Not by a long shot-
“The findings of these scholars are not outliers. There has been a growing gulf between the faithful and the dabblers for quite some time, with the first group growing more numerous. Think about the church you attend, relative to its belief system. It is extremely likely that if your church teaches the Bible with seriousness, calls its people to real discipleship, and encourages daily intimacy with God, it has multiple services to handle the coming crowds.
Most decent-size American cities have a treasure trove of such churches for believers to choose from. This shows no sign of changing. If, however, your church is theologically liberal or merely lukewarm, it’s likely laying off staff and wondering how to pay this month’s light bill. People are navigating toward substantive Christianity.”
I’ve been seeing this for years,old line churches that have leaned more and more liberal have been shedding members to the point that they are closing down.
Meanwhile non-denominational churches have been seeing door busting crowds.One would think the others would see it,but instead they just keep plowing ahead watering down the faith and preaching social justice non-sense.
Fascinating article.
I’d love to see a lot more debate about this subject. The formerly mainstream churches have dealt themselves out of the game by trying to be all things to all men and by being utterly unprincipled. In their scramble for “relevance” they’ve used a short spoon to sup with the devil and become as corrupt as their political and social adversaries. The Catholic Church aiding and abetting the muslim invasion of the West in exchange for money and influence is a good example of this.
To mangle a phrase, grasping at everything means they stand for nothing. Tolerating anything isn’t a demonstration of “relevance” or faith or integrity, it’s a grubby scramble to hold on to influence.
I don’t believe the great warrior monks of Europe fought so bravely for so long because God told them to – I believe they fought for a cause because that’s what men are born to do. And a belief in God gave that sacrifice a meaning and a value that would endure. Belief was grafted on to the evolutionary imperative, in other words. No wonder the modern mainstream churches never mention them.
What inspiration have the mainstream churches to offer men? Their consolations are useless without inspirations, a pale imitation of faith and watered-down principles which no self-respecting man or woman could possibly embrace.
A popular view of evangelicals seems to be that they’re simple-minded folk easily led into a passionate embrace of some nebulous belief system of little value to their sophisticated and oh-so-intelligent superiors, when in fact the truth is far, far different.
Life without faith is worthless, without enduring principles meaningless, without integrity a waste of what it means to be human.
Evangelicals sense this, whether instinctively or explicitly and they may yet save the West from itself.
(sorry for the semi-coherent rant, but it’s 3:30 am and Wabbit needs more coffee.)
Wonderful rant. Lack of principles is the key to a great many problems in the West. For conservatism, the continued influence of GOPe types within its circle are as poisonous to it as corrupted mainline religious leaders have become to their faiths.
The evangelicals preceded the TEA Party movement, and a case can be made for how the existence of the former was instrumental in forming the latter. Principles matter to the human condition — so its no wonder the misanthropic Progs want them forgotten, and all who’d remind us of them destroyed. “Kill the churches; kill the conservative parties as real opponents of regression; kill Jordan Peterson.”
The great thing about the Judeo-Christian religions is that the Bible, in both Testaments, promotes a philosophy for the individual and for the community which is just as relevant today as it was when it was recorded. The mainstream churches have abandoned this philosophy and have instead embraced that of socialism.
Mawm,that is a great point,it’s based on the individual because there is nothing the individual can do to achieve grace by themselves,it must come from God and is centered on continual self-improvement.
Pascal-“Lack of principles”=political correctness=moral cowardice
Is how I see it,I have argued for years that if the church abandons it’s principles and starts just going along to get along then what’s the point of attending?
I also wish the Johnson ammendment had gone under the axe,that has done more than anything to stifle free speech from the pulpit than anything else.
Some of this is encouraging but without defining terms such as; “intensity and seriousness” and “vibrant and serious” and “take their faith seriously” and “strong beliefs” among others, I’m less optimistic. Would an intensely vibrant people who take their faith seriously and have strong beliefs tolerate 60 million dead babies? No. A righteous and holy people would burn DC to the ground and hang them all from the neck until dead for their genocide of our people.
A really righteous and holy people exist only because Christ’s holiness is imputed to them. On that basis they need to be very mindful of behaviour that reflects Christ rather than the base human responses to things that offend. God says He will avenge so Christians running around hanging people from lamp posts would be seen as a bit dodgy.
While I think the article is correct that the churches that stick to the Gospel will do OK I remain concerned about the flimsiness of much of the church leadership when it comes to theology and the poor teaching that comes from poorly trained leaders and elders elected because they are high profile in town rather than because they know their bible. An example of this is what I would loosely call the US Southern Baptist belt which are generally dispensationalist and fixated on the Jews and Israel rather than the idea of God’s kingdom being something new and different. They may treat a Jew (who denies Christ) as a fellow Christian while ignoring a Palestinian Christian simply because they are a Palestinian and seen to be anti Jewish.
My last point is that the Bible refers to a “holy catholic” church in the context of the word catholic meaning universal. That’s nothing to do with the RC’s who have been, at the top level at least, a political animal masquerading as Christianity for far too long.
“A really righteous and holy people exist only because Christ’s holiness is imputed to them. On that basis they need to be very mindful of behaviour that reflects Christ rather than the base human responses to things that offend. God says He will avenge so Christians running around hanging people from lamp posts would be seen as a bit dodgy.”
Do you mean the Captain of the host? The LORD that teaches David’s hands to war? That LORD? That Christ? The one that is OK with Moses killing the slave driver? That Holy and Righteous God? Yeah, tell it to Moses and Abram and Joshua and David. So I take it that you think fighting Imperial Japan during WWII was wrong then? The Decalogue is clear, Thou shalt not kill, which means you must defend life. Self defense and defense of the weakest among us is as natural to God as prayer. Yes vengeance belongs to the LORD and self defense is a natural right of men.
The rest of your reply I agree with especially the zionism part.
Ps. I know what catholic is, thanks.
You need to be careful wandering about in the OT as you can justify all sorts of things by misusing it. The God of the OT has his people do all sorts of things but the expectation is that they are doing His bidding. The OT also spells out the gradual decline and collapse of the Jewish religious empire because they behaved badly. Jesus also did his father’s bidding and warned that God will avenge so we need to be careful how we act. That doesn’t make Christians pacifists or suckers but they are meant to be light. I’m quite happy to turn up for a fight but the idea of hanging locals who do bad things needs careful consideration and some due process first because its not a simple case of a foreign enemy in uniform (unless you were a civilian) like the Japanese or Germans or a partisan, spy and so on.
I get your point Fred,but the change I have witnessed in the past 30 years in the attitude towards abortion in the church shows they are finally headed in the right direction.
30 years ago my parents were active in the state NRL(National Right to Life) movement.Back then out of all the churches in our area,and there are many,only a couple were even interested in having my parents in for a talk on the subject.Now and days it would be probably 2/3 maybe even 3/4 of them.Oddly enough the Catholic church and the Pentecostals through all those years were steadfast in their vocal opposition to abortion,where as the Baptists and Methodists were until recently absent.
It’s a generational change,we can change legislation overnight,but changing hearts and minds takes time.
I pray you are right, sir. It does seem to me that younger people are more pro life than that last hippy loser generation at least.
I think so judging by the ever declining number of women who call themselves “feminist”.
Churches have two roles in society. The first is spiritual guidance and affirmation. The second is as a center of social community. As society has become more mobile the social role is of diminishing importance whereas the first, spiritual succor, is still its exclusive domain.
Here in New Zealand heretics like Lloyd Geering are knighted for spewing forth volumes of drivel.
When I parted company with the church forty years ago it was the dogmatism that put me off. The phrase among the young Catholics was ‘God said it, I believe it, and that settles it.’
For some time the message from the pulpit has been ‘Eh, whatever.’ That didn’t inspire me any, either.
While I am encouraged that the church is rediscovering its spine, I’m not in any rush to join in. The fundamental tenets of Christ’s message for me is: accept that there is something greater than yourself, limit your desires, treat others well. Personally I don’t need a group experience for that.
I’m currently of the same mind myself,mostly because the Church has filled up with too much political correctness,feelings have replaced truth as the light of liberty.
This is sad to read because you are missing out on important relationships. I remain firmly of a view, having been where you are, that there is great benefit in fellowship with Christians in a healthy environment. There are great churches out there and it just takes a bit of wisdom to see one when you walk in for a look.
http://christianmerc.blogspot.co.nz/2018/01/the-coming-division.html
That is all.