Posted on 05/16/2015 6:43:47 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Last month, New Atheist God-hater Daniel Dennett wrote an op-ed column in The Wall Street Journal that used a Pew poll to argue that the future of religion is bleak. I responded with a column of my own in which I mocked this claim, since the poll Dennett relied on actually made mixed predictions about the future of religion in the United States and painted a fairly rosy picture of its next few decades around the globe.
Now Pew has released another major poll focused in much greater depth on the United States, and it's being widely interpreted as providing evidence that religion (or at least Christianity) is indeed on the decline in the United States.
So was Dennett right, at least about America? Is the future of Christianity in the United States bleak after all?
Short answer: Not necessarily.
A nearly 8-percentage point drop in those calling themselves Christian (from 78.4 percent to 70.6 percent) in just seven years is a big deal. If those numbers are accurate, Christianity is certainly shrinking in America at a rate that, if it continues over the coming years and decades, will produce profound cultural changes.
But we're not there yet.
At the moment, what we seem to be seeing is a dramatic retreat of Catholicism, which may be following mainline Protestantism into demographic decline. But the same cannot be said of evangelical Protestantism (which is growing in absolute numbers and down less than 1 percent — from 26.3 percent to 25.4 percent — in its share of the population as a whole).
(Excerpt) Read more at theweek.com ...
The Christian Church in CHINA is thriving after decades of massive repression
The coming repression in the U.S. should see a similar response.
Sadly, it is. Practicing religion takes faith and effort, two things which are in increasingly short supply in this country.
I don’t think we’ve been diminished, we just haven’t run out of cheeks yet. When we do run out of cheeks, then folks will be very surprised to see just how many of us there are and just how pissed off we can get.
“Is Christianity in America doomed?”
Only if God wills it.
“All those the Father gives me will come to me...”
John 6:37
Even in the face of the threat of death in IRAN the larger church is seeing a mass of .
they simply dont KNOW who they are messing with...to put it mildly
To my mind, Evangelicalism encourages a simple faith based following while the older Protestant and Roman Catholic denominations incorporate stronger and more complex apologetic, theological and historical foundations. That is why I am not so sure Evangelicalism holds the key to the stability or growth of the Christian faith. People tend lose their Evangelical faith before they do a faith based on an reasoned foundation of belief. If the Catholics and mainstream Protestants can’t keep it together, what is it about the shifting sands of Evangelicalism that would?
The problem here is there is no good reason that Christians are so complacent about the vitriolic, increasing repression of Christians and Judeo Christian morals.
Which sparks another thought or two. Christians appear willing to stand up against Antisemitism but not so much for themselves. US Jews don’t seem to understand that this fanatic, organized war on Christians is a war on the whole of Judeo-Christian belief system. It’s coming their way too.
We are so going to pay in blood for waiting too long to fight back.
its quickly devolves from not a belief that there is no god
But to a hatred of the concept of a god.. to any rule and truths restricting his wants and desires his wims ...it become self center hedonistic anarchism.
it becomes anti-rationalism.
A rational intellectually honest man at the very least his reason and logic aka self-evident truth as his “god” guiding him...logic and reason "dictate" to him and restrict and direct his actions..
It nay indeed come to that! lets not forget the militant homos as potential attackers either.
God hater? How can you hate something that doesn’t exist? If you don’t believe in something why even mention it?
Atheists sure do spend a lot of time and effort trying to debunk a “non-existent” deity.
If it is, then so is America.
They were included.
Did this pole take into account those who can’t physically attend church? Did it take into account those of us seniors who are FED UP with PC churches?
Or can’t find a church to suit them? To many of today’s churches have gone to catering to those 30 and under. Church is made up of many generations, and you need a little something for all of them.
I fall into both categories. Does not mean my Christian faith is less, just that my body won’t let me attend. And all this 30 and under music is a big turn off to many seniors, you can mix the two you know. And if all the preaching I’m going to hear is Love, GIVE and peace, that is NOT what my BIBLE tells me.
Where is the END TIME PREACHING in Revelations Mr. Preacher? Have you not read Revelations? Why are you not preaching it on a regular rotation. Why do you shut out seniors? GOD wants you preaching SALVATION and the RETURN of HIS SON too, that is how you win converts. It’s how you keep your seniors too, we grew up listening to the likes of Billy Graham style old fashion Full Salvation and End Times preaching. And YOU AIN’T MR. GRAHAM in your preaching style if you are giving into the PC crowd who want their religion sanitized and bland.
I can sit home and read my FULL Bible and put on gospel music if that is all you are going to offer. Lots of great charities like St. Jude’s I can donate to in the place of tithing.
Christianity thrives under oppression.
Even during the darkest days of Soviet repression Christianity survived in the USSR. It sprang forth immediately as the dictatorial pressure was removed.
“Even during the darkest days of Soviet repression Christianity survived in the USSR. It sprang forth immediately as the dictatorial pressure was removed.”
Good example.
Christ`s believers are not doomed, there may be just a few left but they are any thing but doomed.
if there are only a dozen left I hope I am counted in that dozen.
America, looking more and more Laodicean every day ... the True Chruch will be gone soon, leaving the pretenders to fish or cut bait in the midst of massive chaos.
I “predict” a huge revival in the USA within the next five years! HUGE
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