Christianity In The USA

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Is the Negative World Coming to an End?

Joe Rogan covers Christianity; the virtue of reconciliation; the relationship recession and more in this week's digest.
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I also think there will be a new openness to Christianity by some people, because they see it as a bulwark of a Western culture they wish to defend, because they are seeking meaning in life, because of the shift towards re-enchantment or other matters.
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I do think the more overt forms of hostility to Christianity will abate in this new environment. There are still some of these attacks, such as those against Secretary of Defense nominee Pete Hegseth over his Jerusalem Cross tattoo for being an “extremist symbol.” But I expect them to decline.

However, I do think there will continue to be widespread hostility to most socially conservative legislation apart from marginal items where there’s broad public support (e.g., limiting access to online porn by minors). Try to ban abortion and see what happens.

I also think the culture will be resolutely post-Christian in terms of its ethical values. Again, we see this in the second Trump campaign and administration, which mostly adopted socially moderate positions. Porn, pot, gambling, etc. remain popular. The norms around things like expecting marital fidelity in political leaders are probably not coming back anytime soon.

Nevertheless, I think we can be glad that some forms of aggressive hostility have declined. Whether that means we’ve entered a new era that deserves a new label is yet to be seen.
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Nowadays, Christianity is rarely met with direct hostility in Silicon Valley. But there is still the lingering sense—at least in intellectual circles—that practicing it is a “faux pas,” said Michelle Stephens, who is Trae Stephens’s wife and the founder of the organization hosting the Code & Cosmos event, ACTS 17 Collective. (The organization is named after a passage in the Acts of the Apostles in which the apostle Paul visits ancient Greece and preaches the gospel to intellectuals.) “Like, how are you a smart person,” she asked, “and a Christian?”
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When Thiel said in 2015 that many of Silicon Valley’s successful entrepreneurs seem to have a mild form of Asperger’s, overnight “kids started putting on an autism effect to seem smarter,” one entrepreneur recalled. “Like, you’re not on the spectrum, you’re just socially awkward and you’re trying to seem smart.” These days, he argued, the same effect that engendered a class of people putting on neurodivergence is cultivating a new bent toward biblical altruism.

This could be especially appealing to anyone seeking to stand out in a monoculture in which polycules and ketamine are mundane but attending Sunday church service is subversive. “You know, in cities like San Francisco and New York, being a Christian is a little bit of a vice,” said a San Francisco consultant. In other words, the new religion is religion.
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Mainline Protestant denominations in the US continue to shrink and make cuts to their budgets

apnews.com

Protestant denominations try new ideas as they face declines in members and money

When the Episcopal Church announced cuts to its national staff last month, it was the latest in a long-running cycle among historic U.S.
apnews.com apnews.com

When the Episcopal Church recently announced cuts to its national staff, it was the latest in a long-running cycle among historic U.S. Protestant denominations — declines in members leading to declines in funding and thus in staff.

And it wasn’t alone.

The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) also announced recent cuts to staff at its headquarters and in its global missions program. The United Methodist Church, after undergoing a major schism, has settled into a historically low budget, having cut its numbers of bishops and other positions.

While the circumstances vary from one denomination to another, there are some common threads. Several Protestant denominations are losing members, particularly the Episcopal, Presbyterian, Methodist and other historic mainline groups that have not only been aging and shrinking but have suffered schisms as they moved in more progressive directions.

At the same time, the number of nondenominational churches has grown over the past decade, as have the ranks of the religiously unaffiliated.
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Wutang said:
Mainline Protestant denominations in the US continue to shrink and make cuts to their budgets

apnews.com

Protestant denominations try new ideas as they face declines in members and money

When the Episcopal Church announced cuts to its national staff last month, it was the latest in a long-running cycle among historic U.S.
apnews.com apnews.com
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The liberal denominations continue to shrink because the cognitive dissonance of trying to hold the Bible together with leftist ideology is too great. It is much easier to choose one over the other.
 
wng.org

Mass exodus

Steven Wedgeworth | The Roman Catholic Church in America is cratering
wng.org

American Catholicism is continuing to bleed members

The Pew study shows that American Christianity’s biggest source of decline comes from within. It is not doing a good job at retaining its own members. For every adult who joins a Christian church, six leave. But when we take a closer look, this problem is disproportionately coming from one particular Christian tradition: Roman Catholicism. Whereas Protestantism, including both evangelical and mainline varieties, loses 1.8 members compared to every new addition, Roman Catholicism loses 8.4. That’s an astounding rate of loss.
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The big reason the raw numbers of Catholics isn't completely tanking is due to continued Latin America immigration

If Roman Catholicism is not outbreeding other traditions, and if it is neither picking up a substantial number of converts nor retaining its own members, then what accounts for its “relatively stable” polling? How is it that the overall percent of Americans who identify as Roman Catholic is down only two points from 2014? Immigration. Forty-three percent of Roman Catholics in America are either immigrants or the children of immigrants. Thirty-six percent are Hispanics. This is the reason that Catholicism has not fully collapsed in our country. Were it not for immigrants bringing their Catholicism with them, the Catholics would look like the Episcopalians.
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Non-mainline Protestantism is the best at retaining their own members

This is important for correcting certain common narratives within American Christianity. Despite the triumphalist claims of “high church” movements, the Catholic Church is not gaining more and more new members. (For the curious, Eastern Orthodoxy’s numbers are still so small as to hardly register on the survey.) And within Protestant churches, it is the conservative evangelicals, and especially non-denominational ones, who are seeing the most growth.
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KomnenAl said:
Well... let's just say that wasn't a true baptism.
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You know, I was talking to my Bishop about this, and he said even though a proper baptism is a full immersion with triple dunks, he would still let this slide in the name of economia. Water + Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and provided the person didn't know any better, then he lets it slide. Not say all Bishops would let this slide but mine does.
 
So I'm starting to really agree with people warning about Evangelical churches. I go to one and the pastor today was talking about dispensationalism and how the Israelis are God's chosen people. Basically more Jew worship from cuckservatives. It puts me in a bad spot because I like a lot of other things about going to this church. I'm still relatively new to Christianity and nowhere near having a valid argument, but his emphasis on how wrong it is to think otherwise really got on my nerves.

I'm curious to hear what other people think about this topic. Their viewpoint has a lot to do with the Old Testament and God's promises to Abraham.
 
Douglas Quaid said:
So I'm starting to really agree with people warning about Evangelical churches. I go to one and the pastor today was talking about dispensationalism and how the Israelis are God's chosen people. Basically more Jew worship from cuckservatives. It puts me in a bad spot because I like a lot of other things about going to this church. I'm still relatively new to Christianity and nowhere near having a valid argument, but his emphasis on how wrong it is to think otherwise really got on my nerves.

I'm curious to hear what other people think about this topic. Their viewpoint has a lot to do with the Old Testament and God's promises to Abraham.
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It's really simple to debunk their viewpoint.

1) Israel of the Bible is not the same thing as the modern nation-state of Israel. Just because they're in the same geographic location and call themselves by the name Israel doesn't make them the same as Biblical Israel.

2) The Church is the true Israel of the Bible aka the true seed of Abraham. This is thoroughly supported by the New Testament. Relevant topic: https://christisking.cc/threads/proof-that-the-christian-church-is-the-true-israel.68/#post-2237

3) Christ specifically disavows the Jews who reject him, repeatedly, enraging them so much that they try to kill Him on the spot. In my post linked above you can see a few examples of parables. It doesn't get any more explicit than when he tells the Jews:

43 “Therefore I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a nation bearing the fruits of it. 44 And whoever falls on this stone will be broken; but on whomever it falls, it will grind him to powder.”
 
reason.com

How the elite changed its mind on Christianity

It's becoming more and more socially acceptable to be religious in elite intellectual spaces—which could impact how religion is perceived by everyone else.
reason.com reason.com

Religion became cool again among the educated elite once it gained an association with good aesthetics, high art, and sacred music—not Bush-era Republican soft theocracy.

Today, one can belong to the ideas-making class—an aspiring public intellectual or artist—and still be religious, so long as one steers clear of evangelical kitsch. Whether or not a real religious revival is underway in American public life, one thing is clear: The cool kids aren't the smug, strident atheists anymore—they're the Christians.
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Trump recently said that he hopes to go to heaven, and that he hopes his peace efforts will help earn him a place in heaven. Many have responded to this by saying salvation comes by faith in Christ alone. Jack Posobiec has an interesting post about the different views of faith vs works.



When people talk about salvation in Christianity, it’s easy to assume that all Christians mean the same thing. But that’s not the case—different traditions have very different ways of explaining how someone “gets to heaven.”
In the Catholic and Orthodox churches, salvation has been understood for thousands of years as a partnership between faith and works. Faith is absolutely essential—you cannot earn heaven on your own. But at the same time, faith has to be lived out in real action. The Epistle of James says it pretty directly: “Faith without works is dead.” For Catholics and Orthodox, this means that believing in Christ isn’t enough unless it’s accompanied by love, service, and moral choices. Acts of charity, sacraments, peacemaking, and sacrifice are all seen as part of cooperating with God’s grace.
That’s why Donald Trump’s recent comment about 'ending wars and saving lives to get to heaven' actually fits quite naturally within that Christian way of thinking. In that worldview, working for peace and protecting life aren’t just good politics—they’re works of mercy that flow from faith and help prepare the soul for salvation.
By contrast, much of the modern Christian denominations—especially the evangelical forms—emphasize “faith alone” (sola fide). The idea is that no human action could ever add to Christ’s work on the cross, so the only requirement is trust in Him. Good works are still encouraged, of course, but they’re seen as the fruit of faith rather than a condition for salvation. From that perspective, Trump’s statement sounds odd, because salvation isn’t thought of as something you “work toward” with deeds. It’s already fully given through faith.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church puts it like this: We're justified by faith, but works of love are the fruits of that justification.
Orthodox Christians echo this closely. They emphasize "theosis," or becoming more like God through a life of faith lived out in deeds.
Both sides are able to point to Scripture to back up their positions.What do you think?
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