Newsweek's Editor, Jon Meacham, himself a "liberal Episcopalian" and author of a book on the religious views of the Founders (American Gospel), has raised a large cloud of dust with a Newsweek cover story, "The Decline and Fall of Christian America." I saw Chritopher Hitchens on TV refer to it as "thoughtful." I read it. It's OK. I guess anything in the mass media that takes a relatively clear-eyed look at the state of religion in the US would have to look relatively thoughtful, but I don't see much depth. My yawn isn't typical, however, as the declining and falling Christian talking heads are exploding over it:
"Most regular church-goers have heard their less scrupulously observant fellows called 'Christmas and Easter Christians.' Well, they also have their counterparts in the mainstream media: "Christmas and Easter Anti-Christians," said Colleen Raezler, a research assistant at the conservative Culture and Media Institute, in a commentary on NewsBusters."How else to explain the spate of skeptical, negative stories that inevitably accompany the two most important Christian holy days?"
(Audrey Barrick, Christian Post)
Christmas and Easter anti-Christians. LOL.
What's quite interesting about the push-back is that it doesn't outright deny the findings upon which Meacham's piece is based, the recently released national survey of 54,000 adults, the American Religious Identification Survey, done by Trinity College's Program on Public Values. This latest of a periodic survey showed that Americans claiming no religion had doubled since 1990 to 15% while those self-identifying as "Christians" had dropped to 76%. On the other hand, those considered more conservative (identifying themselves as "Christian," "Evangelical/Born Again," or "non-denominational Christian") also rose -- to 11.8%. That means the godless outnumber the consvervative Christians! Also interesting was that the northeast, a former stronghold of Christians of all kinds had now become the national focus for those identifying as non-religious. The Evangelical Christian establishment's tack is to re-interpret the results:
Pastor Kimball of Vintage Faith Church believes that while there may be a decline of "a certain shape and subculture(s) of 'Christian America,'" there is "a rising and surging of missional church leaders, church planters, and Christians who have already recognized that we are in a 'post-Christian' America."
And that recognition has only "fueled creativity, prayer and passion for mission," Kimball, whose church draws many twenty-somethings, stated in his blog, while noting that many are "rethinking" what it means to be the church.
"Churches may die out in geographic places, but the Spirit is alive and powerful and changing lives, even though certain local churches may close their doors or types of churches lose their effectiveness," he added. "So it is ironically quite an exciting time period in the midst of this gloomy title and cover."
Fine with me. Go forth and Do Good.
A cover story in Newsweek is just one portent. Other straws in the wind:
- Christian publisher NavPress is laying off 17% of its workforce:
Jessica Chappell also gave more details about why NavPress is discontinuing the print versions of its two magazines, Discipleship Journal and Pray!, and making them available only online: From 2007 to 2008, paid circulation of Discipleship Journal dropped by 23.5 percent to 70,481, according to company records. Pray! circulation dropped 10.3 percent to 32,595 in the same period. (Colorado Springs Gazette)
- Pastor Rick Warren of Saddleback mega church fame -- who preached anti-gay marriage to his congregation but was chosen by President Obama to give the invocation at his inaugural to the dismay of many -- is backpeddling as fast as he can on CNN's Larry King Live, denying that he was ever part of the anti-Prop 8 campaign (a demonstrably false claim). His co-religionists are clearly dismayed:
"I was extremely troubled by the way he appeared to be so anxious to distance himself from the same-sex issue and to make clear he was not an 'activist' and that he'd only addressed the issue in a very minor way," said the Rev. Al Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky.
Wendy Wright, president of Concerned Women for America, said his denial is "absolutely baffling."
"Whether he supports Proposition 8 now, after the fact, is overshadowed by the bizarre claim that he did not say what the evidence so clearly proves he said." (Washington Times)
Pastor Rick knows which way the wind is blowing.
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I just saw this interesting video on Andrew Sullivan's blog:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T69TOuqaqXI&feature=player_embedded
It might be a candidate for a future Free-Thinker post, if you haven't used it already. The issue it discusses is not specific to religion, but provides some good groundwork, I think.
(If you like the idea you can remove this comment so that your readers may not have seen the video in advance of the post.)
I thought Mecham's article was ignorant, and poorly written. Historically, religious enthusiasm has risen and fallen quite a few times. The expansion in non-belief indicated by the ARIS, pew, and other surveys is good news - but it's far too small to justify grotesque exaggerations like 'The End of Christian America'. He was also quite the fear-monger. And I had to laugh at this:
Jon Meacham seems to think this small victory for historians is a threat to Christianity. Does he believe Christianity is inherently ahistorical?
The true nature of Christianity is self-sacrifice and dying. It has relected the historical law of justice and salvation. Paradoxically, the new life will be emerging and transforming afterwards.
The Wholly New; you see the new clothes and new wine. Rejoice only.
The viewpoint to be reckoned: qnantity and quality which one is more crucial?
Jim V,
The U tube site, you mentioned, says it all. It certainly appears to articulate what I personally believe is true of human beings. Thank you.
Takes fire to make steel... Sometimes the wind blows out the candles and sweeps crap into the room too. If you believe then none of the above counts for much except to those who are saying it. Proof of God? Not any....
But do tell me where energy comes from..... Where the stars came from? Who or what put them there. Reach in to the galactic core and tell me that out of all the randomness that there is not some sort of order...Who or what made it?
Now prove it.
Have a nice Easter folks. For you Godless ones... you generally get a day off in recognition of it in the US. Tell you what... go to work to keep your lack of faith.
Randy: Maybe you can tell me where your God comes from?
Indeed.....
The Great Mystery continues....
Film at 11.... God is dead because he hasnt burned any bushes or parted the seas, or stopped a great event lately from happening. I would say just the opposite. 3600 missiles two Septembers ago in So. Syria, totally missed by Israeli intelligence until they were put onto the launchers. I had spoken of them several times. They were poised to gaggle the Israeli Air Defense grid and certainly one or more would have gotten through and into major population centers. Iranian and Chinese advisers were on the ground and there to assist.
Chemical weapons, conventionals with large bores and they were going to hit cities and major towns in Central to N. Israel. They were on the rails and ready to go but, the temps were too high. At least three warheads went off in the hot sun as the caps are basically paper thin. Hundreds dead. The IDF dropped chem/bio people in and found that they had Iraqi markings, snagged a body or two and then got out.
Some would say stupid, some would say God intervention. I prefer the latter myself as this would have started in almost an instant WWIV with a nuclear launch against Damascus, Tehran and maybe Beijing.
Divine intervention or the sun... Take your pick. I can only play it one way.
The sheer illogic and picture-thinking of some of these replies brings it all back - the stuff I used to believe.
As for the "true nature" of christianity, I think that christianity has had ample time for that true naure to make itself manifest, yes?
Retreating to the more mundane: these megachurches rely entirely on people driving in from miles around to attend services. As the oil runs out, they'll inevitably fade and die. Not that that's good news, nessesarily. Christianity did not need megachurches to still be able to cheerlead slavery for all those years.
We like the baby and have to bath it. We throw out the bath water constantly.
To err is human's mode of progress. To appreciate is better than to kill- positive thinking. Therefore to let the true religion do their jobs; some one says," We need separate the church from the state, but we have to mix religion with politics." I don't mind if that is a mega church or a bible class. Obama had done a good example- to have seder in White House and to attend Easter service.
We need to practice our instinct. Take the advice from David Brooks, please read his âThe end of philosophyâ.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/07/opinion/07Brooks.html?scp=1&sq=End%20…
Revere this has nothing to do with your post but I thought you might enjoy this BBC article on religious diversity withing the UK police force - and the population more generally.
May the force be with you,
JJ
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/glasgow_and_west/8003067.stm
JJ: LOL. It's really great. And quite germane to the post. All those Jedi were classified as atheists!
Jacking the blog for a moment. Massive back to back quakes.
Tsunami warning with not a lot of time to evacuate. Aussies and most of the Pacific are under warnings.
http://www.prh.noaa.gov/ptwc/?region=2&id=hawaii.2009.10.07.221752