The Decline in Church Attendance - A Benefit

There continues to be articles that either lament the decreased attendance in mainline churches in the United States or rejoice in the decline of the institutionalized church.  Both see as an increased absence of religion in younger Americans.  One side recoils in horror for souls they assume are lost forever while others cheer the downfall of established churches assuming that their own movements can profit from mainline Protestant decline.  I believe that the smaller numbers in attendance do not reflect a change in faith but instead a change in American mores.  Ultimately, mainline churches will benefit from congregations of the committed.

When I was a kid in the fifties, church attendance was mandatory in order to function in society.  People who did not attend some religious institution were seen as outside the bounds of society.  Their businesses were to be shunned and their children proselytized. I lived in a city that was predominately Southern Baptist, so the majority of church goers were Baptist even if they were only "Sunday Baptists" engaging in less than Christian practices during the week.

By the sixties, community standards were beginning to relax,  As a teenager, I could stop attending church with only mild approbrium from family and friends. (The church my mother and I attended did not approve of members asking questions.  I was told my questions were a sign of unbelief.)  Adults still faced social stigma for not attending church at least once a month.

By the time I received my doctorate in chemistry in the early seventies, I caught only minor flack for being a confirmed deist and never attending church.   God was not present in my life.  I never attended church and neither did most of my friends. My supervising professor did.  He was a committed member of his Presbyterian church and had tried to persuade me ever so gently not to work in the lab on Sundays.  He never succeeded.

When the eighties rolled around, all that remained of obligatory church attendance for younger Americans had devolved into attendance on two occasions: Christmas Eve and Easter.  Still, older Americans were entrenched in the weekly ritual of morning worship and indoctrinated in its social benefits.  But, there was another form of worship on the rise - the megachurch.  Many of these churches had existed since the fifties, but their growth took off in the eighties. These churches vacuumed up members as people fled the cities for the suburbs.

I had a front row seat on the growth of one megachurch.  In 1979, I helped start a church in Austin, Texas. (In 1975 I became a Christian and joined a liberal Baptist church)  Very few of the sixteen that originally saw the need for a new church thought about becoming a megachurch although it was our pastor's dream from the beginning.  We started with 60 in attendance on the first Sunday and grew to over 6000 attendees spread over three services every Sunday morning.

By the nineties, mainline churches had started to see a precipitous drop in attendance.  I think two things happened.  First, the megachurch provided religious entertainment with few strings attached.  One hour Sunday morning was all that was demanded.  Second, people who had grown up in the days of mandatory church attendance and for whom it still was a way of life began to die off. Together, these factors caused the decline in mainline Protestant churches.

 Who remains in the mainline churches?  Some survivors of the days of mandatory attendance have proved to be long lived and continue to occupy the pews.  Most of the remaining congregants are believers and true converts. The rest are the flotsam and jetsam of modern society, people who feel lost in a megachurch or  are somehow outside societal norms.  In the mainline Protestant church they find a welcome if for no other reason than they fill the pews.  Perhaps that is too cynical.  In the small church I now belong to, such people are loved, accepted and nurtured.  I hope that is true in most churches.

So, the megachurch has siphoned off those that want church as entertainment, a way to compartmentalize religion by reserving it to their occasional Sunday attendance, or a way to meet people in a supposedly safe environment.   Megachurches do have their committed, but they are few.  The mainline church has shrunk but still cares for the least including, but not limited to, the damaged humans that find their way through their doors.  The decline is an illusion of numbers only.  The relative number of true followers of Christ remains unchanged.  Those that came because society demanded it are gone as well as those that found their answer in the megachurch. Today membership in the mainline church is a matter of belief first, attendance second. I think that is the way it should be.

 

The Many Paths to God

By -=Bruce Berrien=-

Thomas said to him, "Lord, we don't know where you are going, so how can we know the way?"
Jesus answered, "I am the way, the truth and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me."    John 14:5-6.

Whether we are Atheist, Christian, Jew, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Wiccan, etc., I believe that the aspect of God that we encounter when we die is the Word, God in action, no matter what we called or did not call the supreme being(s) in life. That is what John 14:6 tells us.  It is a statement of mechanism, not exclusivity.

I believe that Jesus is the highest revelation of God in human history and the best path to God. That is why I am a Christian.  I also believe that all faiths have God's truth.  I do not believe God condemns anyone because of their place of birth or faith or lack of faith, nor do I believe that Christians have an exclusive claim on God.

Conservative Christians are repelled by the possibility that their God and the God of Islam could be the same while they embrace the God of Judaism.  Muslims trace their ancestry through Ishmael, the son of Abraham by the slave girl, Hagar. Theirs is the God of Abraham whether conservative Christians like it or not. Just as the God of Judaism is the God of Abraham.  Even without the link through Abraham, I think that inherently all monotheists share the same God. 

Atheists do not believe in any Supreme Being, but are closer to God than the nominally religious.  To reject God you must first think about her.  Such thought puts an atheist closer to God than all those who are indifferent or oblivious, lost in their own daily lives. Atheists will be judged just as we all will be, on how we treat the least.

My personal belief is that everyone at some point will be confronted by God and know that God is real.  At that point whether before or after death, one can choose to be with God or not.

The immortal soul is a Greek concept, not Hebrew.  I believe that without God, there is no existence.  If a person rejects God, knowing God exists, then that person after death ceases to exist.  No hell, no eternal punishment, just ending.

The God of love that Jesus modeled desires to wrap us in her love forever, but the choice is always ours. 

How Christians Will be Judged

The Bible passage below seems to be ignored by many conservative Christians and Republicans as evidenced by their support of the sequester that shreds many services for the hungry, poor, homeless and ill.  If the United States were truly a Christian nation, the government would embody those that ministered to Jesus in Matthew 25:41-45.

On the day of judgment, Jesus will ask "Why did you not care for me when I was  hungry, poor, homeless, disabled, and sick?  Conservative Christians will answer, "We did not see you suffering like that in our neighborhoods."  Then Jesus will answer, "I am everywhere in the world with the least of my people.  In your nation, you elected representatives to cut all the programs funded by the federal government that would feed the hungry, aid the poor, help the handicapped, and provide medical care for the sick."  Conservatives will answer, "The help would have come from the government, not us personally.  We would help those next door."  Jesus will answer,  "Do you think I only want you to care for the person next door?  Do I care if you help with your own hands or through the hands of others?  I care for the least of these my brothers and sisters.  When these least were hungry, struggled in despair with no money, wandered the streets of your great cities, and died alone in your parks; I starved, had no money to care for myself, slept under the bridges in your cities, and died alone in a homeless camp. 'Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.' "

Matthew 25:31-45

New American Standard Bible (NASB)

The Judgment

³¹ “But when the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne. ³² All the nations will be gathered before Him; and He will separate them from one another, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats; ³³ and He will put the sheep on His right, and the goats on the left.
³⁴ “Then the King will say to those on His right, ‘Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. ³⁵ For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; ³⁶  naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.’ ³⁷ Then the righteous will answer Him, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You, or thirsty, and give You something to drink? ³⁸ And when did we see You a stranger, and invite You in, or naked, and clothe You? ³⁹ When did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’ ⁴⁰  The King will answer and say to them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.’
⁴¹ “Then He will also say to those on His left, ‘ Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels; ⁴² for I was hungry, and you gave Me nothing to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me nothing to drink; ⁴³ I was a stranger, and you did not invite Me in; naked, and you did not clothe Me; sick, and in prison, and you did not visit Me.’ ⁴⁴ Then they themselves also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not ^[a]take care of You?’ ⁴⁵ Then He will answer them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.’

How Texas Senators and Representatives Voted on Violence Against Women Act

Votes on the Violence Against Women Act Passed 2013

Texas Delegation

Those that voted for VAWA are printed in blue.
Those that voted against VAWA printed in red.
Those not voting in green.

Texas Senators: 
   Senator John Cornyn [R] 
   Senator Ted Cruz [R]
 Texas Representatives by district number:
1  Rep. Louie Gohmert Jr.[R]
2  Rep. Ted Poe [R]
3  Rep. Sam Johnson [R]
4  Rep. Ralph Hall [R]
5  Rep. Jeb Hensarling [R]
6  Rep. Joe Barton [R]
7  Rep. John Culberson [R]
8  Rep. Kevin Brady [R]
9 Rep. Al Green [D]
10 ]Rep. Michael McCaul [R]
11 Rep. Michael Conaway [R]
12 Rep. Kay Granger [R]
13 Rep. Mac Thornberry [R]
14 Rep. Randy Weber [R]
15 Rep. Rubén Hinojosa [D]
16 Rep. Beto O'Rourke [D]
17 Rep. Bill Flores [R]
18 Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee [D]
19 Rep. Randy Neugebauer [R]
20 Rep. Joaquin Castro [D]
21 Rep. Lamar Smith [R]
22 Rep. Pete Olson [R]
23 Rep. Pete Gallego [D] 
24 Rep. Kenny Marchant [R]
25 Rep. Roger Williams [R]
26 Rep. Michael Burgess [R]
27  Rep. Blake Farenthold [R]
28 Rep. Henry Cuellar [D]
29 Rep. Gene Green [D]
30 Rep. Eddie Johnson [D]
31 Rep. John Carter [R]
32 Rep. Pete Sessions [R]
33 Rep. Marc Veasey [D]
33 Rep. Filemon Vela [D]
35 Rep. Lloyd Doggett [D]
36 Rep. Steve Stockman [R]