Each of Us Finds Our "Personal Truth"

There is a regular stream of studies by the Barna research group. This organization is Christian.  At least its founder and director, George Barna, testifies as such. Barna says he founded the organization because other survey groups were asking banal questions like, "Are you a Christian?" He wanted questions that dug into people's thinking, "Why do you believe this (or that)." His surveys have plotted the drop in orthodox Christian views. Perhaps a question remains as to whether views on gods, etc. have changed or that new questions are being asked that would have had the same answers years ago. The most recent Barna survey found people are establishing their own version of what is seen and unseen and what a good person does or does not do.

While we cannot predict the future, there are things that are very unlikely to happen. One that I think very unlikely is the return of an influential church with influential leaders. To believe this part of the old orthodoxy will return is like believing the genie can be put back in the bottle.

We know there have always been skeptics, including non believers, of Judaism and later Christianity. What has changed is the inside the communities of believers the clergy were trusted as was the faith's version of it history. Today, there is much less uniformity inside the faith. 

Evidence in the Catholic denomination of "Personal Truth" is the falling away of the confession ritual. While in previous decades there was a lot of agreement among Catholics this ritual was important and meaningful, the agreement is no longer present. Most Catholics today feel they are qualified to determine what is or is not sin and are quite certain they will handle the consequences just fine. Clergy are welcome to mind their own business.

When it became common in our society to question authority, one of the authorities first to fall was the clergy.