Christianity as it has existed for most of the last two thousand years is in its death throes. For many centuries, Christianity ruled Western minds, and thus Western society. The Christian Church was the final authority on the truth or falsity, the right or wrong, of any question or course of action. Those who dared to challenge the authority of the Church generally did not fare well.
Museum Christianity
Today, not only has the Christian Church fallen from its former position of the final spiritual, social, and scientific authority in the Western world, but the institution of the church is itself in rapid decline. Traditional churches are bleeding members, and closing their doors in droves. Many magnificent old church buildings are being converted to secular use, or have become museums and tourist attractions.
The death of traditional Christianity in Europe is especially stark. Recent studies show that only 25% of 18-24 year olds in Britain believe in God. Church attendance throughout much of Europe is at an all-time low. In the United States, Christianity is still much more mainstream than in Europe. But even in the U.S., traditional churches are closing their doors; both the Catholic Church and the mainline Protestant churches are declining in membership.
While there is a resurgence on the Evangelical side, that, too, is showing signs of losing steam. Even when traditional Christian theology is set to rock music, people eventually realize that it’s the same old wine in those hip new wineskins. Though new converts do flock to the tech-savvy, modern Evangelical churches, the turnover is high. These churches depend on constant high-intensity proselytizing to produce a continual stream of new converts in order to replace the people who are continually flowing out of their revolving doors. Modern marketing techniques can carry you only so far when you’re selling an outdated theology.
You see, there’s more going on here than the repackaging of Christianity that is commonly covered in the media.
For the last two or three centuries, Christianity itself has been dying. At least, the church that has been called “Christian” all these centuries has been dying.
But that church was never really Christian in the first place.
For more on the death and rebirth of Christianity, please click here to read on.
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