Millions leave organized religion, weak, believe-what-you-want communities blow up, end up offering refuge to DOZENS lol

 

 As millions leave organized religion, spiritual and secular communities offer refuge

 

Vinings Lake Church ― Mableton, Georgia:

When Deese invited a member of the Muslim faith to address the congregation about Islamophobia, people walked out. Others did the same when he brought in a blacksmith to make art from melted-down reclaimed firearms acquired from the local sheriff’s office.

But the real exodus, Deese said, took place when he attempted to address the topic of Christian nationalism.

“Bottom line is, if you need to know how to shrink a church, I’m your guy,” Deese said wryly.

A congregation of 800 plummeted to 100. The budget shrunk by $1 million. Some staff members had to be released.

 

Awakenings – Houston:

The community has about 40 core members, and while the Bible is the text most often referenced, Awakenings attracts people of all faith traditions, Norman said.

 

Aldea Spiritual Community – Tucson, Arizona:

A typical Sunday gathering features talk, music and meditation and draws half of the community’s membership of about 150, nearly all of whom are people who have left traditional organized religion, Haber said. [150/2 = 75 lol]

 

Heartway Church – Davie, Florida:

“We lost a lot of people in the process,” Prada said, blaming much of that on his own zeal, immaturity and antagonistic approach to the faith he was shedding. “I felt like it was my duty to prove that way of Christianity was wrong and this one was right. Even now, a lot of people can’t go where we continue to go, and they fall by the wayside.” ...

Attendance averages between 120 and 140 on any given Sunday, he said – a showing he considers respectable given the church’s location in conservative South Florida. It includes individuals who consider themselves spiritual but not religious as well as nones, those who don’t affiliate with any particular religion.

 

C3 Spiritual Community – Grand Haven, Michigan:

Sunday gatherings average around 90 attendees and are built around a topic presented by a group or guest teacher bookended by community discussions.

The community began as a Reformed Church in America, part of a network of mainline Reformed Protestant churches. Its separation from the RCA began in the 1990s after the church let a gay organization conduct meetings in a church office.

As the community went through its theological transformation – the name C3 refers to its former identity as Christ Community Church – many members fell by the wayside; it now meets at a community center but has seen recent growth among younger generations, executive director Shannon McMaster said.

Are the churches emptying because they've been too successful?

 

I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. 

-- Luke 5:32

Elmo knows

 

Where Should Agnostics Go on Sundays?

Ross Douthat, New York Times 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The rise of The Nones will plateau because . . .

 Atheists Just Don't Have Many Kids:

. . . look at the change in the atheist/agnostic share of the adult population in recent years. In 2013, it was 10%. In 2016, it was 12%. In November of 2022, it was still 12%. ... It’s harder for a “religion” to grow if it has to achieve that growth largely through conversion.

When it comes to COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy by religion, nones are the most hesitant, not Evangelicals

The Young And Secular Are Least Vaccinated, Not Evangelicals:

In fact, I find that those without any religious affiliation were the least likely to have received at least one dose of any COVID-19 vaccine. ... By May, 70% of non-evangelical Protestants had gotten at least one dose. Sixty-two percent of both evangelical Protestants and Catholics reported the same. However, it was the “nones” (no religious affiliation) who were lagging farther behind. By May 11, only 47% of nones had reported receiving at least one dose.

One can observe the hesitancy phenomenon among the young (who are the majority of the nones) without screening for religion from the CDC data by comparing the percent 18-49 who get flu vaccination on average with the percent getting full COVID-19 vaccination. On average over the last ten years 32.25% of those aged 18-49 get flu vaccines every year compared to just 25.48% getting full COVID-19 vaccination through May 22 (10.047 million aged 18-29 + 25.177 million aged 30-49 = 35.224 million out of 138.216 million).

People aged 50-64 get full COVID-19 vaccination at almost the same rate they get flu vaccine on average, and those aged 65+ get full COVID-19 vaccination at a much higher rate than flu vax, which one would expect given that it kills that population in the highest numbers, and that the media whips up the hysteria about it 24/7 despite the fact that in the first year of the outbreak barely 3% of confirmed cases across all age groups were ever hospitalized and only 1.8% of confirmed cases died.

We shouldn't blame young people for not getting vaccinated, however, given that myocarditis among the young is a known side-effect of COVID-19 vaccination. Word gets around.

It's one of the few instances where the young may be wiser than their elders.

 

Your new electorate: More than a third of millennials are nones but many share the irrational beliefs of the young

Michael Graham, here:

About 35 percent of all adult millennials (born between 1981-1996) are part of the “nones,” people with no identified religious faith. ...

It’s not that millennials and young Americans are too rational to be believers — far from it. According to a new report from MarketWatch, half of all young Americans “believe astrology is a science.”

“The psychic services industry — which includes astrology, aura reading, mediumship, tarot-card reading and palmistry, among other metaphysical services — is now worth $2 billion annually,” MarketWatch reports.

The human capacity to believe in the beyond believable is all but limitless.

Isn't "postliberal theology" oxymoronic?

Think about it.

The post-liberals rejected the preeminent role played by reason in the formulation of the modernist interpretation of Christianity, which in its turn had really been a rejection of the pre-modern rationalism of the church in favor of the so-called modern type. 

The post-liberals granted that there was an internal logic to these two interpretations, something liberal theology had been loathe to grant, but rejected the existence of a superintending logic over them all, to which they bare witness.

When one goes this route, one is separating the "logy" from the "theo" in theo-logy and jettisoning it. As a consequence, one can't really speak of a postliberal theology. In rejecting logos one is really rejecting speech and argument itself. One is left with a God about whom nothing can be said.

Had postliberalism been true to itself, however, it never would have come to exist in the first place because it would have understood this imperative to shut up.

The thing post-liberalism claimed was true of others they never quite applied to themselves, namely that the limitations of language and culture made their own truth claims impossible. In seeking to relativize the dogma of others, their own movement became a dogma, but not one successful enough that you can actually look one up in the Yellow Pages under "post-modernist churches" and attend a Sunday, or preferably some other day, service.

What post-liberalism actually does is attract certain personalities from the pre-modern or the modern camps who are susceptible of rejecting reason, Americans caught up in radical individualism being noteworthy examples. This mission field has been white unto harvest, riddled as it is with self-imposed isolation and separation from "community". Some of them doubtless call themselves "nones", and their creed, if they have one, is "Here's to the truth as perceived by you!".

The topic is recently and usefully discussed here at The Blog of Veith.

30% of adult Americans own guns, 41% of white Evangelicals, more than any other religious group

I'll bet you gun-owing American Muslims didn't tell the truth in the survey.

From the story here, which tells you more statistics about guns and religion than you'll ever want to know:

The 41 percent of white evangelicals that own a gun surpasses the 33 percent of white mainliners, the 32 percent of the religiously unaffiliated (or “nones”), the 29 percent of black Protestants (two-thirds of whom identify as evangelical, according to Pew), and the 24 percent of Catholics who own one also. (By comparison, 30 percent of all American adults report owning a gun.)

The "Nones" mentioned in the Bible: Just maybe some of ours are descended from them

  

 

 And after the earthquake a fire; but the LORD was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice. And it was so, when Elijah heard it, that he wrapped his face in his mantle, and went out, and stood in the entering in of the cave. And, behold, there came a voice unto him, and said, What doest thou here, Elijah? And he said, I have been very jealous for the LORD God of hosts: because the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword; and I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away.

And the LORD said unto him, Go, return on thy way to the wilderness of Damascus: and when thou comest, anoint Hazael to be king over Syria: And Jehu the son of Nimshi shalt thou anoint to be king over Israel: and Elisha the son of Shaphat of Abelmeholah shalt thou anoint to be prophet in thy room. And it shall come to pass, that him that escapeth the sword of Hazael shall Jehu slay: and him that escapeth from the sword of Jehu shall Elisha slay.

Yet I have left me seven thousand in Israel, all the knees which have not bowed unto Baal, and every mouth which hath not kissed him.

-- 1 Kings 19:12ff.

Bernie Sanders, candidate for the Nones

WaPo quotes him here:

“I am not actively involved with organized religion,” Sanders said in a recent interview.

USA Today Celebrates The Decline Of Protestantism

You wouldn't know it from the article, here, that Protestantism remains the overwhelmingly dominant religion of America, despite losing its majoritarian ranking. Protestants still outnumber Catholics by over 2 to 1, on whom the unaffiliated are gaining fast.

Judging by the comments section, it will only be a matter of time before the secularists begin tearing religious people limb from limb for sport.

Forget that turning the other cheek stuff. It's best to be armed and ready for them.

God, guns and guts made America great. Let's keep all three.

Meanwhile, subscribers to that USA Today rag are only encouraging the bastards. USA Away is more like it. Forget 'em.