Posted on 12/11/2009 9:13:37 AM PST by Between the Lines
Though the United States is an overwhelmingly Christian country, significant minorities profess belief in a variety of Eastern or New Age beliefs, as revealed in a new poll by the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life.
According to the poll, 22 percent of Christians, for example, say they believe in reincarnation – that people will be reborn in this world again and again. Twenty-three percent, meanwhile, believe in astrology. And 15 percent have consulted a fortuneteller or a psychic.
Not surprising, however, is Pew’s observation that white evangelical Protestants consistently express lower levels of acceptance of both Eastern beliefs (reincarnation, yoga) and New Age beliefs (spiritual energy in physical things and astrology).
Roughly one-in-ten white evangelicals, for example, believes in reincarnation, compared with 24 percent among mainline Protestants, 25 percent among both white Catholics and those unaffiliated with any religion, and 29 percent among black Protestants.
Similarly, 13 percent of white evangelicals believe in astrology, compared with roughly one-quarter or more among other religious traditions.
“Among Protestants, high levels of religious commitment are associated with lower levels of acceptance of Eastern or New Age beliefs,” Pew noted in its report, released Wednesday.
“Among both evangelical and mainline Protestants, those who attend church weekly express much lower levels of belief in reincarnation, yoga, the existence of spiritual energy in physical things and astrology compared with those who attend religious services less often,” it added.
Among Catholics, however, Pew found that the frequency of church attendance was linked much less closely with such beliefs, although those who attend less often do express higher levels of belief in astrology compared with weekly attendees.
Results for the survey were based on telephone interviews conducted under the direction of Princeton Survey Research Associates International among a nationwide sample of 4,013 adults, 18 years of age or older.
The survey was a joint effort of the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press and the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.
This is one area in which we Catholic Americans can take a page from the Evangelicals. We must purge our parishes and seminaries (and chanceries!) of this sort of hippie-dippy ‘60s syncretism. Improper catechesis is the problem: intolerance for non-Christian doctrine is the cure.
Kudos to the Evangelicals for taking a hard line against Eastern and New Age heresy.
no mention here of course of the amount of Christians that observe the pagan holiday now called ‘Christ’mas.
Christmas isn’t a pagan holiday. It is the Christian feast celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ. It begins on 25 December and lasts until the Feast of Holy Epiphany on 6 January.
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and this is set aside and discussed in the bible where?
LEARN YOUR HISTORY!
This was inevitable with the emphasis upon a person’s feelings (spirituality) and the antipathy toward doctrine (religion). Evangelicalism is such a broad term and includes so many conflicting theologies that it has become a meaningless term. What has happened within much of Christianity is that many have their own personal Jesus Christ made in their own image. Jesus is whatever I want Jesus to be for me. What people need is sound doctrine, but they would rather have their ears tickled.
I’m a Catholic-American but I’ve always believed that existential guilt and karmic payback were at work. Maybe it’s not mutually exclusive.
There is a third, reasoned path in the middle between these two things.
Concisely put, it is the Christian view of history, that Jesus and the great patriarchs, revelators, and saints uplifted mankind morally and spiritually, but with the passing of each, mankind degenerates in their faith and practices.
As part of this decline, the churches and even the written words of the various Bibles likewise lose much of their strength. Each successive generation slowly becoming less and less moral and spiritual.
The important part is that many people who truly desire to be good Christians, look at the sects of Christianity, in all its manifestations, and run away, holding their noses.
This is not necessarily their trying to redefine Jesus in their image, but the rejection of how others have done so. Look at such people as “Reverend” Wright. He calls himself a Christian, but his doctrines have little or nothing to do with Christianity, even if he borrows from its doctrines to support whatever it is that he does.
He is no different from a Voodoo priestess that imagines Christianity as just another kind of Voodoo, or the current Archbishop of Canterbury, who seems unable to distinguish between Anglicanism, Islam, communism, and what the Druids practice.
Could any self-respecting Christian be attracted to *that*?
The Nativity (birth) of our Lord is mentioned in all four Gospels.
The Feast of the Nativity of our Lord, aka Christmas, has been celebrated by Christians since at least A.D. 354.
Don’t forget ghosts and ufos(extra-terrestrial beings)...
It’d be interesting to know what these polls would look like if you broke down “Catholics” into sub-groups the way they do with “Protestants.”
I don’t imagine, for instance, that belief in reincarnation is very widespread among those who assist weekly at a TLM.
The various sects within the large umbrella of Christianity has proven to be a scandal. There has always been heretical and apostate sects throughout the history of Christianity. What is happening within the mainline denominations such as the ELCA, the Episcopal/Anglican community, UCC, Presbyterian USA, and United Methodist, can only be described as demonic. I do not know what else to call it. I can see why those that lack understanding of sound doctrine would be turned off and confused. Many are called, but few are chosen.
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