were 200,000 to 300,000 years ago. The cave drawings depict half man and half animal as well as animals doing things they could not possible have done. These obviously reflected some kind of spiritual thoughts or visions in the minds of people back then. I have never heard of religions alive today where these particular depictions live on as worshiped or "sky gods". I call them dead religions.
Now, I will hedge my statement that all religions from pre history are dead. From what we know all, or nearly all, religious ideas and notions are adaptations of previous notions. Christianity itself took several ideas from previous myths, the resurrection and virgin birth for example, and built its own myths on top of it. The early Christian writers were skilled at this. They used fake names as authors to give their stories authenticity. This was spelled out well in Bart Ehrman's classic work, "Forgery and Counterforgery: The of Literary Deceit in Early Christian Polemics."
another great post Jon, keep at it!
ReplyDeleteJon, your columns are always thought provoking. Thank you for that. An added bonus is that is doesn't take much for you to get under the skin of Matt Noah. It provides a lot of entertainment seeing him tie himself up in knots. Have a great day and keep writing! :)
ReplyDeleteShari 3:47 Thanks for the comment.
DeleteOh my, what a breath of fresh air this is. Thank you for thinking beyond.
ReplyDelete