Decline of Christianity in America Hits Brakes

2/26/25 Pew Research Center:

"Decline of Christianity in the U.S. Has Slowed, May Have Leveled Off...

"After many years of steady decline, the share of Americans who identify as Christians shows signs of leveling off – at least temporarily – at slightly above six-in-ten, according to a massive new Pew Research Center survey of 36,908 U.S. adults."

I wonder if the nihilism that the leftist religious experience creates has finally had an impact.  For me, money, mindless sex (and not even enough of that), and food eventually led me to looking for something deeper.

I Want to Cry But...

I think I had heard of some these.  From Study Finds:

"Shared testimonies, collective singing, silent meditation and baptism rituals – these are all activities you might find at a Christian church service on a Sunday morning in the United States. But what would it look like if atheists were gathering to do these rituals instead?

"Today, almost 30% of adults in the United States say they have no religious affiliation, and only half attend worship services regularly. But not all forms of church are on the decline – including “secular congregations,” or what many call “atheist churches.”"

This should be no surprise.  The urge to worship is inborn and counterfeit religions (Marxism, National Socialism) are long-standing.  Many of the forms of church that these institutions copy are just less destructive forms of the high-runner species.

My experience is that a lot of kids have grown up in Christian homes where Mom and Dad promised until death do us part.  This lasted about fifteen years and then their Christianity seemingly failed to keep family together.

Do your best to model Christ in your marriage.

Auto da Fe Time for Mayor Adams

2/28/23 Politico:

I do not necessarily agree with his implied correlation means causality but it is a pretty severe slap in the face of important Democratic special-interest hate groups.

"At an interfaith breakfast Tuesday, Mayor Eric Adams seemed to regret the landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling that banned school-sponsored prayer in 1962.

“When we took prayers out of schools, guns came into schools,” Adams said to applause from hundreds of religious leaders gathered at an annual event in Manhattan.

Adams was discussing the role that people who attend synagogues, churches, Sikh temples and mosques could play in reducing societal ills from homelessness to domestic violence.

"Don’t tell me about no separation of church and state. State is the body, church is the heart. You take the heart out of the body, the body dies,” Adams said."

From Where Does Idea of Christian Nationalism Come?

 To quote the Library of Congress website:

It is no exaggeration to say that on Sundays in Washington during the administrations of Thomas Jefferson (1801-1809) and of James Madison (1809-1817) the state became the church. Within a year of his inauguration, Jefferson began attending church services in the House of Representatives. Madison followed Jefferson's example, although unlike Jefferson, who rode on horseback to church in the Capitol, Madison came in a coach and four. Worship services in the House--a practice that continued until after the Civil War--were acceptable to Jefferson because they were nondiscriminatory and voluntary. Preachers of every Protestant denomination appeared. (Catholic priests began officiating in 1826.) As early as January 1806 a female evangelist, Dorothy Ripley, delivered a camp meeting-style exhortation in the House to Jefferson, Vice President Aaron Burr, and a "crowded audience." Throughout his administration Jefferson permitted church services in executive branch buildings. The Gospel was also preached in the Supreme Court chambers.

Jefferson's actions may seem surprising because his attitude toward the relation between religion and government is usually thought to have been embodied in his recommendation that there exist "a wall of separation between church and state." In that statement, Jefferson was apparently declaring his opposition, as Madison had done in introducing the Bill of Rights, to a "national" religion. In attending church services on public property, Jefferson and Madison consciously and deliberately were offering symbolic support to religion as a prop for republican government.

Generally Skeptical of the Confederate Monument Thing, But..

It is certainly true that taking down statues of Democrats is a good idea, and they were traitors.  This 6/13/20 news story about the United Methodist Church taking down a stained glass image of Robert E. Lee caused me to ask: why is Robert E. Lee there at all?  Jesus sort of makes sense, even in a United Methodist Church, but Lee?

“We have included also a patriotic theme in one lancet which includes George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Robert Lee,” Richards wrote in a 1960 letter to a friend, which church leaders discovered in the archives. “We have a strong southern influence here in Boise.”

So, just like the UMC is obsessed with "inclusion" today, it was then as well.  The more you lose sight of Jesus, the more problems you get.