General Chat (Non-Music-Related)

You are correct. The decline of the Christian faith during the end times has been prophesied for hundreds of years.

There is an interesting concomitant to this - yeah - we're in the 'great falling away' which is just a bit creepy. But they are mostly falling away from churches that more social centers than anything else - preaching bland horseshit for the masses. Horseshit that is what they thought 'their itching ears' wanted to hear.

Yet is some churches there is a great coming together. I'm finding Catholics preaching grace, Presbyterians talking about the "solas." Shining times!

It reminds of something CS Lewis wrote about a fancy British college where he was a professor. They usually had about 200 people in chapel in the morning when it was mandatory. When it stopped being mandatory it went down to barely twenty.

An alarmed student ask him, "Are there only 20 Christians left?" CS Lewis replied, "there are the same number of Christians there ever were."

Talbot

I know a LOT of Christians who have stopped attending any church or congregation. The house-church movement accounts for some of them, but most are people who just don't see the institution as relevant to their lives.

And who can blame them? Too many churches have become about building their own "kingdom".

A new report released today says Americans who identify themselves as "non-religious" - atheists, Agnostics, etc - are now at 23% of the population, up from 16% a few years ago. Most are former Christians, which fell from 79% to 70%. The remaining 7% identify as Jewish, Muslim or other religion. Many young people have become disillusioned with religion in general and Christianity in particular.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nati ... /27159533/

thanks jimmy for bringing up an interesting subject, I figure Christianity really got it's start when Constantine made Christianity the state religion of Rome? or was than Constantinople? LOL..but nonetheless in the 400's A.D. time frame, so it has been active for approx. 1600 years, but more importantly, I wonder when it's numbers actually peaked out? maybe 1965-1967? when the OTO established itself within Haight-Ashbury and pyschedalia in general was a weapon used against Christianity.. most hippie junk is contrary to Christian values, but the "drop out tune in" religion has now made marijuana legal, legalized same sex marriage, dropped the draft, and created a volunteer Armed Forces... among other laws or ethics that would not have been tolerated with a proper Judeo-Christian setting.. if the New Religion, which is a hybrid of "drop out tune in" culture, and the Worship of Mammon keeps the tenets, with the doctrine of of treating others as you would like to be treated, I can tolerate the New Religion..

Actually, Christianity got it's start when Christ died on the cross, taking upon Himself the weight of our sins.

Talbot