Churches Merge, Close: Christendom Is "A Thing Of The Past"

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Riddick
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Churches Merge, Close: Christendom Is "A Thing Of The Past"

Post by Riddick » 10-25-2017 01:26 PM

The Incredible Shrinking Church: A Sign Of The Times?

An increasingly common phenomenon, faith leaders closing or consolidating houses of worship is a way of adjusting to a culture that has grown less hospitable to their mission.

The driving force behind the trend is the well-documented decline in Americans’ commitment to organized Judeo-Christian religion. Denominations large and small report falling membership numbers, decreased attendance and faltering financial support. The decline began accelerating in the 1990s.

Membership at churches and synagogues has fallen by nearly 20 percentage points since World War II, according to Gallup.The Episcopal Church and the Presbyterian Church USA have lost nearly half their members since 1967. More than a thousand Catholic parishes have closed since 1995.The number of Jews who call themselves culturally but not religiously Jewish is rising sharply among millennials.

A few faith traditions have fared better. The Muslim and Orthodox Jewish populations are growing, and evangelical Christianity’s numbers are holding steady. But more than 20 percent of Americans say they’re unaffiliated with any religion. That’s the highest number ever.

The Rev. Daniel Webster, canon for evangelism and media for the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland, has studied and written about the current trend for nearly two decades.

While it’s hard to pinpoint a single most important factor, Webster says, it’s impossible to ignore the repeal of most of the old state blue laws, regulations that had long placed restrictions on commercial activity on Sundays, starting in the mid-20th century.

Today’s faith leaders must compete with everything from youth soccer and pro football games to shopping at the mall.

“When I was growing up in what I call the salad days of the 1950s and early 1960s, the question in the neighborhood was ‘What church do you go to?’” Webster says. “Now it’s, ‘Why do you go to church?’”

“We no longer live in Christendom. We really have to accept that it's a thing of the past.”

The larger question, faith leaders say, is what they should do about it. More and more often, the answer seems to be: shed your baggage, move more nimbly and sharpen your sense of mission.

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Re: Churches Merge, Close: Christendom Is "A Thing Of The Past"

Post by Doka » 10-25-2017 07:06 PM

It is simply the nature of man to make Gods out of any thing , any one. We are a very insecure species, and so much is "unknown" to us. We complicate the simple answer, Especially , when it does not come from Money, Power and those we put before us.

The man or woman in the mirror knows all, but we will reject the source, because of our own foibles and insecurities , disregard our own intuitiveness , because it is unreliable and consider ourselves as less than...........and more than likely, "Untrustworthy".
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Those Who Can Make You Believe Absurdities, Can Make You Commit Atrocities': Voltaire

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Re: Churches Merge, Close: Christendom Is "A Thing Of The Past"

Post by kbot » 10-31-2017 04:31 AM

It also says a lot that religious observance is actually competing with things which the author cited such as playing sports and treating the American culture to 24/7/365 shopping and the rise of the material culture (shades of George Harrison???). American culture's next best must-have items are clogging or landfills and the cable shopping channels constantly hawk the items you MUST BUY NOW in order the make your life have any sort of meaning. Cell phone (which require that the world extract African rare earth minerals just to function) are replaced at quicker rates, adding more MUST HAVES to an ever-growing audience inculcated with materialism, meaning even more people walk into street posts, or trip over the people begging in the street

Is it truly surprising that, coincident with the rise of modernism (which the Catholics at least has been fighting for more than a century now) and post-WWII materialism, we have also seen a rise in crime and gang membership? We have become a disposable society, from our dinnerware to our people.
There you go man, keep as cool as you can. Face piles and piles of trials with smiles. It riles them to believe that you perceive the web they weave. And keep on thinking free. (Moody Blues)

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Re: Churches Merge, Close: Christendom Is "A Thing Of The Past"

Post by Doka » 10-31-2017 11:37 AM

Is it truly surprising that, coincident with the rise of modernism (which the Catholics at least has been fighting for more than a century now) and post-WWII materialism, we have also seen a rise in crime and gang membership? We have become a disposable society, from our dinnerware to our people.


That is all really hard to believe , since Catholic Church more than likely owns the largest chunk of the Worlds Wealth. The Popes "Vow of Poverty" must have gotten lost somewhere. I doubt the Pope buys his groceries at the Dollar Store. Humans pay homage to other humans, it is necessary for people to have something tangible to believe in, and the Church certainly offers that. It is the devotion to the Church, that has promised, to get the people to" Heaven" , with out any godly changes to their own actions. I don't really think it works that way, but it is worth a try I suppose............


By Modernism you mean using a washing machine instead of pounding your clothes on a rock, I guess I'm all for it!
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Those Who Can Make You Believe Absurdities, Can Make You Commit Atrocities': Voltaire

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