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Of Course America Is Giving Up on Christianity — We Gave Up on God Ages Ago
Pajamas Media ^ | 05/18/2015 | Susan L.M. Goldberg

Posted on 05/18/2015 8:17:08 AM PDT by SeekAndFind

Christians decided going to church was enough, rather than advocating Christian morals and values. Jews decided even God wasn’t necessary.

— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) May 12, 2015

If Ben Shapiro’s simply stated point isn’t enough to drive home the idea that the latest Pew survey on religious life in America reported absolutely nothing new, just check out one of the latest episodes of the Kardashians in which Kim Kardashian has to Google who baptized Jesus before concluding that she wanted to “find a guy named John” to baptize her daughter, North West. What’s worse, the “guy named John” concept, the fact that she had to Google it, or the reality that my Jewish friends took more offense to this absurdity than did a supposed Christian?

Jewish Americans had their panic attack over Pew two years ago when it was revealed that a full 66% of Jews agree you don’t need to believe in God in order to be Jewish. Sure, we’re the people who exist because God called us out and made a covenant with us, but really, we’re in it for the 6-figure salary potential. Now the Christians, genetically always two steps behind, have finally gotten their own slap in the face and panic over the moral integrity of America sets in, as if we’ve always believed our presidents and political leaders are really good Christians on the inside. You know, in that Sally Langston sort of way.

Here’s the positive side: There is something to be learned from the Jewish world when it comes to faith. It just means looking towards Israel, a nation that is statistically happier than we are, statistically less religious than we are, and statistically holds a higher rate of faith in God than we do. This past week, Israeli professors became overnight media sensations simply by supporting family values in their classrooms in the most practical way possible: By literally becoming the caretakers of their students’ babies while continuing to teach. When one American professor proceeded to breastfeed her sick baby while teaching in 2012, a national controversy ensued. Because you know how it goes with boobs and the Internet on this side of the ocean. So much for the efficacy of state-mandated sex ed.

Forget panicking over the fact that fewer Americans attend church. Churches (and synagogues, for that matter) have rendered themselves relatively meaningless in this day and age. If you wanted to panic over church attendance you should have done it 40 years ago when the pews began emptying out in favor of drug-laden music festivals and yuppie pursuits of McMansions and “having it all.” My colleague Michael van der Galien is right, we need to counter the secularization of America with biblical values. The answer, however, first requires countering secularization in our religious institutions instead of using them as a mere litmus test for the value and power of our belief.



TOPICS: Catholic; Evangelical Christian; Mainline Protestant; Religion & Culture
KEYWORDS: christianity; christiannation; decline; trends
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1 posted on 05/18/2015 8:17:08 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind

Not all of us have given up on God.


2 posted on 05/18/2015 8:18:10 AM PDT by rfreedom4u (Chris Stevens won't be running for president.)
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To: SeekAndFind
America (as a country) has decided it doesn't need God.

It will soon start blaming God for the bad things happening to her.

3 posted on 05/18/2015 8:20:29 AM PDT by ShadowAce (Linux -- The Ultimate Windows Service Pack)
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To: SeekAndFind

Agreed. This just isn’t something that happens overnight. We have now finally, and sadly, reached the tipping point and it is tipping away from Christianity.

Horrible times these.


4 posted on 05/18/2015 8:21:17 AM PDT by RIghtwardHo
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To: SeekAndFind
I can understand why fewer and fewer Christians attend church. We're constantly bashed over the head for being such crappy Christians.

About the only people who bash Christians more than Baraq Obama are Pastors.

Who wants to get up early on a Sunday morning, get all gussied up and then sit and listen about what a pile of crap they are for 60 minutes?

Makes you wonder why Jesus did what He did. If we can't even please our Pastors how can we please God?

5 posted on 05/18/2015 8:24:07 AM PDT by Texas Eagle (If it wasn't for double-standards, Liberals would have no standards at all -- Texas Eagle)
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To: ShadowAce

Many Catholics and “mainline” Protestants LONG AGO fired Jesus Christ and hired Karl Marx. As C.S. Lewis (1898-1963) once observed of a church that no longer loves the Gospel (paraphrased). “An empty perfume bottle maintains the fragrance for a while, but eventually it fades.” As they seek approval from the world, I think there’s not much “fragrance” left in many church pews today.


6 posted on 05/18/2015 8:30:33 AM PDT by FiddlePig
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To: FiddlePig

Perhaps some thought and blame should be given to the “leaders” of the church abandoning the teachings of the Bible for the false left wing teachings of “a woman’s right to choose” and “Gay and Lesbian Rights” that destroy the family.


7 posted on 05/18/2015 8:41:15 AM PDT by Mollypitcher1 (I have not yet begun to fight....John Paul Jones)
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To: SeekAndFind
Christians decided going to church was enough, rather than advocating Christian morals and values. Jews decided even God wasn’t necessary.

When Nietzsche said that "God is dead; we have killed him",he meant that belief in God was no longer necessary.

8 posted on 05/18/2015 8:44:07 AM PDT by mjp ((pro-{God, reality, reason, egoism, individualism, natural rights, limited government, capitalism}))
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To: Texas Eagle
We're constantly bashed over the head for being such crappy Christians.

What you mean "we", paleface? :) Sunday mornings I'm encouraged to live a more deeply and fully Christian life, but I've never been bashed.

9 posted on 05/18/2015 9:57:45 AM PDT by ConservingFreedom (A government strong enough to impose your standards is strong enough to ban them.)
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To: Texas Eagle

You need to find another church.


10 posted on 05/18/2015 10:51:02 AM PDT by carton253
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To: rfreedom4u

Yeah, you are right. It’s not true that “Americans” gave up on God.

Our courts illegally ordered individuals to shut up about God in Federal and State funded enterprises; but the people of God did not turn away from God. Some people have a very hard time understanding the difference.

Maybe someday we will take our constitutional freedom back again. Let’s pray that the Lefties in both parties who think Christians don’t exist anymore or who think we are a tiny minority, and make a move for mass oppression or murder...they would be so dead, dead, dead.

The mainline and Catholic churches have lost a very small percentage of their Christians because of the butt pride battles liberals have waged within those churches. The poor Catholic church had their gay mafia “progress” to actually have homo priests rape boys and they paid for it with a great loss of respect and trust from Catholics. With all the gay effort to kill Christianity in America, they have surprisingly little to show for it.

The God of the Bible is alive and well in America even though the left is very lost. The current fad of progressive whoredom and rape will pass, Christians will repent and re-establish their relationship with God.


11 posted on 05/18/2015 2:11:30 PM PDT by SaraJohnson
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To: SeekAndFind

Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior.

Period.

That statement may get me killed some day. (It has gotten many Christians killed in the ME.) If so, so be it.

/point: not all of us have abandoned our faith


12 posted on 05/18/2015 2:54:02 PM PDT by piytar (We are well on the way to building a freaking Warp Drive. Do you really want to tick us off?!)
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To: RIghtwardHo

Yup. And they are just going to get worse.

Gird yourself in His name, and you’ll be Ok. But you knew that...


13 posted on 05/18/2015 2:55:35 PM PDT by piytar (We are well on the way to building a freaking Warp Drive. Do you really want to tick us off?!)
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To: piytar

Revising my tag...


14 posted on 05/18/2015 3:00:28 PM PDT by piytar (Good will be called evil and Evil will be called good.)
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To: Mollypitcher1

Like our (anti)Pope? Could not agree with you more.


15 posted on 05/18/2015 3:02:11 PM PDT by piytar (Good will be called evil and Evil will be called good.)
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To: piytar

The best advise possible ... and I knew that indeed.

Best to you friend.


16 posted on 05/18/2015 3:09:58 PM PDT by RIghtwardHo
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To: SeekAndFind

Job 8:11-19 (NIV):
11
Can papyrus grow tall where there is no marsh?
Can reeds thrive without water?
12
While still growing and uncut,
they wither more quickly than grass.
13
Such is the destiny of all who forget God;
so perishes the hope of the godless.
14
What they trust in is fragile[a];
what they rely on is a spider’s web.
15
They lean on the web, but it gives way;
they cling to it, but it does not hold.
16
They are like a well-watered plant in the sunshine,
spreading its shoots over the garden;
17
it entwines its roots around a pile of rocks
and looks for a place among the stones.
18
But when it is torn from its spot,
that place disowns it and says, ‘I never saw you.’
19
Surely its life withers away,
and[b] from the soil other plants grow.


17 posted on 05/18/2015 5:46:02 PM PDT by Some Fat Guy in L.A. (Still bitterly clinging to rational thought despite it's unfashionability)
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To: SeekAndFind
Anyone who uses the Kardashians to prove Christians are not serious has a problem.

Remember when Isaiah complained to the Lord that no one in Israel was faithful? The Lord told him off, and said there were 7000 in Israel who never bowed to idols and who had remained faithful.

The Pew poll suggests that 20 percent of Christians remain faithful, so the remnant is still alive and well in the USA.

18 posted on 05/19/2015 12:16:16 AM PDT by LadyDoc (liberals only love politically correct poor people)
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To: LadyDoc
"Remember when Isaiah complained to the Lord that no one in Israel was faithful? The Lord told him off, and said there were 7000 in Israel who never bowed to idols and who had remained faithful."

I believe you're referring to the prophet Elijah here, not Isaiah.

19 posted on 05/20/2015 5:09:18 AM PDT by circlecity
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To: Texas Eagle

Many pastors have made a joke of religion.

Before we go blaming liberalism, look at what the new-age churches have become. Just believe and you’re forgiven, regardless of what you do? What’s the point?


20 posted on 05/20/2015 5:27:12 AM PDT by Loud Mime (Honor the Commandments because they're not suggestions; stop gambling on forgiveness.)
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