Stephen said
And in the meantime there is an unfilled void.When we’re hungry we search for food. When we’re cold we build shelter. Voids exist to be filled. I guess the reason I’m not a conservative is that I am comfortable with the possibility of a world which was not made for me.
In the 1970s, a person could be connected to his community church by walking to church, maybe being a Sunday School teacher, a pianist, organist, choir member, etc. The same teenager could go on church picnics, date another teenager in the congregation, later get married. The minister could have christened that person, marry that person, and preside over the funerals of parents. (That church may be connected to an elementary school or a high school.)
Yes I grew up in the rural white southern version of that.
What makes up for all that today? Nothing.
Or perhaps you simply cannot recognize it.
Do you recognize it in England and Wales? 100% substitute or better?
Jarek said
Stephen said
According to the BBC-
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For the first time fewer than half of people in England and Wales describe themselves as Christian, the Census 2021 has revealed.
The proportion of people who said they were Christian was 46.2%, down from 59.3% in the last census in 2011.
In contrast the number who said they had no religion increased to 37.2% of the population, up from a quarter.
Those identifying as Muslim rose from 4.9% in 2011 to 6.5% last year.
No sign of Divine Judgement (unless of course you include Brexit).
Will this be our fate here in the good ole U S of A? There is little doubt that Christianity is losing its position of privilege in the West. As a non-believer I see this as a fascinating sociological phenomenon. (Perhaps Christians can at long last begin to identify with the pagans of the Fourth century who saw their own world of privilege slipping away.) But I encourage my believing friends not to be discouraged by all this. Look at it this way. As it becomes less and less advantageous to socially identify with Christianity the number of folks who so identify for reasons other than sincere belief will begin to drop away. When a sickly dog sheds its blood sucking ticks only then can it return to robust health. (But oh how the ticks will howl of persecution!)
Some questions do remain. Can Christianity survive in a culture without being privileged in some way? Can it survive not persecution but simple neglect? It will be interesting to see how it accommodates itself to the new situation. I suspect the most trouble will come from the hardcore wing who regard any decline as evidence of the end of things and who seem willing to encourage the Almighty to bring on divine wrath.
The results in the UK are better due to significant emigration (+700k) from Poland in 2004-2015, which certainly identifies itself as Christian in a significant majority (70-90%). Poland is the leader in the decrease in religiousness in the world between the +40 and -40 generations. The pope should fire our entire episcopate.
What? Y’all had a Polish pope. John Paul II didn’t boost numbers?
Poland is the leader in the decrease in religiousness in the world between the +40 and -40 generations
Sounds like you’re ready to write your book, How the Poles Saved Civilization.
Of course civilization has already been saved by ** you do not have permission to see this link **. So Jarek you’ll have to get in line.
Do you recognize it in England and Wales? 100% substitute or better?
Why not ask them? But as I said before, it’s not always a matter of replacing one thing with another.
Stephen said
Poland is the leader in the decrease in religiousness in the world between the +40 and -40 generationsSounds like you’re ready to write your book, How the Poles Saved Civilization.
Of course civilization has already been saved by ** you do not have permission to see this link **. So Jarek you’ll have to get in line.
Do you recognize it in England and Wales? 100% substitute or better?
Why not ask them? But as I said before, it’s not always a matter of replacing one thing with another.
It is just data from survey provided by UN agenda
Porphyry said
The results in the UK are better due to significant emigration (+700k) from Poland in 2004-2015, which certainly identifies itself as Christian in a significant majority (70-90%). Poland is the leader in the decrease in religiousness in the world between the +40 and -40 generations.Jarek said
I imagine you fall harder when you start higher–the Church has been gutted for at least a generation in most of Europe; Poland was perhaps the last really Catholic country (aside from maybe Liechtenstein, but I’m not even sure about them and do they actually count anyway?).
The pope should fire our entire episcopate.
Not just Poland’s. The entire episcopacy of the RC Church for the recent past has been a study in gross mismanagement. It is honestly shocking how bad it has been.
The communist regime made Poles stick to the Church. Now the trend is like in the West. The entire episcopate resigned in Chile, including retired bishops. This was the only significant gesture on the part of the hierarchy guilty of covering up pedophile crimes. This is how it should be everywhere. These people lacked character and our tradition went down the drain.
An interesting article in today’s online US edition of the British newspaper The Guardian.
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The general tone of the article is not new. It reports a continuing trend of decreasing traditional religiosity in the US. The item I noticed was the stat from 2020, the last year we have firm data, showing that for the first-time church closings outpaced church founding, resulting in a spike of church sales. It jibes with my observations in my hometown back in Georgia. You have a few larger congregations of various denominations that seem ok. But over the area what you will see are lots of churches that have known better days. Congregations that used to number 75 to 100 souls now sustain with 15 or 20. More ominously the demographic skews heavily 50+. In the little church my family attend they cannot afford to hire a permanent minister so a teacher at a local religious school fills in.
I hope no one infers any triumphalism on my part from these comments. (I’m not that kind of atheist.) It’s just that I remain totally fascinated to see how the Christian church will navigate in a world and a culture in which it is no longer privileged. What happens when there are no longer any social advantages to being part of a religious community? What happens when religion simply becomes a matter of personal belief?
It does pay to have a historical perspective however. A look at American history reveals alternating waves of fervor and indifference. Contrary to the conservative myth of our “pious ancestors”, the founding of this country took place in a moment of religious indifference. It has been estimated that at the time of the founding only about 7% of Americans were regular churchgoers! Moments of fervor correspond with national crises and periods of cultural uncertainty. Sooo..who knows? Perhaps the effects of global climate change will once again fill the churches!?! When the cities of the south are burning and the masses are fleeing to the imagined safety of the north, perhaps the pulpits will again be thundering with a call for repentance and suppliants everywhere will pack the pews begging for forgiveness.
Robert I read an account once of a band who purchased a church to turn into a studio. The auditorium of course made a natural performance space. The problem was the church had a historic provenance so one of the stipulations of the sale was that the church would still be accessible to tour groups. There was this great picture of a group of little old ladies, fingers in their ears, being led down an isle while the band blasted away.
In my own community we have a large influx of Asian and India Indian folks, some of them of course are Hindu. They are becoming active in running for local political offices. I am waiting for the reaction from the Christians when they realize they may be governed by non monotheist. So far the reaction to this has been mild at worst.
The majority religion in Hawaii is Buddhism because of the influx of Japanese retirees. (I remind my relatives of this when they go on about the US being a Christian country.) A lot of the current cultural agitation on the Right is because the demographic handwriting is on the wall. I think the complexion of Americans is less important than that we retain the secular Enlightenment values on which this country was founded. In that sense I am a conservative.
BDEhrman
FreedomBen
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Robert
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