This pun brought to you by the Greek style abbreviation system.
Someone, Leonhard perhaps, in my “amusing thought” thread, said something to me along the lines of that the churches that aren't just hemorrhaging members are the one which are having stricter, more conservative approaches to Christianity and, as a counterpoint, attempts to have a more broad, inclusive Christianity weren't working well from a membership perspective.
I've been thinking about this and, well, if you're a comics fan you've probably already figured this out, but my questions here are going to settle around the idea of “what is Christianity going to do once it's a minority”
(a real minority, that is. Let's not quibble over whether census reports and polls about peoples religious identification are bad for whatever reasons)
Christianity, like every religion, started off as a minority position, but it's been quite some time since then and I think its a fairly safe assumption that the overall reaction wouldn't be very good.
60 years ago the country was 92% Christian. In just the last 60 years we've gone from somewhere around 2/3rds protest to about 1/3rd. Non-Christian religion belief, once more or less non-existent, is approaching 10% of the country. Non-religious people are at about 1/6th now and, for people under 30, we're at roughly 1/3rd. 50 years from now, it is pretty safe to say, Christianity will be a minority in America.
How, I wonder, do you all plan to stay relevant?
What does an active Christianity look like in a world that will no longer accept your relevancy as a matter of course?
Will “the argument” somehow be won? I doubt this. Part of the explosion in non-believers is simply as a matter of information being more available than before.
Will conservative religious enclaves somehow attract outsiders for other reasons? I don't know how that would work as conservative members of a religion tend to be the ones least desirous of including outsiders and most off putting to outsiders. Could this change for some reason?
With shrinking numbers comes shrinking political influence. How will the church and the parish and the believer adapt to a world as a minority?
This is basically a thought experiment assuming that the general trend of the last 60 years holds out. If so, what happens? I am thinking mostly of America as I write this, but feel free to throw other regions in. Particularly regions of the world where Christianity is projected to actually grow.
Cheers,
J
Someone, Leonhard perhaps, in my “amusing thought” thread, said something to me along the lines of that the churches that aren't just hemorrhaging members are the one which are having stricter, more conservative approaches to Christianity and, as a counterpoint, attempts to have a more broad, inclusive Christianity weren't working well from a membership perspective.
I've been thinking about this and, well, if you're a comics fan you've probably already figured this out, but my questions here are going to settle around the idea of “what is Christianity going to do once it's a minority”
(a real minority, that is. Let's not quibble over whether census reports and polls about peoples religious identification are bad for whatever reasons)
Christianity, like every religion, started off as a minority position, but it's been quite some time since then and I think its a fairly safe assumption that the overall reaction wouldn't be very good.
60 years ago the country was 92% Christian. In just the last 60 years we've gone from somewhere around 2/3rds protest to about 1/3rd. Non-Christian religion belief, once more or less non-existent, is approaching 10% of the country. Non-religious people are at about 1/6th now and, for people under 30, we're at roughly 1/3rd. 50 years from now, it is pretty safe to say, Christianity will be a minority in America.
How, I wonder, do you all plan to stay relevant?
What does an active Christianity look like in a world that will no longer accept your relevancy as a matter of course?
Will “the argument” somehow be won? I doubt this. Part of the explosion in non-believers is simply as a matter of information being more available than before.
Will conservative religious enclaves somehow attract outsiders for other reasons? I don't know how that would work as conservative members of a religion tend to be the ones least desirous of including outsiders and most off putting to outsiders. Could this change for some reason?
With shrinking numbers comes shrinking political influence. How will the church and the parish and the believer adapt to a world as a minority?
This is basically a thought experiment assuming that the general trend of the last 60 years holds out. If so, what happens? I am thinking mostly of America as I write this, but feel free to throw other regions in. Particularly regions of the world where Christianity is projected to actually grow.
Cheers,
J
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