The Overstated Collapse of American Christianity

[guillaumeb]

From the article:

Fifty years ago, many observers of American religion assumed that secularization would gradually wash traditional Christianity away. Twenty years ago, Christianity looked surprisingly resilient, and so the smart thinking changed: Maybe there was an American exception to secularizing trends, or maybe a secularized Europe was the exception and the modernity-equals-secularization thesis was altogether wrong.
Now the wheel has turned again, and the new consensus is that secularization was actually just delayed, and with the swift 21st-century collapse of Christian affiliation, a more European destination for American religiosity has belatedly arrived. “In U.S., Decline of Christianity Continues at Rapid Pace” ran the headline on a new Pew Research Center survey of American religion this month, summing up a consensus shared by pessimistic religious conservatives, eager anticlericalists and the regretfully unbelieving sort of journalist who suspects that we may miss organized religion when it’s gone....



Lukewarm Christianity may be declining much more dramatically than intense religiosity.....

The waning of Christianity may be still as much a baby-boomer story as a millennial one....

There’s a strong case that any crisis facing Christian institutions is a more Catholic crisis than a Protestant one. …

To read more:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/29/opinion/american-christianity.html

The author suggests that this decline may represent a cyclical pattern rather than any long term trend.

[NRaleighLiberal]

1. ugh. Douthat is horrible. a "bothsideserist"

[muriel_volestrangler]

33. No, he's a hardcore Catholic. And Republican, for that matter.

I can't think of anything he criticises "both sides" about. He may tut-tut about Trump occasionally.

[Cartoonist]

2. A Downward Spiral

I'd ask you to be a pragmatist or a realist, but I know better than to wear out my typing fingers

[guillaumeb]

8. How many fingers?

I generally use 2.

[Cartoonist]

10. I use all my fingers

And my thumb on the space bar.

[guillaumeb]

11. I use most of my fingers when playing guitar.

2-4 when typing.

[Cartoonist]

12. I'm getting old

My fingers don't work well enough to play the piano without mistakes. With typing, you can just hit backspace.

[guillaumeb]

15. True. And Word is so much easier than was the typewriter.

[Midnight Writer]

3. Religion will thrive as long as it serves the needs of the American oligarchs.

Largely what we see today are "corporate religions". Opiates of the people, who will wait for Heaven to receive their rewards.

You don't see the Falwells, the Grahams, the Swaggarts, the Osteens, et al, serving the poor, the sick, the downtrodden.

You see them flying their private jets to soirees with the rich, rubbing elbows with the powerful, hobnobbing with the American Royalty.

[trotsky]

4. You keep clinging to whatever hope you can, g.

It clearly upsets you when news of people leaving religion in record numbers is posted, so I will not deny you the solace you try to find.

The thing is, there's something that is very different this time. Something that finally allows people who have doubts to express them openly, to communicate with like-minded individuals, without fear of vicious physical attacks from the pious like yourself as in the past.

I'll let you figure out what that something is.

Suffice it to say, the stats bear out that what is happening now has never happened before.

[trotsky]

5. Oh holy shit, I didn't even notice.

It's Ross Douthat. Right-wing conservative asshole.

You'll embrace anyone who tells you what you desperately want to hear, won't you, guillaumeb?

Shameful.

https://splinternews.com/ross-douthats-college-writing-was-racist-and-homophobic-1831136491

The New York Times’ resident anti-Pagan columnist Ross Douthat didn’t always get paid to write wistfully about the bygone days of the godawful WASP ruling class. He used to write his terrible opinions for free. Douthat got his start at The Harvard Salient, the conservative student newspaper at the Ivy League school where he spent time at as an undergrad from 1998-2002. Since then, those precious columns have remained buried in Harvard’s archives, read only by reactionary rats and cockroaches. Until now.

Earlier this week, Harvard PhD history student Tim Barker used his institutional access to post excerpts from some of the early Douthat pieces in a Twitter thread. And folks... they’re not great.

[Major Nikon]

13. Channeling a wingnut zealot who is a homophobic racist

Someone had to dig deep in the shit bucket to find this one.

[trotsky]

17. The g-man sure has a long, sordid history of finding deplorables to echo here.

Disgusting.

[Mariana]

22. I'm telling you Trotsky, he posts shit like this on purpose.

He knows the errors in the piece will be pointed out, the author's background will be discovered, awkward questions will be asked, and so on. When that happens, he can put on his performance du jour for his vast horde of fans, and receive numerous personal messages asking him to continue doing what he is doing, and praising his efforts in this group.

[trotsky]

25. Hard to believe he can enjoy being humiliated like this over and over.

But then again, masochism is a thing.

[MineralMan]

6. The author of that is a reactionary voice who has lost

all relevance. The numbers tell the story. Religion, in general, is becoming less and less relevant to more and more people. Why is that? Because it is all fable and wishful thinking. Reality is more real than ever these days, it seems. You should look into that.

[guillaumeb]

9. Delusion is thinking an opinion is reality.

Now apply that to your own opinion here.

[trotsky]

16. You promoted a right-wing bigot's work, g.

All because you agree with him.

Pathetic.

[MineralMan]

18. Non-responsive reply.

[guillaumeb]

20. I understand your need to feel that way.

And your need to feel that your opinion about theism is correct and represents the truth,

[MineralMan]

21. What a silly thing to say...

My opinion is my opinion. Your argument about it, though, is specious. I believe what is supported with evidence. What is not so supported, I cannot believe.

I'm unconcerned about your opinion of my opinion, to be quite frank.

[Major Nikon]

14. If you think a homophobic racist is irrelevant, you must be delusional

...apparently.

[MineralMan]

19. Well, see...hmm...

[edhopper]

7. On GD a column by Douthat

would get flagged for spreading right wing talking points.

[Act_of_Reparation]

23. Ross Douthat is Republican fuckstick.

Why are you desecrating our halls with his verbal excrement?

[Voltaire2]

24. In all fairness this trainwreck was not sourced from religion news service.

So the op has at least spread out to find garbage from other sources, this time a NYT op-ed from rightwing bigot douhat.

Congrats to the op for broadening his horizons.

[True Blue American]

26. Why are you posting

Right wing drivel? Everyone who knows anything about Religion knows it is shrinking drastically.

The only thing growing are the huge entertainment Centers

[erlewyne]

27. The empty churches in Ohio are astounding.

Nice old buildings just standing there. Some have deserted cemeteries
adjoining. I get a charge out of a very few that have outhouses out back.

It is sad. Life goes on. When I get stuck in church I look in
wonderment at the colorful windows and the names and pictures of saints
posted on the walls. The only time I am in church is for funerals and they
are fewer.

I respect those people of the bygone days.

[True Blue American]

30. I pass 3 Churches

For sale on my way to Lebanon. Just heard of another one closed at lunch today.

Also heard of a Church that took down the Baptist sign because they thought no one would come. Then heard of another big Baptist church that has lost 300 members.

People are very unhappy about politics from the Pulpit. I, too left another Southern Baptist for the same reason.

[Act_of_Reparation]

31. Lebanon, eh?

I got a few family members at Lebanon Correctional. Some guards. Others... well... not so much.

[True Blue American]

32. Family there.

[EmeraldCoaster]

28. Mineral Man

Exposes right wing religious fallacies like a champ.

[guillaumeb]

29. MM exposes his own opinions.

And he has that right.

[muriel_volestrangler]

34. And yet, when we look at figures, we see there was no 'cycle'; it's a steady decline

https://news.gallup.com/poll/1690/religion.aspx

50 years ago, 4% of Americans told Gallup they had no religion. 20 years ago, it was 8%. In 2018, it was 20%.

"a more Catholic crisis than a Protestant one"? In those years, Protestants have fallen from 64%, to 52%, to 35% (you can arguably add "Christian (nonspecific) " figures of 2% for 1999 and 10% for 2018 to Protestant, but really, that means "non-Catholic" ). . For Catholics, 27% to 27% to 22%. Any way you look at it, Protestant figures have fallen more.

Douthat is just making shit up, and trusting there are some readers who have 'faith' in him.