Evangelicalism's Demise Greatly Exaggerated

The term "Cafeteria Catholic" is silly.

Being a Cafeteria Catholic is much more reasonable than being a Spoon-Fed Catholic.

What is so wrong with reason? We have brains. What is so wrong with using them? Why are Catholic theologians allowed to use their brains, but Catholic laity is not?

Why in fact do all religions work this way? Why do Conservative Protestant theologians feel free to excercise their brain power, but seek to restrain everyone one else from a similiar free excercise?

Why do simple minded and ignorant theologians think they know more and better than people who actually have acquired far more knowledge and wisdom?

The term "Cafeteria Catholic" is just one more attempt to intimdate people into submitting to the mental conformity of a capriciously and top-down imposed system of thought.

So what if everyone does not think alike? It is not possible to enforce belief. Anyone who allows their beliefs to be externally manipulated does not really care, anyway. The Spoon-Fed Catholics do not really care; they just sit back and nod in agreement to anything that comes down from on high.

Cafeteria catholics who don't understand the notion of purgatory are in for a horrendous surprise.

Anyone who sins puts his or her soul in danger. If you die in the state of grace but have sins of omission or any other nature you suffer tremendous pain and suffering until you have paid the price.

When one enters heaven before the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, the Being who quells in infinite power and glory one doesn't come before Him as a dirty sad little beggar.

When you come before God you come as a daughter or son of the Most High with a dignity and honor you have earned by just deeds or suffering.

To HYJANKS,

Chuck Colson did serve time in prison. Careful reading of the Bible will show that believers can expect justice balanced with mercy.

Wishful thinking, there, Mullah Colson. I guess you missed the last election, when fundamentalist Christo-fascist kookjobism was kicked so far to the curb it still can't find its backside using both hands.

I can only hope you continue to delude yourselves, because that'll assure that you remain out of any significant political influence for the rest of my life at least.

I guess that guy with the "fish" decal that just about road-raged me into the ditch with his Ford Expedition was one of Chuck's beloved 34%.

Sanctimony has often been described as having a "reek" with good reason.

When are you fundies gonna mass adopt for all eternity those frozen embryos.

Colson writes: "Liberalism and Christianity never make a lasting marriage."

Actually, if you read the story of The Christ in the context of the times in which it was purported to have taken place both Jesus and the Good News exemplify pure liberalism.

That the mechanism and message have been muddied and corrupted by conservative leaders over time should come as no surprise; the institution becomes more important than the purpose behind it leading to the self-delusion that the self-limiting conservative decisions are more than attempts at maintaining accumulated power.

But the influence of evangelicals in politics has declined sharply. That is a good thing for everyone. Religion should stay out of politics. It brought a stain on the evangelicals as we watched them support capital punishment while protesting abortion. And they supported a war based on lies and falsehoods and when that was found out, then continued their support for that war. In other words, they sold their souls for political power, hoping to spread their religious ideas to everyone through law. I hope they learned it was a bad mistake.

Now we see the Catholic Church starting to do the same, threatening excommunication of Catholic politicians who do not submit to every church doctrine in their political duties to represent their constituents. The church used to understand religion and politics should not mix since in the past it lead to such things as the inquisition, witch burning and today's middle east mess and the Taliban. But it seems people never learn.

I agree with one of the writers who commented on how "radical" Christianity was at one time. Once Constantine made if the "official" religion, it has had a growing number of problems, and it has become an institution very much interested in maintaining its own power and self-interests.

I think it is possible for people to be evangelicals who truly want to do good for others, and they do it. But, sometimes, the "born again" use their label to convince themselves that what they believe is "right," everyone else is wrong, and they have a "badge of approval." They don't even bother anymore trying to figure out why those who disagree hold their positions--it's obvious; they are "ungodly."

I am a Catholic, and the Catholic Church is in trouble with its attendance as well, and they simply don't seem to care why so many people have found them to be "irrelevant." People have problems, lots of them, but the Catholic Church can't address many of them. After almost 1,000 years of celibacy (whether abided by or not), sexuality is at best "suspect" in the Catholic Church, so how do they help people whose problems lie in that direction? How do they help marriages when you have a bunch of men who know only sisters and mothers? There is just too much of the modern world they can't address because it is literally too foreign. It's kind of like guys who still play record players trying to figure out how to talk to people who only use iPods.

The really wonderful thing about Christianity (he says with his tongue firmly planted in his cheek)is the forgiveness thing. Here we have in Colson a convicted felon who has since given his soul to Jesus (whatever the hell that means) and he's automatically forgiven for any sins he has or may have committed.
Is there any other institution around that can say the same thing? I mean, commit a crime and you go to jail in our justice system (unless, of course, one is a member of the Bush Administration or the higher echelons of AIG). You pay for your sins, by doing time or paying fine. If you're a Christian, just go to the little box, talk to a priest, say a few Hail Marys and walk out of the church a free man; free to commit another sin and have the whole process repeated at your leisure.
Is that a great system, or what?
Plus . . . plus, when it comes time to die and you're a Christian, YOU GO TO HEAVEN! You go to a place where there is eternal bliss, you get issued a cute, little harp, mingle with little angels, probably even get fed peeled grapes by Mother Theresa.
However, if you've been on the straight and narrow all your life, have never committed a crime against humanity, have paid off all of your credit card bills, own your own house and car BUT have no interest in spooks, fairies, angles, or gods of the Christian stripe . . . then, buster, you'd better go buy yourself a sturdy roofer's shovel 'cause where you're going you're going to need it to shove that coal into that giant furnace.
I think it's really neat that Colson and his ilk have this advantage. I mean, how else can we differentiate between wicked, contemptible non-believers and the saintly among us?

CCNL (Church of Clancy, Nusbaum, and Luigi)

We hear again from our representative from the Church of Clancy, Nusbaum, and Luigi (CCNL).

The impending demise of his fellow embryonic stem cells has all but frazzled
CCNL's potential brain (cell). And we though of a different biostratum, extend our heartfelt condolences.

I see you have either not seen the Sainted Archbishop Luigi of the Lasagna for pastoral counseling or that you have, but need to go again.

As you now know, he has returned from his visit with the Holy Sauce.

You should not be embarrassed to go again to him for guidance. These are perilous times for you and all your fellow embryonic stem cells.

Until you see him, ask yourself WWLD (What would Luigi do?). You can then ask him directly, but do not ask, WWLD, since you are no longer speaking to yourself. Say instead, WSID (What should I do?). If you wish, you can later compare answers (yours with his).

Until you see him, why not say the famous Luigian chant, with which you were wont to begin your posts: "Hmmm"

May you have peace in the name of the Pasta, the Meatballs, and the Lasagna.

Hmmm

Colson obviously doesn't understand math very well, does he?

If the number of evangelicals stays the same, but the number of christians overall declines, then the percentage of evangelicals will rise.

Do so simple math Colson.
100 people, 90 say they are christian, 30 say they are evangelical christians (they are still christian). This means 30% of the total of these people are evangelicals, and 33% of the christians say they are evangelicals.

10 years later, the same 100 people, only now 84 of them say they are christian. 30 still say they are evangelicals.

A drop of 6 percentage points in overall christianity. A consistent 30% over overall population are evangelicals, but now, holy of holy, some 36% of the christians say they are evangelicals.

wow, a 6 percentage point rise in evangelicals, according to colson.

Stick to your superstitions buddy, you are math moron.

I just come upon a fact that's been staring at us regulars for a while. Based on their postings alone we could do book-length psychopatholigies pf PaganPlace and CCNL without ever having to meet them!

Liberalism and Christianity never make a lasting marriage.

Is that not why some true Christians (and Liberals) do take 'taking up the cross' seriously?

If Americans stopped persuading their children that a magic man lived in the sky, religion would disappear. There is no intrinsic truth in the god fantasy. It is based on fear and superstition, and best acquired through childhood indoctrination.

It is also the last refuge of crooks, con-men and other charlatans looking for cover. Good place to hide and claim redemption.

The Gospels and the Epistles are incredibly liberating and radical texts, at the very least within the time of their writing if not today. Much of the Pauline literature for instance prompted the creation of a community that was wholly different from the society around it, based on mutual submission to one another and denying the Universal Lordship of the Emperor and declaring Jesus Christ as Lord, an act of willful treason. It elevates the position and role of women and children to equals and preaches against ethnic division but an embrace of identity found in Christ. None of which were typical values of the opressive Roman Empire, where woman and children were practically chattel, and ethnicity defined and elevated some while lowering others.

Consistently the Gospels and the Epistles promote a society where the least and the few are the focus of God and God's community, recieving provision, healing, and new life, rewarding not those who uphold the rule of Law, as much as those who uphold the rule of love and sacrifice.
Granted these texts have been used to oppress and enslave, yet the very nature of their message and the person that they point to is consistently liberating, offering wholeness and the end of social injustice.
If the early Church is a model for liberation, it would be folly for a "bible-believing" Church to seek after political power or solutions, or to embrace a "conservative" platform, rather the Church is called to be a community that gives its life in service of those who have no justice and to be a place where the broken can find hope, acceptance, and wholeness. This community is meant to be a place, a people, that is different than the culture around it; that influences and changes the world, not through coercion but out of being servants.
Abandoning this kind of "Liberal" values would be abandoning Christ altogether, if that is the direction that churches are headed than why wouldn't people grow sick of empty meaningless social groups that serve little purpose than to condemn others and insulate themselves.
Do you think the Church can look like this, and should strive for this ideal? Maybe some who are not "Christian" fall in this category.

Colson wouldn't know Jesus if he saw him hitchhiking down the highway. Colson would remark, "Look at that long-haired liberal!"

I the United States has long been a mostly Christians society for a long time. I've heard up to 90% have called them that in recent history. Obviously the numbers have decline some but not significantly.

What I see is that the people on the fringes no longer take time to bother with Christianity or Church. Many just associated with it because of family, traditions, or that is what moral people do. In an increasingly plural society they now have "choices" and they don't feel it is required to associate with Christianity.

While I'd rather have these people associating with Christianity, I also do think it is much of a loss nor does it worry me that the numbers have declined. Going to church a few times a year and therefore calling yourself a Christian really isn't the call of Christianity. There is much more a real Christian should exihibit. Sometimes it is better that people see what life if like outside the chruch. In the end I hope these people do come back as dedicated believers.

What I see in churches now is much more dedicated disciples. There are always some on the fringe or those who are really seeking but people don't come to church much anymore because they just feel they should. These people are the ones who make up the heart of Christianity and I believe they will attract more people because they show what Christ really wanted us to do.

Number always go up and down and we don't need to overly concerned with them. I think we should be much more concerned with following truth.

Here is the AWFUL truth:

I think of myself as a Christian, sort of. I do alot of things that might seem Christian, and I have alot of beliefs that also might seem Christian.

Yet, that word "Christian" creeps me out. It is an embarrassment to be known as a Christian, and to be linked with people like Chuck Colson.

So that is how it is now with alot of Christians.

The survey points out that 34 percent of all American adults now identify themselves as "Born-Again or Evangelical Christians."

I just wish they would all put Jesus fish bumper stickers on their cars. Those things make great warning signs.

"So, I'd say it is a healthy trend. It shows serious Bible-believing Christians increasing, both in the evangelical and Catholic traditions, while mainline liberals continue their long decline."

Actually, sir, what it shows is that people have to be stoked to increasingly-blind right wing radicalism to continue to claim to believe in 'Christianity.'

Certainly, conservative Reverends like yourself call it a win if the few who still believe you are increasingly- blind to the effects of *following* you, but...

Well, just if you have some namby-pamby pinko liberal idea of religion *not* being there to frame people's consciousness in Calvinistic terms and call it 'Freedom,'

...Well, all I can see is, 'Off with you and your bat and ball. Rest of us have to live here. Reverend.

Of course, the more the policies you call 'Godly,' the more extreme those who haven't written you off have to be to keep listening to *you.*

Frankly, the decline in people wanting to be *associated* with you, Reverend, probably has much to do with people not wanting to be associated with the notion of ever having been taken in by your demagoguery.

Don't flatter yourself to think it even has the slightest bit to do with 'Jesus.'

Dude. :)

An obvious further bias to the piece is Mr. Colsons focus on the demise of evangelicalism as exaggerated. The question asks if America is loosing it's religion, as fewer people are calling themselves christian or identifying with particular denominations. Once again Mr. Colson, by responding to the question by generalizing christian faith into the umbrella of evangelicalism and so negating as relevant other forms, shows his elitist dismissive views. He just sees it as validation for non inclusiveness, it seems.

Is America Losing Faith?
The new American Religious Identification Survey says fewer people are calling themselves Christians or identifying with particular denominations, and more people are claiming no religion at all. Are you concerned? Is America losing its religion?

It is not about losing faith but all about being smarter and not buying into the mumbo-jumbo that has been fed to us for many a millennium:

To wit:

Judaism, 6000 years of supposed human history (when it actually is at least 60,000 years).

There is no proof that Abraham even existed. Ditto for Moses. And David was not some rock-throwing hero but a minor king in a minor kingdom embellished by the scribes of the OT.

www.simpletoremember.com/vitals/ConservativeTorah.htm

Christianity- 2000 plus years of a simple preacher man being the son of god who rose from the dead. Both bogus as per a thorough analyses of the records.

http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/theories.html

Islam- 1400 years of a "pretty, wingie (gay?) thingie" aka Gabriel talking to a womanizing, warmongering, hallucinating Arab who wanted to conquer the world. His followers still do!!!

(Angels/devils are the mythical creations of ancient civilizations, e.g. Hittites, to explain/define natural events, contacts with their gods, big birds, sudden winds, protectors during the dark nights, etc. No "pretty/ugly wingy thingies" ever visited or talked to Mohammed, Jesus, Mary or Joseph or Joe Smith. Today we would classify angels as fairies and "tinker bells". Modern devils are classified as the demons of the demented. )

http://www.pantheon.org/articles/a/angels.html

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07049c.htm

Contemporary biblical and religious scholars have relegated these "pretty, wingie thingies" to the myth pile. We should do the same to include deleting all references to them in our religious operating manuals. Doing this will help eliminate the prophet/profit/prophecy status of the founders of Christianity and Islam and put them where they belong as simple humans just like the rest of us.

This is so funny, if you avoid the obvious self serving bent of the piece.

The fact is that similar processes have recurred every century, but the overall result is not to the decline of liberalism but to it's increase. Christian religions have consistently moved over the last two thousand years to a much more liberal position, and they are continuing to do so. Forced to do so in some cases as they are faced with the obvious falsehood of long held dogma when put under the scrutiny of rational and scientific examinations. Society in general is moving toward liberalism. That is what democracy is, in comparison to the monarchies and theocracies that democracy sprang from. There are obviously ebbs and flows to this current, but the direction of the current is immistakeable.

Fundamentalist christianity like evangelism is akin to fundamentalist islam in that the two represent branches of their religions that are attempting to push against the flow of rational awareness and liberal inclusiveness that is the natural direction of the human river.

You are a voice for pathological stasis, Mr. Colson, and the human 'being' is seeking homeostasis. It is not because you believe in 'God', but because you believe that you have a monopoly on 'God' and that is foolish. Because you cling to a myth that god is expressed in a few chapters of a book. Because you negate differing perspectives on Truth. Humanity cannot, (and so far has not) exist with one perspective.

...but ignorance and religion do.