How can Christianity in the west be saved?

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Augustine5

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It is clear that Christianity in the west is on the decline. The Christian values that the west once held have been mostly rejected by society. It seems that many of the values have even been inverted. Paganism is even making a return. How can this be stopped? How can Christianity be saved in the west?

Thank you.
 
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As the family breaks down and local communities break down and more people are living in isolation in urban environments in Western countries, this is going to continue to negatively affect mental health, life satisfaction, and economic growth. Media and entertainment and sex will be potent distractions for people but as they age these things become less and less effective distractions and a void is left behind. In time, the West will more and more look at newly developed countries and will start to envy these places. Organized religion will start to have more appeal to people and some people will come back to the faith and start practicing.

If by “western Christendom” you mean how Europe was in the 18th century or earlier: those days are gone forever. Everybody in Europe was Christian once upon a time because they had no other choice.
 
TK421 said:
If by “western Christendom” you mean how Europe was in the 18th century or earlier: those days are gone forever. Everybody in Europe was Christian once upon a time because they had no other choice.
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By “western Christendom”, I just mean Christianity in the west (i.e. Europe, the U.S., etc.). I’m not talking about the 18th century or earlier. Perhaps that was an inaccurate term for what I was referring to. I was simply referring to the cultural influence that Christianity has. Not the political impact that it has.
 
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I suppose, but it still seems that they have mostly been rejected.
 
Christianity is not a human project that we can save. It is the work of God in human history. It saves us. Christ commanded that we spread the gospel and obey his teachings, so that is what we can do.

General Patton said that nobody has ever successfully defended anything, “there is only attack and attack and attack some more.” That’s effective advice that we can use for spiritual warfare, and Christ himself promised that the gates of hell would not prevail against us.

It may be that providence will allow the Church to collapse in some western countries, as we are amidst a sweeping post-Christian decadence: a generation that is wallowing in material luxury, confused self-indulgence and intellectual pride; but we can hope for a remnant to keep the faith for future generations to rediscover anew.
 
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Through deprivation of the physical. The spiritual void will then become obvious and its need to be filled make manifest. War, pestilence, natural disaster tend to create renewed interest in things spiritual.

Wealth (almost) inevitably produces depravity. Poverty normally creates spirituality. Yet, poverty can mean several things.
 
po18guy said:
Through deprivation of the physical. The spiritual void will then become obvious and its need to be filled make manifest. War, pestilence, natural disaster tend to create renewed interest in things spiritual.

Wealth (almost) inevitably produces depravity. Poverty normally creates spirituality. Yet, poverty can mean several things.
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Many people would call this cynical, but it is the long and short of it.

Societies with prosperity become less spiritual because they got other stuff to care about that is more gratifying, at least more immediately gratifying. The first waves of Christians were mostly poor people. Rich people and social elites came last. The last are the first and the first are the last because it is harder for the first to focus on what matters.
 
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po18guy said:
The spiritual void will then become obvious and its need to be filled make manifest.
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But that does not necessarily mean that this void will be filled with Christianity. This is why we see an increase in Neo-paganism/new age religion.
 
The Church’s renewal will come through renewed devotion to Mary, our mother in the order of grace, through whom we have Jesus Christ.

The book “The Marian Option: God’s Solution to a Civilization in Crisis” addresses your question.
 
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G. K. Chesterton, in his book “The Everlasting Man”, states that Christianity in the West has died several times already. And each time, it has risen from the dead. This is one of the unique aspects of Christianity, namely that no matter how much persecution a hostile society subjects it to, or even how much it is ignored by an uninterested society, the Church always comes back on top.

Christianity in the west today will be saved the same way it always is saved, by the divine intervention of God. Meanwhile we must continue to pray and do good works, the rest is up to God.
 
I think a good start would be for everybody to quit going around announcing “The Sky is Falling” when it comes to Christianity.

Christianity will persist as long as there’s even a few good people practicing it. You don’t evangelize others or do anything helpful for yourself by going around carrying on like it’s teetering on the brink of oblivion. I’ve personally just turned my hearing aid off to all that stuff because it’s not productive.
 
Augustine5 said:
It is clear that Christianity in the west is on the decline.
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‘west’ ? quite broad…

And “things” have been said by Jesus which tells
of a continuing declining - as in a great apostasy/falling away
which must occur before His Return…

That said… All shall be Fixed only When — come the Return of our Lord…
 
tafan2 said:
Why must we always show such disrespect for our ancestors and their faith?
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I don’t think @TK421 was being disrespectful, but just highlighting the reality of religious belief in pre-modern society. A demographic had a nominal belief because there were significant impediments to not believing: social ostracism, denial of employment, expulsion, sometimes death. This isn’t exclusive to Christianity mind you. But it has generally followed that on most occasions when a monarch or autocratic leader affirms a new religious belief, large swathes of his denizens soon affirm likewise.
 
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What is Christianity losing to in the west? Rampant sexual license, I suppose, and many other types of self indulgence. I think we can worry too much about the death of Christianity, in part, because we don’t really believe that only God is the source of anything good. Others have alluded to this, but I think the enemy overplays his hand. People are driven back to God when they have abandoned God, walked away from him, and found only misery as a result. Evil may entertain us for a season, but it cannot satisfy. Only God can satisfy the deepest longings of the human heart.
 
“You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.” St Augustine.
 
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