The various Christian denominations need to get away from the “religion” of universalism and dei as well as allowing women and various sexual deviants in the priesthood and church upper echelons. The old traditions need to be resurrected.
The hollow alternatives based on skepticism and sin are self-limiting because they offer no reason to live or reproduce. Within the Catholic Church, the wishy-washy Novus Ordo movement is dying off with its aging proponents; all the energy is in the new traditionalists, who hunger for the Latin mass and other ancient trappings. This is good because the vile cult of Islam is prowling around like a roaring lion seeking souls to devour.
I think the church will have to go back to it’s origins in order to survive, meaning focusing on martyrdom and self-denial. That was always the point anyway.
Early Christians would find nearly everything weird about modern Christianity. Hopefully not the gospels though.
However early Christians would have a concept of written texts. If you said “the Bible” they would probably have asked which. The educated wouldn’t have waited for a priest to tell them what to think.
The reason Christianity is declining almost unto death is what is left out of this sentence: "What matters is he lived and died [AND ROSE FROM THE DEAD], and his life and death [AND RESURRECTION] are the root of the world's most important religion." Unless He rose from the dead, is living now, and gives hope to us the dying, there is no there there . . . no more than Jesus as keen inspirational teacher. We have plenty of those.
I can see Christianity becoming a lot more "cultural," like Orthodoxy in Russia, and more congregational versus hierarchical. Basically, more about praxis, and the praxis itself being less formalistic and more woven into everyday life, and less theology.
This is the Way. It's worked for the Jews and Muslims. And just about every other religion out there. Only Christianity seems to have this weird obsession with this Faith thing -- which requires suspension of Belief. The serious Christian is forced continuously to deny his rational mind and lying eyes. I'm no great fan of excessive rationality, but you don't beat Reason head on. The Flying Spaghetti Monster needs to sidle up and catch the Big R unawares. The trick is to have praxis providing the social glue conditions for Asabiyya, community worship plus some asceticism for giving those who need it rare glimpses of the transcendent, and the background noise dogma providing the comforts of religion by osmosis....
This Protestant and later Vatican II catchup fixation with Faith hasn't done us any good. The common folk need ritual and structure far more than they need ranting preachers and the smartest people trying to tie their brains down with silly Chestertonian paradoxes and cod-koans is a terrible waste of time and energy and rarely works for very long.
The various Christian denominations need to get away from the “religion” of universalism and dei as well as allowing women and various sexual deviants in the priesthood and church upper echelons. The old traditions need to be resurrected.
The hollow alternatives based on skepticism and sin are self-limiting because they offer no reason to live or reproduce. Within the Catholic Church, the wishy-washy Novus Ordo movement is dying off with its aging proponents; all the energy is in the new traditionalists, who hunger for the Latin mass and other ancient trappings. This is good because the vile cult of Islam is prowling around like a roaring lion seeking souls to devour.
I think the church will have to go back to it’s origins in order to survive, meaning focusing on martyrdom and self-denial. That was always the point anyway.
I think the Church will survive by becoming like the Amish, but with guns.
The Amish will need to give serious thought to becoming the Amish, but with guns.
Early Christians would find nearly everything weird about modern Christianity. Hopefully not the gospels though.
However early Christians would have a concept of written texts. If you said “the Bible” they would probably have asked which. The educated wouldn’t have waited for a priest to tell them what to think.
The reason Christianity is declining almost unto death is what is left out of this sentence: "What matters is he lived and died [AND ROSE FROM THE DEAD], and his life and death [AND RESURRECTION] are the root of the world's most important religion." Unless He rose from the dead, is living now, and gives hope to us the dying, there is no there there . . . no more than Jesus as keen inspirational teacher. We have plenty of those.
Flannery O’Connor agreed.
"If it's just a symbol, the hell with it."
I like the movie "Agora" (2009) depicting early Christianity and its struggles (and atrocities) in one of Rome's provinces...
I can see Christianity becoming a lot more "cultural," like Orthodoxy in Russia, and more congregational versus hierarchical. Basically, more about praxis, and the praxis itself being less formalistic and more woven into everyday life, and less theology.
This is the Way. It's worked for the Jews and Muslims. And just about every other religion out there. Only Christianity seems to have this weird obsession with this Faith thing -- which requires suspension of Belief. The serious Christian is forced continuously to deny his rational mind and lying eyes. I'm no great fan of excessive rationality, but you don't beat Reason head on. The Flying Spaghetti Monster needs to sidle up and catch the Big R unawares. The trick is to have praxis providing the social glue conditions for Asabiyya, community worship plus some asceticism for giving those who need it rare glimpses of the transcendent, and the background noise dogma providing the comforts of religion by osmosis....
This Protestant and later Vatican II catchup fixation with Faith hasn't done us any good. The common folk need ritual and structure far more than they need ranting preachers and the smartest people trying to tie their brains down with silly Chestertonian paradoxes and cod-koans is a terrible waste of time and energy and rarely works for very long.