[Bon of Babble]

The good thing I’m seeing is this next generation - Millennial and Z - aren’t buying into it - my daughter and many= nieces haven’t mentioned anything about “women being oppressed” - and all have had beautiful, traditional marriages and are busy starting families - two babies were born into our family in the past year - after a long, long drought - we are all over the moon with happiness.

Meanwhile, the crabby old maid “aunts” are stewing alone and wondering where it all went...

[Liz]

FTA-—she “passed away peacefully, surrounded by many who loved her.”

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Were any of them men?...../s.

[rlmorel]

I surely hope you are correct in your assessment. That would be a hopeful development.

[Wallace T.]

Speculating about the future should not take either a black pill or white pill approach. Despite President Trump's failure to deliver on his promises of a better economy in the short run (his tactics may work if given time) and the Democratic Party turning into the American equivalent of the European socialist parties, which are Gramscian Marxist in ideology, the structure of the United States makes a total conversion of this country into a Netherlands or a Britain difficult. Even assuming the next President is Gavin Newsom or Kamala Harris, state governments in the South, the Plains states and the northern Rocky Mountain states will remain in moderate to conservative hands. (Virginia has been effectively de-Southernized through the Northern Virginia suburbs.) The leftward shift of the Democrats will continue to weaken their hold on states like Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, where cheating in their largest cities is the only reason they retain power.

Within 20 to 25 years, the Catholic Church will become more like it was in the immediate post-World War II era. Seminarians are predominantly conservative, and the liberals in clerical collars will age out. The Orthodox churches have a good future as well and lack the taint of liberalism that still hangs around many Catholic parishes and diocesan offices.

The mainline Protestant denominations will become real estate holding companies by 2050, as dioceses, districts, and presbyteries close congregations as the members die out. The evangelical churches seem stuck for the most part in seeker sensitive, theologically vapid mode, which appeals to Boomers and Gen. X, but is losing ground with Millennials and Gen. Z. The Southern Baptist Convention, independent Bible churches, and Churches of Christ have been losing ground over the last 10 years. Unfortunately, the leaders of megachurches and their smaller cousins are doubling down on a liturgy of bad rock music and Ted Talks. Like the mainline churches doubling down on anti-Biblical positions on social issues though retaining the older Protestant worship styles, the majority of evangelical churches are making different, yet equally destructive decisions that will lead to their decline.