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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Western Church Decline
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Mudfrog
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# 8116
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Posted
We NEVER do barbershop!
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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 8237 | From: North Yorkshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2004
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gorpo
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# 17025
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by deano:
quote:
Originally posted by pydseybare:
I think it is because there are actually two gospels: one for the poor and one for the rich.
The Salvation Army has done an excellent job of speaking to the poor, forgotten, misused etc - speaking out the gospel of hope, forgiveness, worth, encouragement and so on.
Unfortunately that gospel doesn't really wash when people are rich, self-satisfied, contented, well-fed and so on. Most people turn off immediately as being irrelevant, those that remain become more and more self-centred, more involved in a form of me-first religious spiritual development project.*
The gospel for the rich is that repentance is necessary, that there is no offer of free grace to the wealthy, and that following Jesus Christ involves the rich becoming humbled - including a costly self-sacrificial taking off of the riches and coats of respectability.
*that said, in more difficult times (in Europe etc), I suspect this message will become again more relevant.
But that fails when you consider the USA. Arguably the richest economy and containing massive numbers of wealthy people - relatively speaking - and Christianity is overwhelmingly followed by the majority of the population.
Thanks to evangelicals and other conservative forms of Christianity. Liberal denominations in America are dying at their feet, even worse then in Europe.
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SvitlanaV2
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# 16967
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by gorpo:
Liberal denominations in America are dying at their feet, even worse then in Europe.
That would be an achievement. Have you been to Europe?
On the internet, one comes across quite a lot of anxiety about 'mainline' church decline in the USA, but rather less anxiety about such decline Europe. This isn't because European churches are more successful. It's because European churches have had longer to experience and internalise decline and have mostly stopped worrying about it. In the UK there have been attempts to meet the decline with fresh ideas and evangelistic vision, but in many (and I'd say most) cases there's an acceptance of decline as a simple fact of British church life, even if partial signs of growth are welcomed.
[ 20. December 2013, 21:37: Message edited by: SvitlanaV2 ]
Posts: 6668 | From: UK | Registered: Feb 2012
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Justinian
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# 5357
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Posted
I've an answer for this - and one I've been saying for some time.
Christianity ultimately stands or falls based on its moral authority - and there are two forms of moral authority that a group can hold. True moral authority based upon lighting a path for the surrounding world, and the fake moral authority that comes from a better justification for self interest.
The Prosperity Gospel fits the niche that Ayn Rand does. Fake moral authority. The excuse to not listen to their conscience.
But when it comes to true moral authority, the impulse to help our fellow humans, the Churches are mostly on the wrong side. While the Sally Army was a big bastion of fighting poverty it thrived. Now the state fights poverty many thousands of times better than the Sally Army can, its influence is diminished. And when the Sally Army, the CofE, the Roman Catholic Church, and others come out as actively homophobic organisations, they are ones actively fighting to stop us helping our fellow humans. Which means that they have less moral authority than polticians. Politicians are at least generally lightly corrupt rather than trying to teach us that evil (homophobia) is good.
The Sally Army at the moment is growing where it's leading forward - places that don't have a welfare state. It's shrinking where it's getting in the way of helping people - places that have a welfare state and that gay marriage is on the cards. There the Church is not providing moral leadership, quite the reverse. And so it is at best irrelevant. And the little churches normally stand or fall on the behaviour of the big ones.
(America has a much worse welfare state than most of Europe, of course).
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My real name consists of just four letters, but in billions of combinations.
Eudaimonaic Laughter - my blog.
Posts: 3926 | From: The Sea Coast of Bohemia | Registered: Dec 2003
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Mudfrog
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# 8116
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Posted
Sorry, what has gay marriage got to do with it? You imply that decline has only set in recently whereas in European terms the decline started 100 years ago.
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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 8237 | From: North Yorkshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2004
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Pomona
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# 17175
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Posted
Homophobia certainly didn't start the decline, but it definitely is helping to speed the decline up. It's one way in which churches are showing themselves to be irrelevant to most people in developed nations.
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Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
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chris stiles
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# 12641
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
Sorry, what has gay marriage got to do with it? You imply that decline has only set in recently whereas in European terms the decline started 100 years ago.
The truth is, no one really knows when the European decline began - because it was masked for some time by church as a third space of sorts for the burgeoning middle classes.
Probably there was a one time hit from the urbanisation that accompanied industrialisation in the various countries. Ironically, the 'most religious' parts of europe are ones where the working class as a whole had the least understanding of religion if you go back 150 years or so.
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
Elizabeth Barrett.
Christina Rossetti was already a poet before the Oxford Movement got to her.
The Bronte sisters. Not poets of the first division (Rossetti is, and Barrett likely too) but decent poets, and great prose writers, full of imagery that can be poetic.
(IIRC George Eliot was raised an evangelical as well?)
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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gorpo
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# 17025
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
I've an answer for this - and one I've been saying for some time.
Christianity ultimately stands or falls based on its moral authority - and there are two forms of moral authority that a group can hold. True moral authority based upon lighting a path for the surrounding world, and the fake moral authority that comes from a better justification for self interest.
The Prosperity Gospel fits the niche that Ayn Rand does. Fake moral authority. The excuse to not listen to their conscience.
But when it comes to true moral authority, the impulse to help our fellow humans, the Churches are mostly on the wrong side. While the Sally Army was a big bastion of fighting poverty it thrived. Now the state fights poverty many thousands of times better than the Sally Army can, its influence is diminished. And when the Sally Army, the CofE, the Roman Catholic Church, and others come out as actively homophobic organisations, they are ones actively fighting to stop us helping our fellow humans. Which means that they have less moral authority than polticians. Politicians are at least generally lightly corrupt rather than trying to teach us that evil (homophobia) is good.
The Sally Army at the moment is growing where it's leading forward - places that don't have a welfare state. It's shrinking where it's getting in the way of helping people - places that have a welfare state and that gay marriage is on the cards. There the Church is not providing moral leadership, quite the reverse. And so it is at best irrelevant. And the little churches normally stand or fall on the behaviour of the big ones.
(America has a much worse welfare state than most of Europe, of course).
Sayng exactly what secular people wants it to say doesn´t make a church more relevant. Proof of that being the fact that mainline churches become more irrelevant year after year.
Posts: 247 | From: Brazil | Registered: Apr 2012
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Martin60
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# 368
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Posted
Saying 95% of your post as 100% of someone else's large one doesn't make one inclined to read it again to see what your point is. At least twice.
[ 20. December 2013, 23:42: Message edited by: Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard ]
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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SvitlanaV2
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# 16967
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by chris stiles:
The truth is, no one really knows when the European decline began - because it was masked for some time by church as a third space of sorts for the burgeoning middle classes.
To a certain extent it's possible to isolate changes in working class churchgoing habits, though. I've seen a few studies that explore the changing demographics of English churchgoing over several centuries. The focus isn't always on middle class churchgoing.
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
Elizabeth Barrett.
Christina Rossetti was already a poet before the Oxford Movement got to her.
The Bronte sisters. Not poets of the first division (Rossetti is, and Barrett likely too) but decent poets, and great prose writers, full of imagery that can be poetic.
(IIRC George Eliot was raised an evangelical as well?)
Okay, I love googling for stuff about writers and religion, and if you're going to include any half-decent poet who was raised by evangelicals and who went through an evangelical phase or who was in any way influenced by evangelicalism there must be many of those.
I've come across James Baldwin, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Gerald Manley Hopkins, John Bunyan and Phillis Wheatley, for a start. There also seem to be a number of books and articles suggesting that John Wesley and 'enthusiasm' along with the Enlightenment love of reason had an influence on English Romanticism in general.
So, even if signed-up, born again revivalists weren't writing odes to make the TLS critics swoon evangelicalism still had an influence on poetry.
Getting back on topic, we could ask whether evangelicalism influencing poets aided or undermined the cause of evangelicalism.
[ 20. December 2013, 23:42: Message edited by: SvitlanaV2 ]
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Arethosemyfeet
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# 17047
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by gorpo:
Sayng exactly what secular people wants it to say doesn´t make a church more relevant. Proof of that being the fact that mainline churches become more irrelevant year after year.
There's a big difference between "not advocating positions that any sane person can see are immoral" and "saying exactly what secular people want it to say".
Posts: 2933 | From: Hebrides | Registered: Apr 2012
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
Cristina was a lot more than "half-decent"!
Anyway, there were loads of popular evangelical poets in early 19th century, mostly women, mostly not much regarded these days. So the accusation that there were no evangelical poets really boils down to saying that the kind of poetry 18th and 19th century evangelicals wrote is not to the taste of 20th and 21st century critics.
Then if we dismiss all hymn writers - then as now worship songs were the main outlet for evangelical poetry, which is not the same thing as poems written by evangelicals - we end up with the rather odd position, from a Christian point of view, of rejecting poetry that is embedded in the worship of the church, as if the only true poetry was private, introspective, and disconnected from the world.
And we can drop Isaac Watts for being An Heretic (which he was) and therefore No True (proto-)Evangelical. Which is a neat pre-emptive strike against Milton (who would be the clincher for the opposite view were he allowed into the argument, at least for those who dismiss Victorian women poets)
And I guess Bunyan can be ignored for writing doggerel. Bloody good doggerel - but then so did Hank Williams and Johnny Cash write good doggerel.
But Cowper? One of the best-known and most-read serious poets of the period? What did he do not to count as an evangelical poet?
Add to that the rather odd rejection of Cowper
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
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Beeswax Altar
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# 11644
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Posted
Yes, but the mainline denominations are dying a far faster rate than the conservative denominations. So, if the Dead Horses are responsible for the decline of conservative Christianity, then why aren't the mainline churches growing exponentially?
Are most Christians insane?
Justinian would likely say yes. Sometimes I don't see much difference in the more liberal members of my denomination and atheists. Technically, they believe in God but have an obsession with being loved and respected by nonbelievers. They seem to be waiting for Richard Dawkins to pat them on the head and say, "There, there, I know you aren't like those bad ol fundamentalists. Your faith is perfectly rational. We will make you honorary atheists even." So...I can see why calling all conservative Christians insane would be tempting to some liberal Christians...
For the record, the Dead Horses do contribute somewhat to the decline of conservative Christianity. Before long, those conservative Protestant Christians with conservative views on the Dead Horses will be as marginalized as fundamentalist separatists became in the middle of the 20th century. Others will adapt just like the neo-fundamentalists adapted. However, as a priest in a mainline denomination, I'm more concerned with why my denomination is dying at a much faster rate. My suspicion is because people don't believe we really have anything to offer. Sometimes I don't think we believe we have anything to offer.
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Losing sleep is something you want to avoid, if possible.
-Og: King of Bashan
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SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
Cristina was a lot more than "half-decent"!
Of course. I was referring to some vague minimum standard that might be acceptable.
I don't know what Gamaliel's standards are for either poetry or evangelicalism, but he can explain himself later, if it's not too much of a diversion.
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gorpo
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# 17025
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
quote:
Originally posted by gorpo:
Sayng exactly what secular people wants it to say doesn´t make a church more relevant. Proof of that being the fact that mainline churches become more irrelevant year after year.
There's a big difference between "not advocating positions that any sane person can see are immoral" and "saying exactly what secular people want it to say".
And the "positions that any sane person can see are immoral" always vary acording to the taste of the wider, secular society. What a coincidence. Wouldn´t it be a lot more honest if they just admit they don´t believe that God stuff and just went on to become a secular institution with rituals?
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Evensong
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# 14696
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
quote:
Originally posted by balaam:
I'm not usually one to stand up for liberalism, but... quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
- Liberal theology (mostly German)
...is not really fair. I'd say that it is more a case of the church failing to be seen as different from society at large. Yes some liberal churches are guilty of this, but they are not the only ones. On the other hand where Christians are seen as being different it is because they are being reactionary, against change and standing for the status quo. Opposing change when they should be leading reform.
I agree with you on this, as far as the church not being different enough; but i would suggest that Liberal biblical and doctrinal theology has emptied the churches - when people know longer believe, then churches die and become empty.
HA!
Higher biblical criticism brought about faith decline?
Only for weak and unexamined faith.
So perhaps the wheat are being sorted from the chaff and that's a good thing.
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a theological scrapbook
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Kaplan Corday
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# 16119
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Posted
I don't think anyone has mentioned the gender issue.
There is an argument that in the UK, at least, the more precipitous decline which began in the sixties was a result of women catching up with men in rejecting religion - which leaves the question of why this happened.
It seems to have started a trifle early to have been a result of Second Wave feminism.
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Arethosemyfeet
Shipmate
# 17047
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by gorpo:
And the "positions that any sane person can see are immoral" always vary acording to the taste of the wider, secular society. What a coincidence. Wouldn´t it be a lot more honest if they just admit they don´t believe that God stuff and just went on to become a secular institution with rituals?
It might be if that were actually true, rather than a bullshit strawman you're building.
The idea that morality can be derived without direct reference to scripture - that there is a natural law - is very much a part of mainstream Christianity. The RCC has maintained its position on various Dead Horses largely on that basis, but there are other interpretations.
Also, the secular view is not the same as a (certainly my) liberal Christian view. I do believe that gay people should be able to marry, but I believe that sex outside of marriage is wrong, and that marriage is for life (in general, there are areas like abusive relationships where this breaks down). Some conservatives seem to have this weird idea that valuing marriage for all people somehow makes you an advocate for no limits, do whatever makes you feel good sexual permissiveness.
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Arethosemyfeet
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# 17047
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Posted
Oh, and while I think of it, if we're going to go down this "following the spirit of this age" line I should point out that there is nothing particularly special about the spirit of the 1950s conservatives seem to follow.
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Evensong
Shipmate
# 14696
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
Some conservatives seem to have this weird idea that valuing marriage for all people somehow makes you an advocate for no limits, do whatever makes you feel good sexual permissiveness.
True story. Odd that. Yet maybe not. Fundies are often all or nothing people within their own particular frameworks.
I'm a theological liberal and a social conservative. ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
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a theological scrapbook
Posts: 9481 | From: Australia | Registered: Apr 2009
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Russ
Old salt
# 120
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Posted
In thinking about decline, may be helpful to distinguish
- why there are more people who no longer really believe
- why those who don't really believe no longer attend church and identify as members
Television and related technologies may have something to do with the second of these.
But for the first, it seems to me that the answer has more to do with the rise of scientific thinking and the failure of the churches to move away from pre-scientific ideas.
Best wishes,
Russ
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Wish everyone well; the enemy is not people, the enemy is wrong ideas
Posts: 3169 | From: rural Ireland | Registered: May 2001
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Gamaliel
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# 812
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Posted
I'll start a new thread on evangelicalism and poetry because people seem to have got the wrong end of the stick and it'd cause a diversion here.
The interesting point about people like Elizabeth Barrett (Browning) and Christina Rossetti - who is certainly front-rank - is that they didn't remain evangelical.
What I'm suggesting is that there is something not conducive in the longer term to having a poetic or philosophical 'bent' and remaining within a strictly or traditionally evangelical setting.
That may sound snobby but it's based on observation.
Evangelicalism attracts the activists and the 'directive' thinkers - the do-ers rather than the reflective thinkers. Sure, you'll find those in evangelicalism too but generally speaking they have a harder time in terms of fitting in with the prevailing evangelical sub-culture.
It's a bit like Mark Noll with his famous - and largely disregarded - plea for evangelicals to re-engage with the 'life of the mind'. Remember 'The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind'?
Towards the end of that marvellous book he observes that US-style evangelicalism in particular can only cultivate the 'life of the mind' by drawing on insights from the older traditions - be they older forms of Protestantism, be they Roman Catholicism or Orthodoxy.
I've said all along that there are examples of poetry and a 'way with words' within evangelicalism ... come on, mun, I grew up in South Wales and all forms of evangelicalism down there were touched by the gift of the gab.
I'm going to stick my neck out and suggest that whilst evangelical influence can create good poetry - and in hymns and worship songs too - it rarely creates 'great' poetry.
As for Bunyan - yes, I'd rank him highly for some passages in Paradise Lost and elsewhere - but have you ever read any of his more doggerel efforts?!
Cowper? yes, he's important but I wouldn't place him in the front rank.
Evangelicalism has often acted as something to react against when it comes to the arts rather than something that has inspired artistic endeavour.
That said, there's a strain of it within Romanticism just as there is with any of the other cultural influences that arose at the time of the Enlightenment.
I'm afraid I regard evangelicalism in its contemporary form as more a product of the 18th than the 16th and 17th centuries, although its antecedents clearly lie there.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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CL
Shipmate
# 16145
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Posted
quote:
As for Bunyan - yes, I'd rank him highly for some passages in Paradise Lost and elsewhere
![[Confused]](confused.gif)
Posts: 647 | From: Ireland | Registered: Jan 2011
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Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras
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# 11274
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Posted
Bunyan, Milton, Cotton Mather. A Puritan by any other name would smell as sweetly (not).
Posts: 7328 | From: Delaware | Registered: Apr 2006
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
Aagghh ... I meant Pilgrim's Progress of course, not Paradise Lost ...
I was thinking of two things at the same time.
Note to self. Must.edit.posts.
![[Hot and Hormonal]](icon_redface.gif)
Meanwhile, I wouldn't write-off everything about the Puritans ... they've had a bad press. Saying that ... my youthful enthusiasm for them has long since waned.
I am neither Cavalier nor Roundhead. I'd probably have been a Clubman and tried to fend off both sides.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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Horseman Bree
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# 5290
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Posted
I'll believe that there is some hope for the church when the sports leagues release their grip on the young people, so that "going to church" will become an option.
Oh, and Sunday shopping. Ten years ago, there was a lot of wailing about how one shouldn't let the stores open on Sunday. My retort was that, if the Christians were serious, they would boycott the shops on Sundays. The exact opposite happened - all the Christians went out for lunch and then to the malls immediately after service - and after a while, they became bored with church and went for brunch instead, while Little Johnny played in weekend-long tournaments, usually in another town.
Can't run churches on the strength of the non-shopper, non-hockey people.
Oh, and you can't make churches the moral arbiters when, by their actions, they are seen to be immoral (anti-women, anti-LGBTs, abortion-doctor killers, right-wing "It's--all-the-poor's-fault-they-are-poor" non-givers....)
(ETA that I thought we were debating the Western church)
[ 21. December 2013, 16:00: Message edited by: Horseman Bree ]
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It's Not That Simple
Posts: 5372 | From: more herring choker than bluenose | Registered: Dec 2003
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Augustine the Aleut
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# 1472
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
I don't think anyone has mentioned the gender issue.
There is an argument that in the UK, at least, the more precipitous decline which began in the sixties was a result of women catching up with men in rejecting religion - which leaves the question of why this happened.
It seems to have started a trifle early to have been a result of Second Wave feminism.
Older friends tell me that their youth (variously) during the 1940s, 1950s or 1960s, was marked by frequent and consistent clerical counsel against sexual activity. As mores shifted, and it was seen that good girls could (and did), they came to reject this advice and questioned the credibility of clergy generally. As the clerical stance was so much at odds with their personal experience, they began to assume that this really applied to anything which they said. This, perhaps, might have been an aspect of proto-second-wave or a late first-wave feminism which reduced female participation.
One interlocutrix told me that this was less of a problem in Latin RC territory for: a) one could always confess and be absolved and, b) ignoring the clergy had been a tradition.
Posts: 6236 | From: Ottawa, Canada | Registered: Oct 2001
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gorpo
Shipmate
# 17025
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Horseman Bree:
I'll believe that there is some hope for the church when the sports leagues release their grip on the young people, so that "going to church" will become an option.
Oh, and Sunday shopping. Ten years ago, there was a lot of wailing about how one shouldn't let the stores open on Sunday. My retort was that, if the Christians were serious, they would boycott the shops on Sundays. The exact opposite happened - all the Christians went out for lunch and then to the malls immediately after service - and after a while, they became bored with church and went for brunch instead, while Little Johnny played in weekend-long tournaments, usually in another town.
Can't run churches on the strength of the non-shopper, non-hockey people.
Oh, and you can't make churches the moral arbiters when, by their actions, they are seen to be immoral (anti-women, anti-LGBTs, abortion-doctor killers, right-wing "It's--all-the-poor's-fault-they-are-poor" non-givers....)
(ETA that I thought we were debating the Western church)
You seem to be confusing cause and effect. People don´t stop going to church on sunday mornings because of sports and shopping. They do sports and shopping on sunday mornings because they have stopped going to church long ago and thus sunday mornings are free time. Atheists will not magically start believing in God in case they don´t have any entertainment available on sundays.
The same applies for the Dead Horses issues. Society didn´t become secular because of the church´s opinion on the dead horses. Society changed its opinion on the dead horses because it had left the church. Hence churches changing their opinions of that issues to please society will not bring more people (scandinavian churches are still empty despite having lesbian bishops, ELCA and TEC are dying even faster after they openly embraced homossexuality and abortion). Secular people have left the church because they no longer believe in supernatural things. And one doesn´t need a belief in God or anything supernatural in order to be a LGBT or abortion activist.
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Wesley S Chappell
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# 4186
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Posted
One thing that hasn't been mentioned much is if there ever really was a period of mass, genuine Christian belief.
We don't know what individuals believed; Christianity for much of its history was simply imposed on them from above and they didn't have much of a choice.
Decline in organised religion only really set in when individuals were able to make their own choices about what they believed (largely through increased literacy, which ironically was given to them to help them be more religious) and were able to make more choices about what they did in their spare time.
Consider that in the sixteenth century, it was a criminal offence not to attend an Anglican place of worship.
Posts: 477 | From: London | Registered: Feb 2003
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Mudfrog
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# 8116
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Posted
Thank you Gorpo, that was excellently said.
Wew have a gay church in Newcastle. I don't think it's full of ex-Anglicans/Methodists/ Salvationists/Atheists.
I don't think it's full at all!
Maybe the gay thing is a total straw man.
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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 8237 | From: North Yorkshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2004
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
Yes, I agree with Wesley.
For much of the middle ages most lay people wouldn't have understood a word of what was said in church. That doesn't mean that they didn't have faith, necessarily ... but much of it would have been of a fairly folk-religion kind. How could it have been otherwise?
Even in the middle ages there are intriguing records of people who'd come to the conclusion that the Bible stories were myths or fables and that there mightn't necessarily be any form of life beyond the grave. I once read a very fascinating historical article which gave examples from the 14th century onwards.
Certainly by the 17th century there were a number of atheists around who were prepared to openly acknowledge as much.
So, yes, the lack of engagement with faith etc comes with the availability of personal choice.
Only eternity will reveal how many people did or didn't engage with the Christian faith in any meaningful way - or ways in which we might consider meaningful according to the criteria of our respective traditions.
But I doubt if the redeemed will be going round with labels on to show to what extent they believed accurately, orthodox-ly or behaved correctly etc etc.
They'll just be the redeemed.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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Pomona
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# 17175
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
Thank you Gorpo, that was excellently said.
Wew have a gay church in Newcastle. I don't think it's full of ex-Anglicans/Methodists/ Salvationists/Atheists.
I don't think it's full at all!
Maybe the gay thing is a total straw man.
MCC (Metropolitan Community Churches) have been around for some time. Not sure if it's the one you have in Newcastle, but it's the main LGBTQ-specific denomination that I know of. Given the pain and abuse suffered by LGBTQ people in many mainstream churches, clearly there is a need.
Oh and your local Anglo-Catholic and RC churches will be absolutely heaving with gays, guaranteed.
I don't think the LGBTQ thing is a straw man. Most non-Christians in the UK and increasingly elsewhere view Christians as homophobic cunts, unless they're homophobic themselves. Given the abhorrent behaviour of many mainstream Christians in this area (even very recently with Andrea Minchinello Williams in Jamaica), it shouldn't come as a surprise. LGBTQ people and allies who object to this don't go to more liberal churches, they just quit Christianity altogether.
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Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
Posts: 5319 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2012
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Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Yes, I agree with Wesley.
For much of the middle ages most lay people wouldn't have understood a word of what was said in church. That doesn't mean that they didn't have faith, necessarily ... but much of it would have been of a fairly folk-religion kind. How could it have been otherwise?
Even in the middle ages there are intriguing records of people who'd come to the conclusion that the Bible stories were myths or fables and that there mightn't necessarily be any form of life beyond the grave. I once read a very fascinating historical article which gave examples from the 14th century onwards.
Certainly by the 17th century there were a number of atheists around who were prepared to openly acknowledge as much.
So, yes, the lack of engagement with faith etc comes with the availability of personal choice.
Only eternity will reveal how many people did or didn't engage with the Christian faith in any meaningful way - or ways in which we might consider meaningful according to the criteria of our respective traditions.
But I doubt if the redeemed will be going round with labels on to show to what extent they believed accurately, orthodox-ly or behaved correctly etc etc.
They'll just be the redeemed.
Indeed. King John gets his dire reputation in part from the fact that he was an atheist, and the monks writing his biographies weren't best pleased at this. His elder brother Richard I was not really much use as a king, spending 10 months out of a 10 year reign in England, but did go on crusades so was much more favourably regarded by the monks.
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Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
Posts: 5319 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2012
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SvitlanaV2
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# 16967
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
Higher biblical criticism brought about faith decline?
Only for weak and unexamined faith.
So perhaps the wheat are being sorted from the chaff and that's a good thing.
The trouble is, that sort of thing is usually kept as the preserve of intellectuals. Rarely is it explained and explored with the ordinary people in the pews. They're generally expected to carry on as though nothing has changed. But people aren't stupid - they can feel that something's changed, even if they can't always put their finger on what it is.
The church can't claim to be 'on the side of the poor' but then exclude ordinary people from this secret knowledge. The priestly hierarchy feels that by shielding people it's protecting their faith, but that doesn't seem to be the case in the long run.
Posts: 6668 | From: UK | Registered: Feb 2012
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Gamaliel
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# 812
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Posted
This has come up before ... I'm not sure that it's a case of a 'priestly caste' deliberately withholding secret knowledge so much as ...
- In the case of some ministers/clergy a refusal to accept Higher Criticism, for good, bad or indifferent reasons.
- In the case of others a refusal to get to grips with the implications for themselves and their 'flock' if they do accept Higher Criticism and so on.
Of the two vicars where I live, one is very liberal and makes no attempt whatsoever to sugar any pills and he's more than happy to introduce some of this so-called secret knowledge as you put it into Bible studies and sermons and ordinary everyday conversation.
The other is very evangelical and never mentions these things. Presumably because he doesn't believe them.
Both are 'what you see is what you get'.
I also think that other clergy aren't quite clear where or how to pitch things in this respect.
I don't think there's a clear cut, binary divide in all cases between those who hold to Higher Criticism type views and those who don't.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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Pomona
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# 17175
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Posted
Also, some congregations (especially more elderly ones) are not especially interested in higher criticism.
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Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
Posts: 5319 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2012
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Gamaliel
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# 812
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Posted
Besides, higher criticism itself is rather old-hat too.
It's already had its hey-day.
SvitlanaV2 has only just noticed. Some wicked priestly caste has been hiding these things from her, obviously ...
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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Beeswax Altar
Shipmate
# 11644
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Wesley S Chappell:
One thing that hasn't been mentioned much is if there ever really was a period of mass, genuine Christian belief.
We don't know what individuals believed; Christianity for much of its history was simply imposed on them from above and they didn't have much of a choice.
Decline in organised religion only really set in when individuals were able to make their own choices about what they believed (largely through increased literacy, which ironically was given to them to help them be more religious) and were able to make more choices about what they did in their spare time.
Consider that in the sixteenth century, it was a criminal offence not to attend an Anglican place of worship.
US religious history would suggest that isn't the case.
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Losing sleep is something you want to avoid, if possible.
-Og: King of Bashan
Posts: 8411 | From: By a large lake | Registered: Jul 2006
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Justinian
Shipmate
# 5357
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Posted
Good to know that people are not engaging and instead trying to find one single point to dismiss what I'm saying. Let me try again.
In the sixteenth century when it came to helping the poor, and curing the sick, the Church was most of it. They were obviously trying to make the world better.
Through the nineteenth century
The ideal world the Christian view is pointing to is somewhere in the late Nineteenth Century. One based on charity as the highest means of helping the poor rather than the fact that "The poor shall be with you always" is rawest defeatism and the need for charity is a demonstration of failure.
The "better world" most of the Churches preach we should make this one was already being caught up with in Western Europe and America at the end of the nineteenth century. It was left in the dust in the mid twentieth.
To take various illustrations:
* Christian Charity assumes that there will be no Welfare State. Not that charity isn't needed (there are always gaps) - but if Churches genuinely care about the poor they should be stumping for the Welfare State rather than trying to show how giving they are. Otherwise what you have left is what is openly called by some opportunities for compassion. ![[Projectile]](graemlins/puke2.gif)
* Christian sexuality makes sense when you assume that contraception doesn't work, and that abortion is either poisoning the mother and hoping the foetus dies faster (e.g. Pennyroyal), infanticide, or leaving a foundling. Things have changed a lot in the past hundred years.
In both cases mainstream Christian teaching wants to bring us to a brave new world that looks something like the 1890s. Ignoring, or in at least some cases actively trying to overturn a century of progress so that the remedies they preach will once more become relevant. Most branches of Christianity are not ready for, and indeed actively recoil from a world in which "The poor shall always be with you" is an expression of defeatism about a problem that should be soluble rather than a simple truism. And they certainly aren't ready for a world where unwanted children aren't a major problem and where sex needn't have a serious risk of ruining lives (which is why some of the more conservative Churches are trying to stop this world from existing - if we reinstitute the old problems, the old answers become relevant rather than at best laughable again).
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My real name consists of just four letters, but in billions of combinations.
Eudaimonaic Laughter - my blog.
Posts: 3926 | From: The Sea Coast of Bohemia | Registered: Dec 2003
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SvitlanaV2
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# 16967
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
Also, some congregations (especially more elderly ones) are not especially interested in higher criticism.
Of course they're not interested in it. And they won't ever be, unless those who are 'leading' them tell them it matters.
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Besides, higher criticism itself is rather old-hat too.
It's already had its hey-day.
SvitlanaV2 has only just noticed. Some wicked priestly caste has been hiding these things from her, obviously ...
Indeed! Why didn't the wise ones who know these things tell me? Or at least give me an up-to-date reading list?? Are we only paying them for pious platitudes and pastoral visits??
But that's very rude of me. I do like most of the clergy I meet. I belong in their orbit and can't escape. But so many other people can and do....
Posts: 6668 | From: UK | Registered: Feb 2012
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chris stiles
Shipmate
# 12641
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
The church can't claim to be 'on the side of the poor' but then exclude ordinary people from this secret knowledge.
So do you want them to be told about it in it's entirety, or don't you? Or is this just another tangent?
Because higher criticism isn't a a unified thing, it's a series of separate and contradictory ideas that you then have to make an informed judgement on.
Also, it's mostly run it's course, and most denominations have come to some understanding with it on a clerical level - so it's completely inaccurate to say 'everything has changed' - because in most cases that's just not true.
Posts: 4035 | From: Berkshire | Registered: May 2007
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Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
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Posted
It's not that difficult to find out about higher criticism and other different approaches to Scripture and faith, now we have the internet. While I'm not condoning clergy keeping things from their flock, in a lot of cases the congregation is much less interested in new things than the clergy. A lot of older church members are not interested in higher criticism because that's not what church is for, for them, particularly in more liturgical denominations. Not everyone cares about academic approaches to their faith.
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Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
Posts: 5319 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2012
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SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by chris stiles:
quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
The church can't claim to be 'on the side of the poor' but then exclude ordinary people from this secret knowledge.
So do you want them to be told about it in it's entirety, or don't you? Or is this just another tangent?
Because higher criticism isn't a a unified thing, it's a series of separate and contradictory ideas that you then have to make an informed judgement on.
Also, it's mostly run it's course, and most denominations have come to some understanding with it on a clerical level - so it's completely inaccurate to say 'everything has changed' - because in most cases that's just not true.
I was responding to Evensong's post, which implied that an inability to cope with higher criticism meant having a 'weak and unexamined faith'. If this is in fact true then you'd think that getting congregations to become engaged in that would be a priority. I'm not sure that it is.
There was a series of letters in 'The Methodist Recorder' a few years ago bemoaning the fact that members weren't being given the space or the encouragement in their churches to explore some of the issues together. In fact, a theologian I know said that trainee clergy were discouraged from exploring some of the controversial stuff, for fear that they'd destroy people's faith. In the Methodist circuit I know there's now a forum for some of the old issues to be discussed, which is a good thing.
I don't think this is a 'tangent' at all. Some people (obviously not all) will leave churches if they don't feel they can talk about some of troubling theological issues from the past that they've vaguely heard of, or read about. Yes, the theologians and the denominational leaders might have moved on to something else, but how does that help the people in the congregations who might still be very hazy on some of the arguments of the past?
I accept that people are free to go and read books and websites on their own.
Posts: 6668 | From: UK | Registered: Feb 2012
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Beeswax Altar
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# 11644
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Posted
Higher criticism is a broad term. What specifically do you think the clergy are keeping from you? I often use historical criticism in my sermons and teaching. I just present it for what it is...a crap shoot.
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Losing sleep is something you want to avoid, if possible.
-Og: King of Bashan
Posts: 8411 | From: By a large lake | Registered: Jul 2006
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SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967
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Posted
Well, if they're keeping something from me, I won't know what it is until I see it, will I??
I can see that no one gets where I'm coming from on this, which is surprising to me but I accept it. The comments I have in mind about the clergy being reluctant to present certain theological material to congregations come from Methodist and URC sources. Other denominations may be different.
Posts: 6668 | From: UK | Registered: Feb 2012
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Lyda*Rose
Ship's broken porthole
# 4544
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by gorpo:
quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
quote:
Originally posted by gorpo:
Sayng exactly what secular people wants it to say doesn´t make a church more relevant. Proof of that being the fact that mainline churches become more irrelevant year after year.
There's a big difference between "not advocating positions that any sane person can see are immoral" and "saying exactly what secular people want it to say".
And the "positions that any sane person can see are immoral" always vary acording to the taste of the wider, secular society. What a coincidence. Wouldn´t it be a lot more honest if they just admit they don´t believe that God stuff and just went on to become a secular institution with rituals?
I'm a Piskie, liberal on many social issues, and can say the Nicene creed without crossing my fingers. Why would I want "a secular institution with rituals"?
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"Dear God, whose name I do not know - thank you for my life. I forgot how BIG... thank you. Thank you for my life." ~from Joe Vs the Volcano
Posts: 21377 | From: CA | Registered: May 2003
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Beeswax Altar
Shipmate
# 11644
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Posted
Exactly...which might say something about why our church is declining faster than more conservative ones.
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Losing sleep is something you want to avoid, if possible.
-Og: King of Bashan
Posts: 8411 | From: By a large lake | Registered: Jul 2006
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Pomona
Shipmate
# 17175
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Posted
^ What Lyda*Rose said. I'm not going to admit to not believing in that God stuff, because I do believe in it. I just also don't believe in a God that requires institutional homophobia/sexism/racism etc. Why is that apparently impossible?
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Consider the work of God: Who is able to straighten what he has bent? [Ecclesiastes 7:13]
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