Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire What Does Declining Church Attendance Mean for Our Society?

I've no legalistic posts.

This has been a pretty good thread so far, despite a few unnecessary bumps along the way. My apologies for the role that I played in those unnecessary bumps.

Antlers.

Were you ever a member of graybeard outdoors under a different name?

I see nothing to disagree about, "It's" simple.

Yes, they had both. They had the Old Testament, the letters started coming in within 10 or 20 years and, better than those, they had the personal testimony of the Apostles and disciples. The earliest Gentile followers were even brought into the synagogues located beyond Israel at first. If you read the Bible, you'd know this.

My view is not legalistic, and I'll explain why (again). Legalism means the law is an end in itself. Follow the law to the letter, then no matter what your interior is like, you are justified. Non-legalism means that the law is an illumination, a guide for the just and to maintain order among the unjust.

I know you will never be convinced of anything happening outside your head. That may work for you (I doubt it), but it's not viable for future generations.

Recipe for disaster, obviously. Really not even worth discussing.

What parts of the NT would you leave out? Would you leave out almsgiving? That's a rule. What about "Do this in remembrance of me"?

I’ve been studying Christianity in America for the last sixteen years. Youre statement could be the center piece for an argument for what I’ve found. A few points that stand out from what I’ve learned and the heritage that churches in America draw from can explain the conditions that fostered the OP of this thread.

Most early denominations in America sprang from movements that broke away from the established church. That added a heritage of self definition and reinvention.

As Americans we have a tendency to tear down old things and call them rubbish indiscriminately. Many posts in this thread demonstrate that mindset.

The revivalist movement was heretical. Charles Finney lied to gain pastorship in the Presbyterian church. Then he went rogue and developed a governmental/legal view of the Christian faith. He denied original sin and took John Wesleys doctrine of Christian perfection to its logical end. The direct result of his influence and the many spin offs resulted in that area of New York State being the seed bed for all of the major faux Christian movements that swept across America in the 1800’s.

That is our heritage. In my opinion we need to adopt the spirit of the Renaissance and reformation and call these religions that front as Christianity exactly what they are. False.

From studies that the Barna Group to what Christian Smith wrote about concerning Moralist Therapeutic Deism we can see the result of how these influences have gutted any objectivity concerning the faith and replaced it with emotionalism.

It’s no wonder that young people leave the church in America. It’s no wonder that the atheists and agnostics laugh at Christians and Christianity on these threads.

This thread demonstrates everything that is wrong with the American church. We have Gnosticism, Spiritualism, Mysticism, Rank Fetid Moralism and objectively ignorant cliche Christianity (I’m a good person) attaching false orthodoxy to the name of Christ. Just name the name of Jesus and we are all good and all the same no matter what we believe. It’s like Rodney King united the Christian faith under his cry “can’t we all just get along” at the cost of truth.

In respect to demonstrating those things this thread is wonderful.

Yes, IZH27, great post.

It all boils down to humanity doing what we've always done - doing what we think is right and what we think God wants instead of what God tells us is right and tells us He wants.

Agreed. It started with our original father and mother. We have to embrace it and deal with it.

It’s OK to disagree. The early church leaders had theological disagreements among themselves and it led to the 1st Church Council of Jerusalem. Their theological disagreements in no way diminished the Gospel.

Jews considered Gentiles (anyone not a Jew) to be unclean. Gentiles were well aware of this. The earliest Gentile Christians had no scripture at all. None of the Christian scriptures had been written yet, and the Jewish scriptures meant nothing to the Gentiles. The Apostolic Tradition hadn't even been comprised yet, so they didn’t have that either. The earliest Gentile Christians had no scripture and they had no Apostolic Tradition. All they had was the Gospel, as told to them by someone else. You disagree. That’s fine. Our disagreement on this matter doesn’t diminish the Gospel in any way.

Again, ‘if’ he’d “never heard the Gospel,” and ‘if’ he asked me about the Gospel, ‘then’ I’d simply tell him the Gospel, and that’d be it.

Our decline in church attendance is reason for the declining society.

Is it possible that the decline in society is the reason for the decline in church attendance...?

I believe they feed off one another. As usual, life is complicated and there are few simple answers.

Plus we are in the end times. The flow of history is tough to overcome.

The country, North America, needs a good revival!

It can go either way. I typed it that way the first time then I edited it.

I don't think we will see that revival. Sodom & Gomorrah did not get their revival either. God just let them go their own way which is were we are now.

That doesn't mean God loses. He has already won.