Posted on 11/08/2015 11:19:38 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Christianity is under attack from a thousand different directions all at once, and yet many believers have turned their guns on one another. This war among Christians seems to intensify with each passing year, and believers are often fighting for some of the stupidest reasons you can possibly imagine. Meanwhile, people are leaving our churches in droves and church attendance is way down. This is especially true of younger Americans. According to an incredible new report that was just released by the Pew Research Center, only 27 percent of all Millennials (U.S. adults born since 1990) attend religious services on a weekly basis. When you go into many churches in America on Sunday mornings, all you see are “the greys”, and I am not talking about space aliens. But instead of focusing on fixing what has gone wrong, many Christians (including a number of very prominent ministers) spend most of their energy savagely attacking their brothers and sisters in Christ. This is absolutely disgraceful and it needs to stop.
America is on the exact same path to secularization that Europe has already gone down. The Pew Research Center discovered that the percentage of Americans who are “absolutely certain” that God exists declined from 71 percent in 2007 to 63 percent in 2014. Meanwhile, the percentage of those that are “religiously unaffiliated” rose from 16 percent in 2007 to 23 percent today.
Atheism, agnosticism and other religions are on the rise in America, and Christianity is in decline. And as I noted above, this is particularly true among our young people. Here are some more numbers from an excerpt that I pulled directly out of the Pew report…
Millennials -- especially the youngest Millennials, who have entered adulthood since the first Landscape Study was conducted -- are far less religious than their elders. For example, only 27% of Millennials say they attend religious services on a weekly basis, compared with 51% of adults in the Silent generation. Four-in-ten of the youngest Millennials say they pray every day, compared with six-in-ten Baby Boomers and two-thirds of members of the Silent generation. Only about half of Millennials say they believe in God with absolute certainty, compared with seven-in-ten Americans in the Silent and Baby Boom cohorts. And only about four-in-ten Millennials say religion is very important in their lives, compared with more than half in the older generational cohorts.
It has been projected that if current trends continue, the percentage of Americans attending church in 2050 will be about half of what it is today.
So those that are supposedly “leading the church” in America today need to wake up. What you are doing is not working. This nation is falling away from God, but many of you are spending much of your time and energy attacking one another.
Another thing that should deeply, deeply alarm Christian leaders is the fact that a large percentage of “believers” do not even seem to grasp the essential basics of the Christian faith. I am talking about things like who God is, the plan of salvation and the authority of the Bible. Here is more from Pew’s new report…
Among Christians, two-thirds say many religions can lead to eternal life, and most of them (50% of all Christians) say some non-Christian religions can lead to life everlasting. The view that some non-Christian faiths can lead to eternal life is held by roughly two-thirds of Catholics (68%) and mainline Protestants (65%), as well as 59% of Orthodox Christians. Fewer members of the historically black Protestant tradition (38%), evangelical Protestants (31%) and Mormons (31%) say some non-Christian religions can lead to salvation. Just 5% of Jehovah’s Witnesses say some non-Christian faiths can lead to eternal life.
If other religions can lead to eternal life, then why did Jesus have to die on the cross? Why couldn’t He have just come down and pointed us in the direction of all those other faiths? Many Christians don’t seem to understand that Jesus had to die for us on the cross because there is no other payment for our sins. He took the penalty that we deserved, and now He offers us a new life as a free gift.
Without Him, we would have absolutely no hope and no future. But because of Him, our sins are forgiven and we have been given eternal life.
But a very large percentage of believers does not understand this. Sadly, many Christians seem to think that you can believe whatever you want and it will all be okay in the end.
So as you can see, the church in America today is a mess. As a Christian myself, this pains me greatly.
But instead of working to fix the problems and praying for revival, many believers seem to take glee in tearing down their fellow Christians.
One of the bad things about the anonymity of the Internet is that it gives people an opportunity to show what is really in their hearts. And in many cases, what comes out of the hearts of many supposed “Christians” is absolutely frightening.
If you venture into places where believers hang out on Facebook, on Twitter, on YouTube and on various Christian websites all over the Internet, you will find some of the most vile things imaginable being said about specific individuals.
I have seen Christians use curse words to describe one another, and good, solid believers that I know personally have been called “whores”, “heretics” and “scumbags” just to give you a few examples. There are even some “Christians” that publicly wish for their brothers and sisters in Christ to die and go to hell.
This kind of thing should not be happening. In Matthew chapter 22, Jesus gave us instructions about how we are to treat one another…
36 Master, which is the great commandment in the law?
37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
38 This is the first and great commandment.
39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.
On my websites I talk about some very hard things, but you will notice that I don’t attack specific individuals that are on the same side as me. In this day and age, it is imperative that we all figure out who our friends are. None of us are ever going to agree 100 percent on everything, and that is okay.
Yes, sometimes there are things that need to be addressed, but the vast majority of times they can be taken care of privately. I have had some very honest discussions with people that are on the same side as me in private, but I would never air that stuff publicly.
If we are going to make it through what is coming, we have got to learn how to love one another. And we have got to stop viciously attacking one another over stupid stuff. Yes, there are some things that are so important that they must never be compromised on, but most of the attacks that I see happening are over very petty things.
And without a doubt, there are times when it become necessary to rebuke someone. But when at all possible it should be done in private, and it should always be done in a spirit of love.
Because in the end, if we do not have love, we are nothing. You can have all of the “knowledge” in the world, and you can go around correcting everyone else, but if you are lacking in love you are just a baby.
This is a hard lesson that I had to learn, and hopefully what I have written here will be helpful for someone.
This war among Christians needs to stop. Our faith is under attack like never before, and we desperately need to learn how to start working together.
At some point, hopefully we will begin to actually live the words of our Savior in John chapter 13…
34 A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.
35 By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.
Christ, personally, founded the Catholic Church on the Apostles.
Those who reject the Catholic Church reject Christ and the fact that He founded it.
Therefore, those who reject the Catholic Church, reject Christ.
See, if you pay attention it is real easy.
It isn’t me who fails to pay attention here, TC. Take a gander at your OWN catechism - just as I suggested - and explain how you can adamantly assert those who reject Catholicism must also reject Jesus Christ when your OWN catechism states:
818 “However, one cannot charge with the sin of the separation those who at present are born into these communities [that resulted from such separation] and in them are brought up in the faith of Christ, and the Catholic Church accepts them with respect and affection as brothers.... All who have been justified by faith in Baptism are incorporated into Christ; they therefore have a right to be called Christians, and with good reason are accepted as brothers in the Lord by the children of the Catholic Church.â€272 (1271)
Like I said, you are doing it your own way when you say things that contradict your OWN catechism.
Congrats to the Freeper religion forum folks for proving the truth of the headline. My own decision to stop attending is due to my own pastor’s challenge one Sunday morning. He said if you don’t believe it all, then you’re wasting your time coming to church. Haven’t been back in over a year and I have come to my own conclusion that my 45 years in the pews were all a waste of time. There was a time in my life when my conviction was real and 100% sincere, but other than as a way to inculcate the young with a good set of moral strictures, I see no more value in it.
I’d like to suggest that you consider that NOTHING that God permits in our lives is “wasted”. No matter what your experiences were growing up in “church”, they developed where you are in your faith right now - for good or bad.
I was born and raised in a religion that I no longer follow but I appreciate that it did introduce me to Jesus Christ and instilled in me the recognition that there IS a God, that he CAN be known and that he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him (Hebrew’s 11:6). God bless you as you seek the Lord with all your heart.
Children born into anything are guilty of nothing...they know nothing about the Catholic church and are therefore innocent. However when they reach adulthood, know the truth and continue to deny it, they may have some 'splainin to do.
I make no judgements about anyone, however I find it hard to believe that Christians who know the history of the church can deny her authenticity. Christianity did not start with Luther in the 17th century.
How about you just stick with the topic we were discussing? You claimed multiple times that if someone rejected the Catholic church they rejected Jesus Christ also. My point remains that your statement contradicts your own catechism which states there ARE genuine Christians who are not Catholic. You assert people are “doing it their own way” but don’t seem to see you are guilty of the same thing when you go against your own church’s teaching. For once, will you admit it?
Consider the Independent Fundamental Baptists then. The flagship Bible college for the Baptist Bible Fellowship is Baptist Bible College in Springfield, Missouri. Look at its student enrollment, which is the reservoir of trust from which it obtains pastors for its congregations; its peak enrollment of over 2,600 in the 1970s had fallen to 390 by 2012.
Apparently its membership has declined as well, although the 2009 data looks faulty. I suspect the statistics reflect churn, splits, and Protestant relocation.
I was just in a church session meeting where we spent about 2 hours on the whole issue of whether we should drop the word “Presbyterian” from our church name because it now carries such a negative connotation for Christians because of PCUSA. (We left PCUSA and went to ECO which is another young Presbyterian denomination.) Our church is still growing/stable, but we are hearing that people will not come to our church because they think it is a part of the non-Christian PCUSA.
What we are hearing is that the American mainline denominations now have such a negative connotation for many American Christians that they will not attend a church with a name like “Episcopal,” “Presbyterian,” “Methodist,” etc.
However, in our area statistically Christians are not declining, they are growing, especially young people. But they are all going to newer non-denominational churches that essentially they just put together. Many meet in movie theaters, school cafeterias, etc.
The bottom line is American denominational churches have committed suicide because of the apostasy that has taken over established American churches. We don’t want to go that route so we are probably getting rid of our name.
Catholics have no need, ever, to defend Catholicism....it is, and has for 2,015 years, been the true church that Jesus personally founded.. Protestantism, however, has a lot of defending to do....they, somehow, decided that Luther, Wesley brothers, Zwingley, Henry VIII, Smith etc. etc. knew much better than Christ and the Apostles what Christianity meant.....How's that working out for you???
Like all institutions, when the product provided no longer meets the expectations of the consumers they find someplace else to go. All Churches tend to be wandering away from faith and into things not expected of a church.
Dodging the question again, I see. It only proves you cannot defend your previous assertion. I already knew that would be the case.
O.K....ask me the question again so I don't have to go back and search for it...
It’s not that hard to go back and read my question. I asked it several times. Simply scroll back to post 209. Easy peasy.
Make that post 109.
Oh good grief...I have never said that there were no Christians who weren't Catholics...I did say, however...that Christians who weren't Catholic were either in error or, at best, incomplete....You cannot leave a 1,600 year old church, make up your own rules, and then decide that you did it right......you didn't.
YOUR words,TC:
No....if you reject the Catholic church, you have rejected Christ.......you don’t get to do it your own way
O.K., I'll buy that...Christ founded a church....the Catholic church....if you reject it, you are rejecting Christ's authority th found a church and instead rely on Luther, Zwingley, Wesley et.al. to be the ones in aauthority.....If you believe that, more power to you.......I don't.
O.K., I’ll buy that...Christ founded a church....the Catholic church....if you reject it, you are rejecting Christ’s authority
Not a chance....we are responsible for our own actions on Earth....mortal sins are just that...mortal.....Hitler was supposedly a Catholic...I don't expect to see him in Heaven (unless he was forgiven of his sins before death) The OSAS theory isn't even a good one, Jesus came to forgive mankind, and indeed He did....however, He left us perfectly free to reject His gift, and, unfortunately, many of us have done so.....so sad!!!
Next question: Do only Roman Catholics go to heaven?
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