Choice: A Healthy Trend Indeed!

What the Pew study shows is that people are increasingly losing their faith! People want their ears tickled and find in short order that it doesn't satisfy them!
Jesus Christ is not about personal freedom of belief, but about total surender to his will!
People aren't willing to give control of their lives over to Christ. They want to be first in their lives and have Jesus step in when the chips are down. Thats why the health and wealth gospel is thriving at the moment!

Your own supposed priesthood is a perfect example! Jesus established a Church with authority here on Earth! A Church full of sinners with devine protection. People don't want to accept that because they lose control of their personal "freedom" and become slaves to Christ.

Please don't think I'm being mean. I'm not saying you're not saved, just rebellious. We all sin in some way.

"Changing dominations shows that people are thinking about their beliefs. People are paying attention to what nourishes them spiritually and what leaves them dry, empty and uninspired ...
This spiritual smorgasbord is a threat to the mainline churches that are struggling with declining membership."

The most hilarious part of all this, is, of course the fact that Artress' denomination is a mainline denomination, and the fastest declining one at that (4% last year). She is actively using the "labyrinth" to promote pagan beliefs:
http://www.standfirminfaith.com/index.php/site/article/10769/

"The shift to a new religious paradigm relies on tuning into themselves and taking more responsibility for their spiritual lives."

If this is true, why is there a mass exodus out of the Episcopal Church? Why aren't more people buying into her Pac Man maze theology?

"Changing dominations shows that people are thinking about their beliefs. People are paying attention to what nourishes them spiritually and what leaves them dry, empty and uninspired ...
This spiritual smorgasbord is a threat to the mainline churches that are struggling with declining membership."

The most hilarious part of all this, is, of course the fact that Artress' denomination is a mainline denomination, and the fastest declining one at that (4% last year). She is actively using the "labyrinth" to promote pagan beliefs:
http://www.standfirminfaith.com/index.php/site/article/10769/

"The shift to a new religious paradigm relies on tuning into themselves and taking more responsibility for their spiritual lives."

If this is true, why is there a mass exodus out of the Episcopal Church? Why aren't more people buying into her Pac Man maze theology?

"Changing dominations shows that people are thinking about their beliefs. People are paying attention to what nourishes them spiritually and what leaves them dry, empty and uninspired ...
This spiritual smorgasbord is a threat to the mainline churches that are struggling with declining membership."

The most hilarious part of all this, is, of course the fact that Artress' denomination is a mainline denomination, and the fastest declining one at that (4% last year). She is actively using the "labyrinth" to promote pagan beliefs:
http://www.standfirminfaith.com/index.php/site/article/10769/

"The shift to a new religious paradigm relies on tuning into themselves and taking more responsibility for their spiritual lives."

If this is true, why is there a mass exodus out of the Episcopal Church? Why aren't more people buying into her Pac Man maze theology?

Religious folk are getting restless and wondering if they have the right belief...or if some other religion makes more sense than their present religion.

If they go on thinking like this they may end up realizing that religion is prehistoric claptrap and that non belief is the only rational way to go.

9/11 taught us that irrational religious beliefs are dangerous and we must oppose such nonsense whenever we can.
As far as we know there are no skygods. We invent them with great ease, because such beliefs are impossible to disagree with, and offer great comfort to the believers.

Given the Denominations that are being abandoned are, more often than not, those who frankly quit making even a pretense of teaching those beliefs some time back your premise is suspect.

Oooh, a labyrinth? Next time I'm in San Francisco, I'll have to visit Grace Cathedral and walk it!

Thanks, Rev. Artress, for articulating what I've been trying to tell people. Human beings are starting to mature past then need for a judgemental, punishing Big Daddy In The Sky. So much has been lost because this religion or that didn't like it, and so declared it to be "Satanic". We need to reclaim these practices.

"No longer are they satisfied with the beliefs that were passed down to them through their families. They want first hand experience of the Divine. The shift to a new religious paradigm relies on tuning into themselves and taking more responsibility for their spiritual lives. And that is what the Pew survey is identifying."

No it's not. It is simply identifying that we, as a society, tend to shift our religious commitments more now than in the past. that's it. It is not helpful to try to speculate the analysis of variance here without looking at the specific statistical evidence for it.

Two things do stand out. Stark's theory of rational choice as applied to religious behavior and Wuthnow's analysis of denominational affiliation versus ideological commitment have now a body of credible evidence to back them up beyond what they had theorized in the past. This simply means that existing denominational structures no longer hold our religious commitments adequately.

http://notes-from-offcenter.com