Is christianity dying?

[Anonymous]

Christianity is no longer dominant force to reckon with

what has happened to christianity?

[BCRanger10]

By all appearances, that seems to be the case. There are many reasons for it, all of which I won't have the space to detail here.

For one thing, many churches today aren't much more than feel-good social clubs. There's little, if anything, that elevates the heart or the mind to the transcendent, to the divine. There's a lot of emotional response, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but in most cases, that's all it is. You just take any upbeat or happy sounding pop song and switch out the words to something about loving Jesus and boom, you've got your "worship music". Dance routines, light shows, and smoke machines can only do so much to keep someone invested.

Additionally, a lot of people today seem to think that the role of religion is to give people a moral grounding, to make them a "good person". The problem here is that today, "being a good person" doesn't mean a whole lot more than "don't be Adolf Hitler".

For another, if the Bible is the primary or even sole rule of faith, you're going to run into problems. There's no governing body rooted in a rich theological or philosophical tradition to settle disputes, to confirm or condemn matters of belief. This is especially problematic when someone is faced with the supposed contradictions in the Bible, the darker passages therein, or are faced with other questions and challenges for which they are not prepared.

There's also the fact there is nothing unifying, universally binding to all Christians. What I mean by that is that, for example, once a young Christian leaves home for the first time to go to a state college where they're hundreds of miles away from the church and pastor that they knew and they don't have the support system that they did growing up, they get swept away by the college lifestyle and all the temptations to sex and partying that come along with it.

The biggest problem though is that there is no universal object of Christianity. The Catholic Church (and for the record, Catholics are Christians) for example has Holy Communion, which the Church professes to be the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. It doesn't matter if you go to Mass in rural Nebraska or a major metropolis, in the United States or in Great Britain, Nigeria, France, Vietnam, Egypt, or anywhere else in the world. Jesus is still there in Holy Communion. Whereas in any US suburb, on one city block, you've got First Baptist Church, Second Baptist Church, Third Baptist Church, St. Paul's Lutheran Church, "Firestone Non-Denominational Church", Main Street Christian Church, and the list goes on. They all claim to believe in and follow Jesus Christ and the Bible, but they all believe different things. This will cause someone to look around and react with indifference.

Now to wrap up, you ask what happened to Christianity? All of what I've just said and more happened to Christianity, in one way or another and to one degree or another. It has been for decades, centuries even. It just hasn't been until the last few years that the truth has shown its ugly head.

[BCRanger10]

Thank you for MHO.

[slatyb]

Two things:
1. The internet showed skeptics that they were not alone -- that plenty of nice normal people are not religious.
2. There is no longer a social cost for being openly approval, at least not in most of the free world.

Basically, people are now free to be open about their non-belief, instead of pretending because it was expected.

[jshm2]

It never was that great to begin with. Bu after the fall of Christendom to the Muslims, it's been in decline.

The war crimes of Christians during WW1 and WW2, as well as all the sex abuse cases, just put it over the cliff.

[FunkyMonkee]

I hope so!! It's SO stupid and pointless!! Only a mindless robot would believe in that shit because it was programmed to!

[LiamJHayden]

Nope. For more than a millennium Christianity has been a lot of fakes with a core of real believers. Not really any different today.

[HippieVeganJewslim]

Christianity has always been bigger than Judaism, but it seems like Judaism won’t ever die. I’d say the same thing about Christianity.

[TerribleTurk]

Don't you go to your churches anymore?

[Anonymous]

Godless Liberals happened.