I’m torn between mocking them to within an inch of their lives for flouncing away, and pitying them for not understanding that our modern values of consent and liberty are exactly what will prevent their visions from ever coming true.
I recently ran across this gobsmackingly self-deluded blog post from fundagelical group The Gospel Coalition (TGC) about why they think Christians don’t read their Bibles enough. It gave me such a fit of the giggles! After I recovered, I thought maybe I’d help them out a little by showing them why they really shouldn’t trust Christian surveys–and what the problem likely actually involves.
The biggest Protestant denomination in the United States continues to suffer serious churn in its membership, and those of us who are rooting for its failure won’t be disappointed to hear how they’re dealing with it. I recently discovered a quiet little update to one of their most surprising task force meetings.
We’ve been talking lately about the various ways that Christianity rose to power as the dominant Western religion in the 2nd to 5th centuries. But the fun couldn’t last, and now that power is declining sharply with every passing year. As Christians began losing the power to force people to comply with their demands, they also became increasingly desperate to regain that power.
Certainly, we shouldn’t be surprised that Christians, having finally figured out just how bad the situation is for them, are finally swinging around to trying to fix things. But a funny thing happens when very criticism-averse people try to solve big, sweeping, systemic problems with their group: they start coming up with reasons for those problems that bear no resemblance to reality.
Normally you’d think that inaccuracies in Christians’ perception of others is just their problem. But their cultural flaws have a tendency of creating headaches for other people, too, not just for themselves. While they’re making strawmen about non-Christians and wrestling with their fictional creations, they’re getting an entirely wrong idea of what we’re really like and why we reject their claims and sales attempts. Today I want to talk about why Christians misrepresent us so often.
Even the most optimistic, chirpy Christians have started noticing that something is definitely wrong.
Some churches like their lights to be super-bright; some prefer their churches to be dark and secluded-feeling. Some vote for the lights to start bright and then dim during the sermon; others prefer the dead opposite. The Worship Matters blog argues for both before settling on “brightly lit”, as does this rather inconsistent music minister. One blogger identifies the fight as somewhat generational before landing on “both are nice at different times.” But Thom Rainer himself insists in his comment section that this fight is indeed heating up and getting ugly.
There really are two types of Christian in this world, and one of them hates the other with every fiber of its hate- and rage-filled little body.
We’ve been talking about the secularization of America lately. Barna’s released a new study that confirms our suspicions and offers even more hope that things may be coming to a head soon; you just have to dig through it a little to find the good stuff.