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The OP has created quite a number of threads like took if you look clearly like this. The op seems to have an obsession with that topic.
Here are a number of threads the OP also created recently:
Reload this Page Changing times:White Christians minority in 19 States Changing times:White Christians minority in 19 States
Anyway I am responding on what has happened in my church and even though more and more people abandon faith in God, still churches are still being planted and gain a lot of new members. Obviously it not the only Church that is gaining a lot of new members due to Church planting, but not all churches are dying in membership.
Not surprisingly, the OP is hoping to find signs that our efforts to alert people to the big con that is being perpetrated on them. So am I. It is too early to be sure that this really is a big slide to irreligion, but the post you posted avowing your divine command to go out and preach to the unsaved assures us that our efforts to let them know that all they need saving from is the peddlers of religion, is still much needed.
What is with all these threads you start trying to delude yourself and others that there are less religious people?
Look...I know it must cause you a lot of angst to back the Atheist concept...that is nuthin', was nuthin', and is never gonna be nuthin'. Well, it probably will remain really good at getting its adherents to be "the most hated and least respected"...but that's about it.
You are like a guy that lives in a town where the trucks used to go right past his house...but since they built the highway, there are now less trucks going past. The highway has way more trucks on it than the amount all those side roads had put together...but since you see less trucks going by your house, you try to claim there are actually less trucks traveling the roads. You fail to mention the highway where they all are now, plus MORE.
The FACT of the matter is...religion is GROWING, not shrinking. Maybe you can't see past where you live, or past the U.S. that has less than 5% of the worlds population...but if you did, you'd know the narrative you keep putting forth is false.
The Fundie Bible Literalist stuff about the Earth being only 6000 years old has as much validity as the bunk you keep spewing that religion is waning. It ISN'T...it's GAINING. You need to get hip to that.
I may be wrong, but as I understand it, the folks in Africa and other 3rd-world nations who are "turning to Christ and asking him etc..." are doing so largely because the people asking/suggesting/demanding they do so, are also the ones with food and medical supplies to distribute -- food and supplies of which the natives are in desperate need.
Somehow, I don't think it's coincidence....
How do you explain China then since it is expected there would be more Christians living there than any other nation soon? 50 years ago it was so common for Chinese to starve to death, but it does not exist in China now as China has enough resources to feed everyone. A lot of China is now developed and it has a very large middle class now.
China could be the home of the largest number of Christians in the world and over taking America in 15 years time if the trends continue.
Christian congregations in particular have skyrocketed since churches began reopening when Chairman Mao's death in 1976 signalled the end of the Cultural Revolution.
Less than four decades later, some believe China is now poised to become not just the world's number one economy but also its most numerous Christian nation.
"By my calculations China is destined to become the largest Christian country in the world very soon," said Fenggang Yang, a professor of sociology at Purdue University and author of Religion in China: Survival and Revival under Communist Rule.China on course to become 'world's most Christian nation' within 15 years - Telegraph
In addition I know Africans here in my country and even back in Africa that are Christian. They appear not to be in poverty but have jobs and are certainly not starving.
America today still has the largest number of Christians but China is predicted to overtake America in the future.
Not surprisingly, the OP is hoping to find signs that our efforts to alert people to the big con that is being perpetrated on them. So am I. It is too early to be sure that this really is a big slide to irreligion, but the post you posted avowing your divine command to go out and preach to the unsaved assures us that our efforts to let them know that all they need saving from is the peddlers of religion, is still much needed.
The Church is made up a body of people. Some people have the gifts of evangelism that is sharing the Lord Jesus to unbelievers, others have gifts such as preaching in the Church, others have gifts such as helping the homeless, the unemployed, the elderly, the sick, the outcasts of society, others have the gift of a music gifts and there are others.
Christianity is much more of a relationship with Jesus Christ than a religion. Without the relationship with Jesus Christ and having him as their personal saviour then the person is not Christian.
I was at at a time in the past where I did not believe in God. Yet there were events in my life which lead me to God. My life was out of control and I was depressed and suicidal. Then I saw that Jesus Christ is God in the and he is the biggest hope of the world. With that Jesus Christ saved me and gave me a new life. Now my depression and suicidal thoughts are a thing of the past.
I was at at a time in the past where I did not believe in God. Yet there were events in my life which lead me to God. My life was out of control and I was depressed and suicidal. Then I saw that Jesus Christ is God in the and he is the biggest hope of the world. With that Jesus Christ saved me and gave me a new life. Now my depression and suicidal thoughts are a thing of the past.
Is it fair to use this as an example that mentally unstable people are easy prey for conversion?
You have provided a list of personal preferences. The question however was how conducting services in a language which almost no one understands, make it more "meaningful and significant?" The above index of your personal tastes fails to answer that.
If President Obama delivered the State of the Union address in old English, would that make it more meaningful or would that make it completely incomprehensible?
Your complaint about not liking the way English sounds when employed for liturgical purposes suggests that there is greater value in having something incomprehensible sweep you away emotionally than there is in the audience member receiving and understanding the meaning of what is being said. I'm confident that the great propagandists of history would agree with this, I do not. I also don't think anyone is getting swept away by the beauty of the Latin. I think that it is perceived as background noise while they are thinking about something else.
"The mystery of faith". Or Mysterium fidei if you prefer. plus having one tongue for a universal church kind of makes sense.
My "personal preferences" are why I feel the novus ordo is meaningless. Go back and read them again. It boils down to the NO being rendered from a treasure passed down through the ages to a half-assed abomination.
And do you really expect my personal preferences are going to be irrelevant to me? You seem to like the bastardized Protestant NO mass, why?
The Church had something special and threw it away, fatally wounding itself in the process. Not all of us are as enthused as you for that.
A natural result of a meaningless Mass is loss of meaning outside the Church, hence the steady decline in Catholic church attendance and identity.
Anyway I am responding on what has happened in my church and even though more and more people abandon faith in God, still churches are still being planted and gain a lot of new members. Obviously it not the only Church that is gaining a lot of new members due to Church planting, but not all churches are dying in membership.
And, again, no one is claiming that all churches are losing members. Just that there is an overall loss. And even you have admitted that growing churches grow (IN PART mind you) by poaching from the smaller, dying ones anyway.
This is a little like my stepson's biological father. My stepson has some OCD issues which are very effectively kept at bay with meds. In the past couple of months his doctor has been tweaking my stepson's meds and my stepson has crashed and burned. My stepson spent winter break with his Dad, who had a GREAT time with him and that's all he noticed. He didn't notice that his son was wearing unlaundered clothing and walking around with a dead cell phone that he never consulted. He didn't have substantive conversations about how he was doing and didn't therefore find out that he hadn't attended classes or kept appointments for a couple of weeks. He didn't notice that his son's checking account which he is supposed to take care of was empty so that he had no money to take a cab to the doctor (and he's afraid to ask his Dad to refill it as Dad is so shaming and controlling around money). But, you know, he had a GREAT time so everything is GREAT. I guess that is why we are going to have to drive across four states this weekend to sort the kid out and figure out if this academic semester can even be salvaged.
So you go right on having a GREAT time at your GREAT church and fiddle while Rome burns.
And do you really expect my personal preferences are going to be irrelevant to me? You seem to like the bastardized Protestant NO mass, why?
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1) Of course your personal preferences are relevant to you, my point was that they are only relevant to you. You do not seem to be considering whether or not those personal preferences are good for everyone.
The benefits of clarity and comprehension outweigh the benefits of aesthetics for the majority.
2) Where did you get the notion that I like or approve of any sort of mass? I was raised a Catholic but had turned atheist before the changeover to the modernized version. Since then I have only been exposed to the modern version a couple of times at weddings and funerals I attended. I find all ceremony to be tedious and it matters not to me personally whether the mass is conducted in Latin, English, Korean or Esperanto because I won't be there.
Alberta had a Premier (governor) who had a "back to the bible hour" radio program that ran from the 1930's to the mid 1959's.
Central Alberta has many fundamentalists, including a strong Calvinist contingent, and southern Alberta has a very strong Mormon population.
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