A Trend Predicted in this Blog May be Happening
For several years here in this blog I've argued that liberal versions of Christianity ultimately would survive while conservative ones would fall by the wayside. When I first started saying this conservative numbers, especially among the Pentecostal branch, held their own or were rising while liberal branches were rapidly falling.
Numbers back seemed unsustainable to me. I remember asking how irrational thinking could outrun rational? That is, how could more belief in invisible beings and in magical thinking outrun information and religious practices aliened with current reality? It seemed inevitable survival in the faith would remain people who were casual about religion and who enjoyed its social life. Emotional ties to irrational thinking would slowly fall.
Over time years numbers in conservative and Pentecostal churches began to fall like those of the liberal branches. Now, there is the first glimmer that a small sliver of conservative church attendees is sliding to liberal denominations. I don't want to overstate this--reported numbers of church attendance/membership are self reported and could be unreliable. Further, social changes do not move in a straight line and reverse themselves often. And, my source for this is from an article based on interviews with young people which may or may not reflect the broader population. Those who did the interviews found people explaining the change in a way that makes sense.
A part of respondents say is that the marriage of conservative Christianity with conservative politics is unattractive. Keeping religion in its box away from politics is as popular an idea today as it was in 1797 when our Constitution was drafted.
This is an exciting time to be watching religion.
keeping religion in its box. a curious statement, that. perhaps, then, you could spell out what keeping religion in its box means to you and your "freedom from religion" friends. how do you define "box". to what extent would religion, however defined, be eliminated from the public square. would there be a religious test for holding public office? would churches, qua churches, be allowed to influence public policy? how would your "box" policy play out against the free exercise principle? don't you think that you have a responsibility to consider and to respond to questions such as these?
ReplyDeleteIt sounds like with Freedom From Religion / atheists, there is no difference between corporate/ institutional freedom and private / individual freedom to express.
DeleteOther things to consider;
A. If one knows who is "Mainline", who is NOT.
B. What is the definition of "conservative",
C. What is the definition of " liberal".
D. What is the definition of "responsible",
E. Is Pentecostal Truly "conservative"
F. Is "casual religion" sustainable.
G. Define "casual religion".
Unknown--If you like government putting into law religious views on when life begins or who should be allowed to marry you will really like the Mayor of Wiley, Texas. He sites 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 and 1 Timothy 2:11-12 to rule women can not be allowed to pray before City Council meetings.
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