The God factor; This is still A Christian Nation and a Religious People.
Apr 12th, 2009 by David Anderson
A certain news magazine (the name of which is not worthy of my mention) had a sensational cover declaring the Decline and fall of Christian America. As usual the secular left can’t understand the rest of America. It was timed to coincide with Holy Week while 70% of America is honoring Christ. It was typical liberal nonsense. The actual article seemed measured and worthy of discussion. The author is serious scholar who is grappling with societal changes. He points out that the near universal Christian consensus this country had is no longer universal. Of course most of us knew that for 40 years. Just turn on MTV and you can see that is true. When porn fills our society like an open sewer, when we push games and entertainment which celebrates killing, when babies are aborted, when giving out Bibles in school causes fear in the hearts of administrators, but condoms are dispensed daily, when public prayer is controversial in school but blasphemy is common place, when people think that marriage is about any two people getting together, then it seems obvious that a Christian consensus no longer exists.
Where I completely disagree with the author of that survey (see its link in another post here) and certainly the headline writers is that Christian America is on the rise. Church attendance is not down. The fervor of the faithful has increased. Evangelical Christianity is sweeping America. The Catholic Church likewise is finding a resurgence in people wanting to learn about the faith they took for granted. The conversion rate is higher than the birth rate. While some of those who are not serious have finally stopped misusing the label, I find that a positive. The worst thing that can happen to a faith is when it is defined by the outliers and not the faithful. I would rather have the Ten Commandments in posted in every home of the faithful than be unread in every courthouse (I do favor keeping the Ten Commandments in public displays.) I would rather have meaningful prayers than symbolic emptiness. It is only by allowing the Living Lord to be shown that meaningful change will occur. That doesn’t come from a casual affiliation.
For the fun of it; let’s refute those numbers. How do you look at a nation in which half of the people attend church regularly and 44 to 46% attend church weekly to be in religious decline? Those numbers have been consistent for 3 decades. The rise in secular identification stopped 8 years ago after the 9/11 attacks. The article should have been written in the late nineties. The survey showed a marked increase in a fundamental view of Christianity. As for political involvement, exit polls show no evidence of a lack of will among the faithful in public policy. In fact one political party wouldn’t even be a major party without the votes of the faithful and the other had to pretend to have found faith.
Other surveys bear out my contention from Gallup to Rasmussen to Pew. We even had one published in our own News Journal. As found in previous years 92% of Americans believe in God. What is even more interesting to me is that half of self proclaimed agnostics and a fifth of atheists believe in a God as well. What has changed is that more and more people are increasingly finding a belief in the supernatural, miracles 80%, demons, and angels.
Pentecostalism, which hearkens back to an Apostolic experience is not only on a rise globally, but in the U. S. as well. It is one of the reasons traditional values are becoming a profound issue. Americans who pray tend to be more conservative as defined in American terms. As a side note Christian conservatism is also the engine of the resurgent Canadian Conservative movement. PM Stephen Harper is an evangelical Christian. This is also true in Latin America, Nigeria, and other areas of the world.
While there is no question that the worldview of the faithful is under its greatest assault, the faith is meeting the challenge. Christianity is more vibrant today than it has been in a long time. All of the wishful thinking of the secular progressives in the world cannot change that fact.
David,
WTF are you doing this on Sunday for? Don’t you even know your 10 Commandments:
“Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy. For six days you shall labour and do all your work. But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work—you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns.”
Jesus Christ, here you are working on Sunday!! Easter Bunny Sunday, no less! Did you at least let your slaves stop working? Any (illegal) alien residents working around your place?
Mortal sin, dude. Even worse than being gay, according to your big bunny in the sky (it isn’t not even a top ten sin). Sorry, but you’re going to hell.
I guess this is a good day to be thankful our secular laws have made stoning illegal, otherwise you might be facing some big rocks from your loving church leaders.
That comment shows that you understand only a little about the Sabbath. One it isn’t on Sunday, two this is not labor, three it is obviously pursuing thinking about God, four there is no stoning under the New Testament. The Sabbath was made for man not man for the Sabbath. Secular people make pitiful arguments when they try to play religious.
Feel free to analyze the point of the post. Polling data and demographic stats should be easier for you discuss.
and the other had to pretend to have found faith.
David – are you claiming that anyone in particular is pretending to have faith? If so, this could be fun. Please tell me which of the Democrats aren’t real Christians in your mind.
Oh, and be sure to tell me which divine part of you was able to make that determination. Or perhaps there is a book somewhere that has the names of the fake Christians. The height of your hypocrisy is on display in that single sentence. You should be ashamed.
OK, I think David is a bit off with his statistics and his view of fundamentalism on the rise. It doesn’t take a poll, just a bit of looking around, to make it clear that half of Americans are not attending worship regularly, as he says. However, as a committed Christian who attends worship without fail and is involved in her faith community, I really find it laughable that the coward known as anonone wields the Ten Commandments in his diatribe against religion. Such courage of conviction, dude!
I’m glad anonone isn’t judgmental or hateful — him being a secularist and all. You can get caught up in hypocrisy and what everyone else does with their religion, right and wrong, or you can roll back through 2,000 years of human history, cut through the crap, and get back to basics. That would be Jesus. I recommend Jesus not just to anonone, but to the sanctimonious folks who think they can have a lock on what Jesus said and meant. I recommend the book “What Jesus Meant,” by Garry Wills.
I gave up blogging for Lent. I am back. Hi, Dave.
As I say? I gave you polling data. Follow the links. Maybe it isn’t the half that you look around at. Let me quote the News week article.
“Let’s be clear: while the percentage of Christians may be shrinking, rumors of the death of Christianity are greatly exaggerated. Being less Christian does not necessarily mean that America is post-Christian. A third of Americans say they are born again; this figure, along with the decline of politically moderate-to liberal mainline Protestants, led the ARIS authors to note that “these trends … suggest a movement towards more conservative beliefs and particularly to a more ‘evangelical’ outlook among Christians.” With rising numbers of Hispanic immigrants bolstering the Roman Catholic Church in America, and given the popularity of Pentecostalism, a rapidly growing Christian milieu in the United States and globally, there is no doubt that the nation remains vibrantly religious—”
1. What day is the sabbath for you, then, David? Do you celebrate it on Saturday with the Jewish tradition?
2. Not work? “Pushing buttons” is work on the sabbath.
3. Writing about your false belief that America is a “Christian Nation” is thinking about the secular, not the sacred.
4. Neither god nor Jesus ever changed any of the rules in the New Testament, including stoning, torture, and slavery. All of those practices were outlawed because of secular law, not christianist teachings. “Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets…” and “Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven”
Which other commandments are you teaching others to break?
Christianists make pitiful arguments when they try to explain their ridiculous beliefs.
” In fact one political party wouldn’t even be a major party without the votes of the faithful and the other had to pretend to have found faith.”
This is the kind of pronouncement that really turns people off. David, you have no divine lock on the truth. Keep politics and religion separate. Jesus did.
My point, exactly, Lee Ann. Thank you.
He points out that the near universal Christian consensus this country had is no longer universal.
It is by design that the consensus of the day was not written into the Constitution. The Founders knew that the downside of forced religious consensus is religious persecution.
You point out that individuals remain religious, while government policy is falling short of implementing your brand of religiosity. Have you considered that other people’s faith is guiding them away from rather than toward your particular social agenda?
I think religion is stronger when it stays out of politics and focuses on its flock. Is your faith so paltry that it requires the backing of the government you abhor?
I did not write this to turn people “on”. I merely stated the truth. Neither party can insult the faithful and win their votes. One party pretended that it changed in order to attract the votes of the faithful. Now that party is showing that it did not change. The actions of the ruling party on the great moral issues of the day is for all to see. They are not consistent with our founding principles. If you want names go to the people who signed on to the so-called Freedom of Choice Act. There is no clearer issue. They want to repeal Parental Consent, Partial Birth Abortion Bans, and even informed consent laws. It is all about encouraging people to kill babies by taking away their right to know or have parental involvement. They rather please radical special interests than stick to the supposed understanding that they professed during the campaign. The marriage issue is another place of bait and switch. They told voters one thing then forget when it is their time to back it up. The National Democrat Party lies and the truth is not in them. It is that simple.
The other party took their votes for granted as “its base” those voters however are loyal to principle not party. If the party loses its grip on principles, it will fight over that 25 to 30% with the other party and one will arise to appeal the the broad 70% that believes this is a Judeo-Christian nation. It has nothing to do with politics supporting the faith. It has to do with whether the cultural standard reflects the values that created it or not.
There is no America as we know it without Christianity. As Washington said no one can consider himself a patriot who would attack Christianity. One does not need to be a Christian or hold those principles to be a patriotic citizen. However one who understands the basic principles of this nation understands that our laws and our founding documents flowed from a Christian framework.
The founders understood the difference between a separation of church and state and a separation of religion and politics or faith and policy. That was part of their genius. The French did not understand this and it cost them.
The only one who can run a Theocracy is God himself therefore it is fool hardy for man to try to set one up. Understanding fundamental principles to better humanity is incumbent on all of us, and when a majority consensus is developed then we legislate it. That is how the system works. There is no reason to apologize for the source of those principles if some of them happen to come from someone’s sacred source. The question is whether it is a good idea or not.
Stay classy atheists….stay classy.
“…Christianists make pitiful arguments when they try to explain their ridiculous beliefs…”
Those ‘ridiculous beliefs’ built the modern Western world. If you want to speak of ‘ridiculous beliefs,’ start with the left’s new polyglot theology; nihilism, perversion and Marxism. Talk about pitiful.
Agreed Rick.