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They're Not Coming Back: The Religiously Unaffiliated and the Post-Religious Era The wistful refrain among religionists has for some time now been the same: the religiously unaffiliated will return to religious practice one of these days. New numbers from a survey jointly conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute and Religion News Service, however, might crush whatever hope is left about luring Nones back into the fold.
The survey follows up on Pew’s recent studies of the same demographic of religiously unaffiliated Americans, but shows an even sharper increase in their numbers. According to PRRI, in 1990 the religiously unaffiliated made up only 6 percent of adults. From 1998 to 2004, that percentage held steady at around 14 percent, but today, 25 percent of Americans “claim no formal religious identity.” This percentage continues to primarily consist of adults under the age of 50. The survey also makes it clear that this decline began among those who were young adults in the ’90s, and has only sped up today.
That percentage means there are more Americans who are unaffiliated with religion than there are practicing Catholics.
A third of Americans are raised Catholic, but only one in five currently identifies as a member of the church, and only 2 percent of Americans have left other religious traditions to become Catholic. Mainline Protestants have also seen a decline, but they represent a smaller percentage of the population. White evangelical Protestants and black Protestants experience higher rates of retention—although among younger adults, white evangelicals are also beginning to experience a loss.
So what’s behind this newest set of numbers?
Reasons people list for leaving religion remain about the same as they were in the Pew survey, but with some striking differences. Those who have “stopped believing” in a tradition’s teachings are now at 60 percent, those from families that were not very religious are at 32 percent, and those who left because of “negative religious teachings” about LGBTQ people are at 29 percent.
The latter number, tellingly, is even higher among former Catholics. A full 39 percent of Catholics say they left the church because of its treatment of LGBTQ people. And the church lost huge numbers because of the sex abuse scandal—which drove away a full 23 percent of Catholics.
But back to the idea that religiously unaffiliated adults will some day return to religious practice. Both Pew and PRRI use the term “religious switching” to describe both those who change religions and those who leave organized religion. Whereas in the ’70s those who grew up religiously unaffiliated were not likely to stay that way as adults, two-thirds of adults today who were raised without religion stay nonreligious. In other words, this is becoming permanent.
Circumstances, of course, have changed since the 1970s. Greater rates of religious intermarriage, including marriages between religious and nonreligious couples, mean that children are growing up with differing ideas about religiosity than they had in the past. Gen Xers are old enough to have children now, and those children are more likely to be raised in nonreligious homes. There is less and less depiction of religious practice in television and films, or in the case of films like Spotlight, religion comes off looking like a disaster.
And religion, arguably, has not played a significant role in the current election cycle— unless floundering and flubbing count as discussions of religion worthy of a national stage. It’s no wonder that younger adults have become deeply cynical about or uninterested in religion.
While the Pew survey found that many religiously unaffiliated people said that religion was helpful in strengthening community bonds and contributing to social good, 66 percent of those in the PRRI survey claim that “religion causes more problems in society than it solves.” Given the high percentage of those who have left because of the treatment of LGBTQ people, one can easily see why this negative perception exists. As many Americans came to an acceptance of the equal rights of LGBTQ people, multiple religions floundered in their understandings of gender and sexuality.
For many years, “spirituality” has been used as an ambiguous tag that could be pinned on those who choose not to belong to a religion. But that word is increasingly hollow today. PRRI states that only 4 in 10 nonreligious people describe themselves as moderately or very spiritual. The caveat here is that there is no agreement as to what “being spiritual” really means.
As increasing numbers of people turn to yoga classes and mindfulness meditation instead of a church, mosque or schul, the links between understanding spirituality as the work of the spirit, or of the soul, become less and less meaningful. And as traditions rooted in Asian culture and tradition are stripped of their religious roots and are co-opted as one-size-fits-all “spirituality,” the term itself is so vague as to be nearly useless. Seen in this light, the designation “spiritual but not religious” does not mean much of anything. A group of white women chanting Hindu sutras in a hot yoga class is not spirituality: it’s an exercise class with a Sanskrit soundtrack.
Spirituality, in that and too many other contexts to enumerate, is a marketing tool. And marketing-savvy younger adults are beginning to recognize and reject it.
The persistent belief in God among the religiously unaffiliated still remains a mystery. But rarely are these adults asked to define what they mean by “God.” Perhaps this is because polling requires people to define God in such specific terms and often conflates belief in God with a kind of moral goodness. The PRRI survey says they tend to see “a person with whom one can have a relationship” or “an impersonal force” but that God is not necessary in order to “have good values.” However, this notion of being good with or without God is not news to most of us who work with, befriend, teach, or marry religiously unaffiliated people.
Earlier this year, I gave a talk via Skype to the Yale Humanists, a group organized by writer and Yale Humanist Chaplain Chris Stedman. Stedman told me the group had mostly begun with atheists and agnostics, but increasingly more and more Nones were turning up. And these Nones were interested in community service, community bonding, and working alongside the religious, not in opposition to them.
I found the same among the many people I interviewed for The Nones Are Alright, and among my mostly nonreligious students at UC Berkeley. If an ambiguous notion of God exists among these adults, it may be because they are too preoccupied with the multiple environmental and social crises bombarding them at every turn. The mistake religions often make of guilt-tripping them about adherence while ignoring the work they are doing to bring about social equality reduces them to statistics rather than trying to understand what their way of thinking about as “God” really means in a post-religious era.
Some emerging religious leaders like Rev. William Barber or Rev. Osagyefo Sekou offer a new understanding of morality that is intrinsically linked with social justice, which might appeal to religiously unaffiliated people seeking a greater meaning in these troubling times. But more often than not, what religion is offering looks deeply unappealing. Hokey “young adult” ministries, clunky social media, static notions about gender, deeply skewed perceptions of sexuality, out-of-touch clergy with political axes to grind, and little to no evidence of religion as a meaningful presence in their daily lives do nothing to lure back those who have left.
If religions are still asking what they can do to bring the religiously unaffiliated back, the better question might be this: what can religion do without them? Because all evidence points to this conclusion: they are not coming back, and given what they’re being presented, why should they?
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When the schools and other government institutions are hell-bent on driving religious faith out of every aspect of public life, when anyone who stands up for religious faith is portrayed as a bigot and a hater, it stands to reason that religious participation will continue to fall away. As Gallup polls show every few years, in a steady decline of people who identify as religious, Christian or otherwise.
It's a one-sided battle, where government sells secularism and gay rights, while suppressing religious, and especially Christian, ability to defend their opposing ideals. Any criticism of gays is labelled "Hate speech". The religious/Christian POV is not permitted self-defense or equal time.
The writer uses some undefined terms, such as "Nones", which may be common-usage terms, or ones made up by the author. It blunts the impact of his editorial not to define his terms.
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It's also clear the Left is pushing all religions toward an ecumenical faith, or an amalgamated one-world religion. Which for any Christian here familiar with end-time prophecy, is clearly leading toward the False Prophet and the Antichrist.
A religion that is mandated on everyone, that says all religions lead to the truth, and doesn't permit Christians to evangelize that Jesus is the one path to salvation.
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It's also clear the Left is pushing all religions toward an ecumenical faith, or an amalgamated one-world religion. Which for any Christian here familiar with end-time prophecy, is clearly leading toward the False Prophet and the Antichrist. I haven't had the time to formulate a response with the level of detail your posts merit, but I would like to take this opportunity while I'm thinking about it to point out that there is in fact a significant diversity of doctrine and theology when it comes to eschatology - the study of the end times in Scripture. The imagery used in the book of Revelation is extraordinarily open to interpretation, but almost all "end-time prophecy" we hear about in Christian media - and in fact what's informed most pop-culture interpretation of the Rapture or the Antichrist - is filtered through the perspective of Neocalvinist dispensationalism. Now, I don't know your specific denominational background (I'm a Nazarene so make of that what you will) - and please don't think that I'm bashing or disparaging your theology or your reading of the Bible - but that school of thought actually represents a very small minority of Christian denominations and traditions. Because of the fundamentalist takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention and other high-profile evangelical traditions during the 1970s and 80s - and because of the influence of wealthy families in those traditions - this small minority actually has a virtual stranglehold on American Protestant television, radio, and print outlets to the point where that's the only description or depiction of non-Catholic Christianity in mass media. If you ask both most Christians and most non-Christians on the street in any major American city, you'll find that many think Christianity falls within a particular set of doctrines when in many cases their denomination may not share that interpretation of the Bible at all. I guess what I'm saying is that the standard American Christian understanding of the End Times has been very heavily influenced by pop culture and by very specific strains of theology. "High churches" like Catholics, Lutherans, and Episcopalians don't preach the "Left Behind" picture of the Revelation, nor does much of the rest of Christianity elsewhere in the world. It's a little like the realization that our picture of both Heaven and Hell comes almost wholesale out of Dante and owes way more to Greek and early European thought than to Jewish or early Christian teachings. We have to be careful that our understanding of our faith isn't unduly influenced by those trying to manipulate us into supporting a given political ideology. At any rate, thanks for reading and responding to the article and I hope to have more to say soon.
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I'm not offended.
To be specific, I'm Presbyterian, although I've also attended Methodist and Lutheran churches (I attended Lutheran school in 7th, 8th and 9th grades), and have attended 1 or more services of Episcopalian, Catholic, Baptist and other faiths. The sharpest difference in sermon I've noticed were in Baptist and Charismatic Christian services, which were a bit off the deep end for my taste, much more emotional and less scriptural.
Some emphasize and quote scripture, the churches I'm most comfortable with, others (like the Charismatics, the Catholics, and Joel Osteen) barely mention it except in a very selective context.
Virtually every discussion I've seen of Bible prophecy doesn't speak in absolutes that this absolutely is the end time prophecy fulfilled, but that it appears to be consistent with end time prophecy.
The biggest schism I've observed is whether the Rapture of living Christians occurs slightly before the Tribulation, or whether Christians remain on Earth during the Tribulation.
But whether it is taught in Churches worldwide or not, the imagery in the Bible is clear. In Daniel and Ezekiel, and Revelation, along with bits and pieces in other books, there will be a revived Roman Empire, and Antichrist and False prophet who leads an Ecumenical world church, those who won't worship will be beheaded. That Israel, after the Jews being scattered and without a country since 70 AD when driven out by the Romans, would again become a nation (as I think no one would dispute, was fulfilled in 1948).
That the Antichrist will rule for seven years, and the tribulation will begin 3 and 1/2 years into that 7 years.
That the False Prophet will rule from "a city that rests on 7 hills" (as Rome does). That the Temple of Solomon will be re-built in Jerusalem, and ritual sacrifices will resume.
That the Antichrist will visit the Temple of Solomon, and discontinue the ritual sacrifices when he declares himself God and demands everyone on Earth to worship him.
That in the Tribulation, fire will kill one third of the people on earth. Famine and disease will kill another third.
That Israel will be invaded by "Gog and Magog" from the North, which is believed to be Russia (in coalition with Arab nations), and Russia lies to the direct North of Israel, Moscow almost directly North of Jerusalem.
And an army from the East of 200 million men will cross a dried-up Euphrates river to attack Israel (200 million considered an impossible number until the last century, but in the last 50 years China, with 1.4 billion people, has boasted it could raise an army of 200 million, likely with no knowledge or concern for what the Bible says.)
It's interesting and new to me to hear that Christian churches in, say, Europe don't teach end-time prophecy or at least give emphasis to it. If so, that may be a European Christan trend in more modern times, because I've seen accounts of Christian prisoners in the Nazi concentration camps who thought Hitler was the Antichrist, and that they were living through the Tribulation period. Christians I've met from places like Ivory Coast in Africa, or South Korea, from what they've expressed to me seem to share the American Christian evangelist perspective of end-times.
My observation is that many Christians attend church every Sunday, but still don't read the Bible or know what it actually says, on End Times or much of anything else, beyond what they hear in church sermons. It was an awakening for me at age 25 to read the Bible on my own. I was impressed with the organization and consistency of the Bible, reading it on my own, vs. random bits and pieces in sermons. Only reading it on my own did I really get a macro-view of the Bible in its entirety.
And I was impressed reading on my own the literary structure of books like Isaiah, Song of Songs, and Job. Much of the New Testament (mostly written by Paul) is less literary, and more in the style of modern evangelism.
But while parts are open to interpretation regarding End Time prophecy, many of the signs are rather clear and not open to interpretation, some of which I described above.
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I hate to add to what I already voluminously said above, but I've seen a criticism within the Christian-evangelical movement that there has been too much emphasis from the 1950's to present on End Time prophecy, and that for many we are definitely living in the End Times. That so convinced we are living in the End Times, many were convinced we were the last generation, and did not prepare politically for the future. Which allowed secularist liberals, Cultural Marxists, and other political radicals to out-maneuver Christians politically and render Christians irrelevant.
They prepared and built for the future, whereas Christians, complacent there would not be a future generation to prepare for, did not.
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Okay, again, please don't take this the wrong way. This is kind of a fact-finding mission for me. You mentioned reading the Bible for the first time at 25 - was that in its entirety, or the first time, period? I don't mean to pry, I'm just wondering in what sorts of study you typically engage in a church setting. My father was a minister in what's now a fairly conservative denomination, but he was kind of an outlier as he was rather aggressively engaged in urban outreach and - for a white Republican dude from southern Ohio - had a rather unique perspective on the cycle of poverty and systemic brokenness. During my childhood, the fundamentalist faction was starting to gain a foothold in our publications and Sunday-school curriculum, but our universities' religion and theology departments remained solidly centrist, at least by the time I got there (which admittedly was a while ago).
What I'm mainly wondering is this: Did you, in your own independent studies of the Bible, reach these conclusions about prophetic literature without help from dominant voices in your tradition? You stated very unambiguously that the signs of the end times as you describe them are not open to interpretation, but that assertion is sharply at odds with the statements of most credentialed theologians I've read from or studied under. I've heard both sides of the end-times debate, but I think your most recent post actually touched on an important truth - evangelicals have such tunnel vision for the end times that they've conceded almost all influence over the present. And again, not looking to cast aspersions on your faith background here, but I've learned to understand eschatology and revelatory literature - especially the Revelation of St. John - as just that: literature. Both OT and NT prophecies were aimed at the people of God who were suffering from oppression and losing hope and longed for assurance that all would be set right. The OT prophecies can very easily be read as pointing to Christ, while the NT prophecies are rooted in the Second Coming of Christ using language that very neatly parallels the older prophecies. In all cases, the reader was given a metaphor for the present styled as a vision of the future, in which God punished the wicked and unjust, freed the people of God from oppression, and brought about a kingdom governed by righteousness.
I realize you hail from a tradition that holds a far more literal view of these things, and you are likely to disagree strongly with me on this. I don't fault you, and I don't fault your anger if you take particular exception to this. That said, I think most of the political (and they are manifestly political) stances asserted by evangelical and fundamentalist Christianity in America today are built atop a very specific, very literal, and very narrow reading of end-times prophecy. It's not adequate for them that the writer of the Revelation was almost certainly speaking of the Roman Empire; they need a new one to pop up because the prophecy has to be for us here and now. It's not adequate that Gog and Magog and the 200-million-man army (and even if you could get that many dudes in the same uniform, logistical support would be an utter impossibility) are most likely a metaphor for the multitudes of the known world being arrayed against the people of God; we need it to very conveniently represent the same nations we're at odds with here and now. People who follow these teachings will find it easy to believe that their time and place is the capital-E, capital-T End Times, and will not only see the twists and turns of an increasingly interrelated and interdependent global economy as the movement of chess pieces between God and Satan (they're not equals, not even close, and the idea that they are owes way more to the Gnostic heresies than Biblical thought), but they'll knowingly or unknowingly play their part as the drama unfolds between their ears. The 80s were littered with huckster televangelists screeching that the end was near and that the Soviets were coming to wipe out Israel and usher in Armageddon... right before they started hawking books and survival kits and "blessing" jewelry and miracle cures like alligator-suited used-car salesmen. The church cannot allow itself to be so easily manipulated by any charlatan with just enough knowledge of our construction of "the End Times" to be dangerous.
Last edited by Captain Sammitch; 2016-10-14 1:10 AM.
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Just so you know, despite our disagreements I genuinely mean no offense with anything I've said here. My main goal is mutual understanding, and I would be remiss if I did not articulate my own perspective as clearly as possible. I don't for a second claim that I'm a better Christian than you or even that I "know" more than you about this stuff - there's a pretty hard ceiling on how much can be definitively known, or else it wouldn't be faith, would it? It's just that I've spent my entire life observing and absorbing the teachings of a wide variety of Christian traditions, and I've been at it long enough to be intensely cynical toward certain patterns of thought, if only because I've seen the implications of what they represent. I would encourage you not to be afraid to question any aspect of your own beliefs; I've done that very thoroughly, and I'm still here. Doubt, in and of itself, is not sinful so long as you allow it to drive you to pursue the truth. Only idols topple under scrutiny.
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Sorry for the delay, I've been rather busy, and I wanted to give you my full attention when I answered this for you. Okay, again, please don't take this the wrong way. This is kind of a fact-finding mission for me. You mentioned reading the Bible for the first time at 25 - was that in its entirety, or the first time, period? In its entirety. In 1988-1989, I picked up an NIV Study Bible, and for the first time began with Genesis and read forward to the New Testament. It was the first time I read the Bible independently of church influence. Although no doubt, preconceptions of my mostly Presbyterian previous experience may have colored some elements of how I saw the Bible, even in my independent reading. Particularly in regard to Bible prophecy. But mostly it was a completely new world to me. I was most impressed by the consistent structure throughout. Particularly how literary the structure is of books like Isaiah, Song of Songs, and Job. And how the genealogy in Genesis matches up with that repeated in the New Testament gospels. I don't mean to pry, I'm just wondering in what sorts of study you typically engage in a church setting. In recent years, I haven't attended church. When I was attending, Sunday services, weekly Bible studies, and Sunday school. My father was a minister in what's now a fairly conservative denomination, but he was kind of an outlier as he was rather aggressively engaged in urban outreach and - for a white Republican dude from southern Ohio - had a rather unique perspective on the cycle of poverty and systemic brokenness. During my childhood, the fundamentalist faction was starting to gain a foothold in our publications and Sunday-school curriculum, but our universities' religion and theology departments remained solidly centrist, at least by the time I got there (which admittedly was a while ago). The denominations I attended could be described as fundamentalist and scriptural, and very white-conservative. I have a very limited exposure to black fundamentalists. I'd see my experience as pretty mainstream Protestant in the Presbyterian churches, although no doubt some would see it as "extreme" for its adherence to scripture on issues like homosexuality. What I'm mainly wondering is this: Did you, in your own independent studies of the Bible, reach these conclusions about prophetic literature without help from dominant voices in your tradition? I'd say the prophetic portion of what I believed before reading the Bible on my own remained pretty much the same after I read the Bible on my own. And that my view of prophecy was pretty well established before I read the Bible on my own. I didn't see what I was taught in church to be in contradiction with what I read on my own. It was other parts of the Bible that I saw as not fully portrayed in context when covered in church. With prophecy, I saw that as more fully explained in context with Old Testament portions of Daniel, Ezekiel and other sections that were expanded on in the N T. You could see these as preconceptions, but reading on my own, I felt they were consistent with what the Bible said in an independent reading. You stated very unambiguously that the signs of the end times as you describe them are not open to interpretation, but that assertion is sharply at odds with the statements of most credentialed theologians I've read from or studied under. Yeah, I guess I have to concede that's true, they are open to a degree of interpretation. The view of End Time Bible prophecy and the Antichrist tribulation period, for example, was envisioned very differently during the Cold War years of the 1950's/1960's/1970's/1980's has clearly taken on a different vision of how it would occur in the years of 2001-forward Islamic radicalism. I see the church of the False Prophet (previously a purely European vision of a revived Roman Empire church led by the Pope in the Vatican) to be a more ecumenical global religion of all other religions, potentially including Islam. The Bible describes Christians being beheaded, and beheading has long been a muslim practice. Also, islam envisions its own End Time as a time when a prophesied muslim leader converts the entire world to Islam, and any dissenters "put to the sword" and beheaded. Which creepily gels with Bible prophecy. Their Savior is our Antichrist. Yes, some (many) aspects could be speculated to be fulfilled in different ways. But again, aspect such as the re-birth of Israel after millennia of being "a nation without a country", a third of the human population killed by fire (nuclear war) a third by famine and pestilence (starvation or radiation poisoning), the rebuilding of the Temple of Solomon, the ceasing of sacrtificial rtituals there by the Antichrist when he declares himself God, the reign of the Antichrist period that lasts 7 years (3 and 1/2 years or 42 months of which are prosperous), the earth growing hotter and a lack of water, the mark of the Beast required to participate in the world economy where no one can buy or sell without it, an economic crisis where it requires a day's wages just to eat, the battle of Armageddon, the drying up of the Euphrates River, the invasion of Israel by "Gog and Magog" (Russia) from the north, while there may be some speculation as to whether today's events are the fulfillment of those prophesies, the prophesies themselves are pretty clear. So to some degree we're in agreement, there is some margin for speculation. But I think when they occur, those familiar with prophecy will definitely know when it's the real thing. I've heard both sides of the end-times debate, but I think your most recent post actually touched on an important truth - evangelicals have such tunnel vision for the end times that they've conceded almost all influence over the present. Yes. So convinced they were already living in the end times that they haven't given a counter-narrative to the PC/Cultural Marxist/liberal forces that have been scoring political victories since the 1970's, for 40 years now. And again, not looking to cast aspersions on your faith background here, but I've learned to understand eschatology and revelatory literature - especially the Revelation of St. John - as just that: literature. Both OT and NT prophecies were aimed at the people of God who were suffering from oppression and losing hope and longed for assurance that all would be set right. The OT prophecies can very easily be read as pointing to Christ, while the NT prophecies are rooted in the Second Coming of Christ using language that very neatly parallels the older prophecies. In all cases, the reader was given a metaphor for the present styled as a vision of the future, in which God punished the wicked and unjust, freed the people of God from oppression, and brought about a kingdom governed by righteousness. Well... I've always been taught to "assume that scripture is literal, unless it is proven to be only metaphorical". Certainly, the OT prophecy foretelling the circumstances of Jesus birth and life were not mere metaphor, but literally true as well. I realize you hail from a tradition that holds a far more literal view of these things, and you are likely to disagree strongly with me on this. I don't fault you, and I don't fault your anger if you take particular exception to this. That said, I think most of the political (and they are manifestly political) stances asserted by evangelical and fundamentalist Christianity in America today are built atop a very specific, very literal, and very narrow reading of end-times prophecy. So far, I agree with you on all points. It cracks me up to watch a Bible prophecy like, say Jack Van Impe (which I basically see as an anachronistic holdover from the 1970's, with an almost game-show quality to it!) where they overstate their case and say "THESE ARE DEFINITELY THE END TIMES!" It's not for them to say that. Only to say these event certainly APPEAR to be fulfilling what was predicted for te end times. Even Hal Lindsey who I mostly agree with sometimes overstates his case, and has been panned on occasion even by Christians for it. Pat Robertson famously said he had a vision from God that something terrible would happen to Orlando, FL because Disney (centered there) endorsed benefits for gays. So I cewrtainly can't disagree there is some policticking mixed in with televangelist prophecy. It's not adequate for them that the writer of the Revelation was almost certainly speaking of the Roman Empire; they need a new one to pop up because the prophecy has to be for us here and now. I see your point. But at the same time, there is a prophesied "age of the Gentiles", and the False Prophet rules his church from a "city that rests on 7 hills" as Rome does. Both those point to a Gentile (European) center for the Antichrist and his False Prophet. It is LIKELY the Antichrist comes from Europe, but not absolute. It could also mean someone from a region formerly part of the Roman Empire outside of Europe. But logically Europe, because it has the closest relationship with Israel, which is unquestionable at the center of prophecy. It's not adequate that Gog and Magog and the 200-million-man army (and even if you could get that many dudes in the same uniform, logistical support would be an utter impossibility) are most likely a metaphor for the multitudes of the known world being arrayed against the people of God; we need it to very conveniently represent the same nations we're at odds with here and now. Gog and Magog, I've never heard any challenge to the fact this refers to the ancient names for what is now Russia. Which is to the direct north of Israel, foretold to invade Israel. While not written in stone as the absolute fulfillment of the 200 million in scripture, China HAS boasted they can raise a 200-million man army. I always considered that to not be a purely Chinese 200 million, but a coalition of nations opposing Israel led by China. People who follow these teachings will find it easy to believe that their time and place is the capital-E, capital-T End Times, and will not only see the twists and turns of an increasingly interrelated and interdependent global economy as the movement of chess pieces between God and Satan (they're not equals, not even close, and the idea that they are owes way more to the Gnostic heresies than Biblical thought), but they'll knowingly or unknowingly play their part as the drama unfolds between their ears. The 80s were littered with huckster televangelists screeching that the end was near and that the Soviets were coming to wipe out Israel and usher in Armageddon... right before they started hawking books and survival kits and "blessing" jewelry and miracle cures like alligator-suited used-car salesmen. The church cannot allow itself to be so easily manipulated by any charlatan with just enough knowledge of our construction of "the End Times" to be dangerous. I again concede your point. I always got a chuckle when they said "we are definintely living in the end Times..." Again, I always edited this in my brain to be this fits the potential scenario of the end times and I hope that most others do as well. I had a friend named Wayne who I turned on to CEREBUS, and when we'd flip channels and pass one of these self-serving televangelists selling his latest book or gimmick for donations, I'd (referencing Cerebus as Pope in the CHURCH AND STATE storyline) say "CEREBUS WANTS YOUR MONEY!" He always got a big laugh out of that. In all seriousness, it was always a stumbling block for me in my own faith, that God would allow televangelists to sell their snake oil like this in the name of Christianity. But I guess these hucksters are only able to fleece those unfamiliar with scripture who don't do their homework. Although even guys I like, such as Josh McDowell, John Hagee or Hal Lindsey, could be accused of writing books to enrich themselves. But in these cases, these are people who have dedicated their lives to the study and spread of Christianity and the understanding of our faith, and they do have to earn a living somehow. Many programs that sell books offer them free and pay for their ministry with donations. I don't know if you are familiar with the Coral Ridge Hour tv program with Rev. James Kennedy that lasted until he died, and whose services I attended in Fort Lauderdale and I met on many occasions. His was such a church, that offered many books for free. The program ended shortly after his death, although the church lives on.
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Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 25,016 Likes: 31
brutally Kamphausened 15000+ posts
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brutally Kamphausened 15000+ posts
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 25,016 Likes: 31 |
Just so you know, despite our disagreements I genuinely mean no offense with anything I've said here. My main goal is mutual understanding, and I would be remiss if I did not articulate my own perspective as clearly as possible. I don't for a second claim that I'm a better Christian than you or even that I "know" more than you about this stuff - there's a pretty hard ceiling on how much can be definitively known, or else it wouldn't be faith, would it? It's just that I've spent my entire life observing and absorbing the teachings of a wide variety of Christian traditions, and I've been at it long enough to be intensely cynical toward certain patterns of thought, if only because I've seen the implications of what they represent. I would encourage you not to be afraid to question any aspect of your own beliefs; I've done that very thoroughly, and I'm still here. Doubt, in and of itself, is not sinful so long as you allow it to drive you to pursue the truth. Only idols topple under scrutiny. I appreciate that, and I again agree. I would assume you have a broader Christian experience than I have, particularly having a father who was a minister. My father is an agnostic, and my mother attends church, but is not a Bible scholar. I don't ascribe to those who say "this is absolutely what this means" or that "we are definitely living in the end times". I think the Bible is clear enough, and we can all judge any given verse or prediction for ourselves. Although I do see the rebirth of Israel, the potential for nuclear apocalypse, the rise of the EU, the increased isolation of Christianity, and other signs as a general drift toward the prophetic End Times. I wouldn't be surprised if we were entering the final 7 years of Tribulation, but I see that as maybe 10 to 30 years away, perhaps longer. I don't view most dissenters from my views as blasphemers, unless (such as the guy who wrote The Last Temptation of Christ) they are deliberately trying to undermine Christian faith and are not sincerely inquiring. Although that is not always easy to see. There is such a thing as free will, where we all have the ability to judge for ourselves, and in our own time, and we're all at different points on that journey. As in the case of the apostle Paul, one can be very hostile toward Christianity, and after a period of enlightenment, later become one of its greatest proponents. And I agree, ultimately, no matter how much evidence, at some point a degree of faith is involved.
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