Expert: Brenda Martin - 10/28/2008

Question
Brenda,
I saw that you said Christianity is struggling.  Is it also that way in the UK?  For what reason?  And what reasons do you think in the US and elsewhere?
thanks!

Answer
Hi Leah, you wondered why I said--"“CHRISTIANITY IS STRUGGLING?”

In 2002 sociologist Steve Bruce, in his book God is Dead—Secularization in the West, said of Britain: “In the nineteenth century almost all weddings were religious.” However, by 1971, only 60 percent of English weddings were religious. In 2000 it was only 31 percent.

Commenting on this trend, the religion correspondent for London’s Daily Telegraph wrote: “All the main denominations, from the Church of England and the Roman Catholics to the Methodist and United Reformed Churches, are suffering from long-term decline.” He said concerning one report: “Britain’s Churches will be well on the way to extinction by 2040 with just two per cent of the population attending Sunday services.” Similar statements have been made about religion in the Netherlands.

“In recent decades, our country appears to have become decidedly more secularized,” noted a report by the Dutch Social and Cultural Planning Office. “It is expected that by 2020, 72% of the population will not have any religious affiliation at all.” A German news source says: “Increasing numbers of Germans are turning to witchcraft and the occult to provide the solace they once found in churches, jobs and family. . . . Churches across the land are forced to close for lack of congregations.”

United States--According to some major opinion-research firms, fully 40 percent of people surveyed claim that they go to church every week, although head counts indicate the real figure to be nearer 20 percent.

North America? In 2005, Newsweek magazine reported on the popularity of “hollering, swooning, foot-stomping services,” as well as other religious practices, but pointed out: “Whatever is going on here, it’s not an explosion of people going to church.” The fastest-growing category in surveys that ask people to give their religious affiliation is “None.” Certain congregations are growing only because others are in decline. People are said to be abandoning “in droves” traditional religions with their ceremonies, organ music, and robed clergy.

“One of [Britain’s] oldest denominations . . . is in terminal decline and will be extinct within decades,” states The Times of London. The Unitarian movement has fewer than 6,000 members in Britain. Half of these are over 65 years of age. Forecast of the movement’s demise was made by Peter Hughes, a senior minister of the denomination. Using their oldest chapel in Liverpool as an example, Hughes said: “They have had no minister since 1976 and the Unitarian cause there is effectively dead.” The designation “Unitarian” has been used in Britain since 1673, says The Times.

We have seen churches fragmenting in Latin America, losing their congregations in Europe, and retaining support by offering entertainment and excitement in the United States. Of course, there are many exceptions to these general trends, but the overall picture is one of churches struggling to retain popularity.

"WHY?"

Many people simply do not feel spiritually enriched or enlightened by attending church services. According to Canada’s Maclean’s magazine, both Jews and Catholics who were interviewed at a Himalayan ashram, or Hindu religious retreat, voiced the opinion: “We were no longer moved and touched by wooden rituals.” Indeed, even after many years of faithful church attendance, some find themselves wondering, ‘What have I really learned in church? Am I closer to God as a result?’ No wonder that, as author Gregg Easterbrook put it, “in the West, spiritual poverty has replaced material poverty as the leading want of our age.”

However, attending church does not always mean adhering loyally to church teachings. For example, the Australian newspaper The Age states that in the West, “the proportion of Christians who practise their religion is declining rapidly. In much of Africa, Asia and Latin America, Christianity is a veil behind which many people continue to embrace more exotic tribal or cultic beliefs that have nothing to do with orthodox Christian teachings, often contradict them, and were officially jettisoned years ago.”

The Age states: “The claims of Christianity have rung hollow on too many occasions. Christians have not managed to preserve their own internal peace and unity. . . . The many wars of plunder and conquest justified in terms of winning converts to Christ attest to that. Faith, hope and love may be the pre-eminent Christian virtues, but those who are said to aspire to those virtues can be just as cynical, just as prone to despondency as non-Christians, and arguably no more charitable. . . . It was a Christian country that gave birth to the Holocaust and another that unleashed the horrors of atomic warfare on Japan.”

The Age comments: “Well, as a rule Christians in Europe, North America and Australia consume far more than their share of the Earth’s resources and haven’t stopped at tolerating the exploitation, oppression and environmental degradation of weaker neighbours to feed their appetites.”

As to Christendom’s future, The Age continues: “Without a healthy institutional expression, Christianity can never hope to reclaim the social power it had in centuries past. This may be good or bad, depending on one’s point of view. But it is the reality confronting Christianity in the years ahead.”

However I must add there are 2 types of “Christianity” today, True & False, it is only false Christianity that is “struggling” True Christianity is growing & flourishing just as the bible prophesied it would—

“This is what the Sovereign Lord has said: “Look! My own servants (true Christians) will eat, but you yourselves (false Christians) will go hungry. Look! My own servants will drink, but you yourselves will go thirsty. Look! My own servants will rejoice, but you yourselves will suffer shame” (Isaiah 65; 13)

God’s words well describe the spiritual condition today of those who merely claim to serve God. While Christendom’s millions suffer breakdown of spirit, however, Jehovah’s Witnesses cry out joyfully. And they have good reason to rejoice because they are well fed spiritually.

All the best
Brenda