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How the West Really Lost God
Crisis Magazine ^ | May 10, 2013 | Austin Ruse

Posted on 05/10/2013 3:30:05 PM PDT by NYer

romney commencement

A few weeks ago Mitt Romney spoke at a college commencement exercise and encouraged the graduates to marry early and have a lot of children. He used the words “quiver full” taken from the Old Testament.

The comment was unremarkable, particularly for a Mormon to make. They are known for marrying early and having quivers full of children. Contra the contraceptive culture, even among Evangelicals, the notion of a quiver full from the Psalms is gathering steam among orthodox believers.

Here is what he said, “You only live one life. Don’t spend it in safe, shallow water. Launch into the deep. If you meet a person you love, get married. Have a quiver full of kids if you can. Give more to your occupation than is expected of you. Serve God by serving his children.”

A panel on Piers Morgan’s CNN show cackled like hens at what he said. So outrageous was his comment that they literally could not stop laughing.

One panelist from the Los Angeles Times said, “We’re seeing the real Mitt Romney emerge. This is maybe why he didn’t do so well with single women.”

A professor from Columbia University said, “This is the Mitt Romney I did not want to vote for, that I did not vote for. He kept making us think that he was this normal moderate guy but really he is a religious fanatic telling 21 year old college graduates to have binders-full of children.” Is it really abnormal, immoderate, and fanatical to counsel early marriage and big families?

CNN was not the only news outlet to erupt in mocking laughter at Romney’s comment. It was all over the place.

Not long ago such comments by an American politician would have been met with yawns. They would have been considered safe and true bromides. And not long ago a national news operation would have fired anyone for mocking such comments as religious fanaticism.

How_West Lost God covThe good news is that American politicians are still making such comments. Look across the Atlantic and such comments by a European politician would be unthinkable, career ending.

What we are witnessing is the near absolute victory of secularism in Europe and its aggressive rise in the United States. How this happened in Europe and is happening, albeit more slowly, in the United States is the topic of an important new book by the remarkable Mary Eberstadt.

Eberstadt’s book looks specifically at How the West Really Lost God. The “really” is in her title because she proposes a new theory that now competes with other more established theories of religion’s decline, all of which, according to Eberstadt, are missing a key component.

A favorite of the new atheists is the assertion that “people stopped needing the imaginary comforts of religion.” Eberstadt responds that faithfully practicing religion is quite hard. After all, it requires you to observe practices of the faith that can be onerous—fasting, for instance—or practices that are inconvenient like going to church on Sunday or those that may be downright challenging like living constricting sexual norms that the rest of society either ignores or laughs at or both.

Secularists like to claim that religion declined as science and rationalism took center stage starting with the Enlightenment. Eberstadt points out that “the masses were not part of the Enlightenment, that 18th century elites were not modern atheists but “rational Christians” and that “those who seek to draw a straight line from Voltaire to twenty-first century atheists” tend to forget the great religious revival of the intervening 19th century.

She similarly dispatches claims that the World Wars killed Christianity and that material progress did, too.

Some theories of secularization she accepts but sees them as only parts of a larger puzzle. Urbanization and industrialization can be seen as parts of a larger whole but they still leave something out. She says that authoritative scholarly books have been written on the topic—David Martin’s On Secularization for instance—that do not have a single mention of this mysterious factor.

So what is this factor, what is the real reason for religion’s decline? It is the family and the family’s decline. She calls it the Family Factor and it explains a lot.

Many of us have taken so many secularization theories as matters of faith: faith declines with education, or riches, or modernity and that families decline as religion does. Eberstadt says it’s the other way around. All those people who crowded into factories and into cities may have slowly lost the faith and all those who have PhDs and big jobs may have lost the faith, but the reason is that they also started having smaller families or broken families or no families.

As with many things in life, one does not need a sociological study to show the truth of this. Getting married and having children practically push us into the practice of faith. A wild-thing in college gets married, has a baby and almost immediately thinks of finding a Church. Taking the child to Church inevitably leads the parent to the same thing.

Look at it another way. Catholics love to picket the Bishop when at long last he has to shutter empty churches and emptying schools. These same Catholics grump about there not being enough priests. Odds are these same complaining Catholics use contraception, had only two children and have waned in the practice of their faith while they wax nostalgic for earlier days.

Eberstadt points out something that all sociologists and theories of secularization agree with, that the great cliff that the faith fell from was the 1960’s. And it wasn’t because of rock music, Vietnam or marijuana. It was the pill. Eberstadt has dealt beautifully with the pill in her wonderful book Adam and Eve After the Pill. She points out that the Pill simply destroyed and continues to destroy families and when the family is destroyed the faith declines.

A short column cannot do justice to the wide and deep reading and all the evidence Eberstadt has marshaled for her argument, so you are urged to read this book. What is certain is that this is one of those books that will forever change the conversation about why Christianity is in decline in the West.



TOPICS: Catholic; General Discusssion; Religion & Culture; Religion & Politics
KEYWORDS: bookreview; christendom; evangelical; faith; mormon; thewest
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To: annalex; Scoutmaster
...the only Protestant sect that is growing is Mormonism with its silly fables...

You need to get out more.

Mormonism is NOT a 'PROTESTant' sect.

And, Mormonism in Americas is NOT what it's PR department would have you believe.


Speaking of sects; Mormonism has produced a LOT of them!


With the Mormons (to be precise, the members of The Corporation of the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints - based in Salt Lake City) intent on being called “Christians” after so many years of eschewing that word, and despite the fact that there are so many fundamental theological differences between Christianity and Mormonism, I often wonder: 

How do members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints feel about calling the members of its various spin-off sects Latter-Day Saints, Christians, or Mormons? Or about those sects calling themselves Mormons or Latter-Day Saints? (There was an earlier campaign by LDS to have journalism style books use the word “Mormon” to refer only to LDS, and not RLDS, FLDS, or other LDS sects).

For a man who bragged about holding things together, Joseph Smith, Jr. doesn’t appear go have done a good job of it during his lifetime. Wycam Clark’s “Pure Church of Christ” spun off in 1831. This trend continued. There were six LDS sects spawned in the 1830s, eight in the 1840s, two in the 1850s, and seven in the 1860s.

Do those responsible for the “Mormons are Christians” campaign consider these denominations to be Mormons or Latter-Day Saints? Surely many of these denominations are much closer to mainstream LDS than LDS is to Christianity. Many stick to Smith’s teachings and old temple endowment ceremonies.

Short Creek Community
Latter Day Church of Christ
Apostolic United Brethren
Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints
Church of the Firstborn of the Fulness [sic] of Times
Church of the Lamb of God
Church of the New Covenant in Christ
Confederate Nations of Israel
Righteous Branch of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
School of the Prophets
Centennial Park
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the Kingdom of God
True and Living Church of Jesus Christ of Saints of the Last Days
The Church of the Firstborn and the General Assembly of Heaven

Blackmore/Bountiful Community
Restoration Church of Jesus Christ
Order of Enoch
Aaronic Order
Zion’s Order, Inc.
Perfected Church of Jesus Christ of Immaculate Latter-day Saints
Church of Jesus Christ (Bullaite)
Community of Christ
Church of Jesus Christ (Toneyite)
Independent RLDS / Restoration Branches
Church of Jesus Christ Restored 1830
Church of Christ (Lion of God Ministry/Clarkite)
Church of Jesus Christ (Zion’s Branch)
Restoration Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints
Remnant Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints
Church of Christ (Temple Lot) (Hedrickite)
Church of Christ (Fettingite) (Hedrickite)
Church of Christ at Halley’s Bluff (Hedrickite)
Church of Christ (Restored) (Hedrickite)
Church of Christ “With the Elijah Message” (Hedrickite)
Church of Christ (Hancock) (Hedrickite)
Church of Christ (Burtite) (Hendrickite)
Church of Israel (Hendrickite)
Church of Christ with the Elijah Message (The Assured Way of the Lord) (Hendrickite)
The Church of Jesus Christ (Bickertonite)
Church of Jesus Christ (Cutlerite)
True Church of Jesus Christ (Cutlerite)
Restored Church of Jesus Christ (Cutlerite)
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Strangite)
Holy Church of Jesus Christ (Strangite)
Church of Jesus Christ (Drewite) (Strangite)
True Church of Jesus Christ Restored (Strangite)
Pentecostal Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Whitmerite)

Or these defunct sects:

Pure Church of Christ (Clarkite)
Independent Church (Hotonite)
Church of Christ (Boothite)
Church of Christ (Parrishite)
Alston Church
Church of Christ (Chubbyite)
Church of Jesus Christ, the Bride, the Lamb’s Wife
Church of Christ (Pageite)
True Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (this one was particularly curious - started by William Law, editor of The Nauvoo Expositor, just one of many sects started in opposition to plural marriage)
The Church of Zion (Godbeite)
United Order Family of Christ
Church of the Potter Christ
Church of the Firstborn (Morrisite)
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Gibsonite)
Church of Jesus Christ of Saints of the Most High
Church of the Christian Brotherhood
Church of Jesus Christ of the Children of Zion (Rigdonite) Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ (Bickertonite)
Primative Church of Jesus Christ (Bickertonite)
Church of Christ (Aaron Smith)
Church of the Messiah (Adamsite)
Church of Christ (Wrightite)
Church of Christ (Whitmerite)
Church of Christ (Brewsterite)
The Bride, the Lamb’s Wife
Congregation of Jehovah’s Presbytery of Zion
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Gladdenite)
Independent Latter Day Saints of Nigeria
Independent Latter Day Saints of Ghana
Apostolic Divine Church of Ghana

Are members of those LDS groups “Mormons”? “Latter Day Saints?” “Christians?”

Do the folks in Salt Lake City have a problem with any of those groups, who believe in the restoration of the original church by Joseph Smith, calling themselves Mormons or Saints?

Most of these divisions in the Latter-Day Saint movement occurred over the issue of polygamy or succession of the Prophet. Sects broke off when Joseph Smith was still alive, and when Brigham Young was named prophet, because they didn’t believe in the practice of plural marriage – either publicly, or in some cases when it was practiced in private and denied in public.

Of course, there was the great split between Rocky Mountain Saints and Prairie Saints, when LDS members couldn’t agree on a successor prophet to Smith, Jr., and the church went to Utah, Missouri, Illinois, Michigan, and Pennsylvania under Brigham Young, Sidney Rigdon (senior member of the First Presidency), James Strang, Lyman Wight, Alpheus Cutler, William Smith, David Whitmer (a BOM witness), or Joseph Smith III (son of Joseph Smith, Jr.). Almost all of these individuals still has multiple sects in existence that date to an 1844 decision about who should be the next President/Prophet of the church.

The Prairie Saints split into sects over the issue of whether Smith practiced polygamy. Rocky Mountain Saints had many, many spinoff sects after the 1890 Manifesto – groups that still practice plural marriage.

======================================================================================================================================================

Thanks to ScoutMaster for all the hard work here!

81 posted on 05/14/2013 8:36:05 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: Elsie

Fascinating.

I am aware that LDS is not properly Protestant, but from my little Catholic head’s perspective, the difference is slight as neither group is of apostolic origin. At the same time, given the Mormon’s emphasis on the stability of the family, you guys are doing something right, so more power to you, — which was my point even though you felt slighted.


82 posted on 05/14/2013 5:03:01 PM PDT by annalex (fear them not)
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To: annalex
... given the Mormon’s emphasis on the stability of the family...

Ah, yes; the Forever Family® that they so famously tout!


 A popular MORMON Church teaching manual states:
 
"...couples who are married in the temple can progress to exaltation and become gods themselves (D&C 132). While this fundamental purpose of the temple ceremonies is downplayed or avoided at public open houses, it is central to the LDS belief system. "

Families can be together forever. To enjoy this blessing we must be married in the temple. When people are married outside the temple, the marriage ends when one of the partners dies.… If we keep our covenants with the Lord, our families will be united eternally as husband, wife and children. Death cannot separate us” (Gospel Principles, 2009 ed., p. 209).

 

 


83 posted on 05/14/2013 6:44:03 PM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: annalex; teppe; District13

Notice the “can”?

The odds are actually AGAINST this ever taking place, as only about 15% or so of all ‘good’ MORMONs do ALL the requirements needed.


84 posted on 05/14/2013 6:46:25 PM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
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To: Elsie
Death cannot separate us” (Gospel Principles, 2009 ed., p. 209).

Wanna bet!?


Romans 7 (nasb)

1 Or do you not know, brethren (for I am speaking to those who know the law), that the law has jurisdiction over a person as long as he lives?
2 For the married woman is bound by law to her husband while he is living; but if her husband dies, she is released from the law concerning the husband.


Matthew 22

23 That same day the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to him with a question.

24 “Teacher,” they said, “Moses told us that if a man dies without having children, his brother must marry the widow and raise up offspring for him. 25 Now there were seven brothers among us. The first one married and died, and since he had no children, he left his wife to his brother. 26 The same thing happened to the second and third brother, right on down to the seventh. 27 Finally, the woman died. 28 Now then, at the resurrection, whose wife will she be of the seven, since all of them were married to her?”

29 Jesus replied, “You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God. 30 At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven.

85 posted on 05/14/2013 6:54:59 PM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 83 | View Replies]


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