The Protestant Meltdown

[OneTrueCathApos]

Here is a link to the actual survey results: americanreligionsurvey-aris.org/

What is shows is that contrary to the OP, Christianity is declining across the board, especially in mainline churches, in every state. Roman Catholicism is decreasing in a “stunning” way in the New England. It’s increases are in the Southwest among Hispanics.

Moreover, contrary to her other anti-anything but Catholic thread ,‘evangelicals will disappear within a decade,’ this survey says that Evangelicals are the fastest growing group of all! (oops there CathApos) Best to keep your surveys and article conclusions straight.

Jews are decreasing and Muslims are increasing. Worst, those who have no faith tradition are climbing steadily and that is truly sad.

So that’s the actuality of things. I repeat, you have nothing to do here but raise threads that are either false or contradictory, in an attempt to make every other faith tradition look poor.

The story is that faith is declining, and that apparently doesn’t matter to you if you can claim that there are three more RC’s than Protestants in the country.

The bittererness toward your faith declining is truly understandable. I will pray for you. These are facts my friend it has nothing to do with me personally. You just twisted my info around. Just accept it and move on.

 

[OneTrueCathApos]

Neither do I, precisely because I don’t think that “breaking up is good for you.” How about actually addressing this belief of mine instead of just sneering at it?

Edwin

Contarini, let me give you an example, say, we’ll pick the Anglican Religion. The question in point for them, as well as for others was the question of authority. It was really never settled. The Anglican founders declared their belief in the supremency of Scripture but left unanswered the question of who was to decide what Scripture actually taught. The founders thought this would be obvious. This arrangement worked alright when good, middle class Englishmen and Americans agreed on the practical matters, until few decades ago, when they started disagreeing about them and asserting contradictory views of what Scripture taught.
No Anglican authority could convincingly declare who was right.
Some found in the Scriptures the traditional view that ministers must be male, while others found them a new view (which they claimed to be the original view, long supressed): That ministers could also be female. Both sides offered substantial biblical arguments for their position. The ones who couldn’t accept it, left for Rome and became Catholic.
**This is what happens when your body doesn’t have a Magisterium. **You might get along without one for a long time, as Anglicanism has, for a host of reasons, (one of which, not often noticed, is having the Catholic church to hold the line for you.)
But when the disagreements finally become too great and too practical to avoid, you will see your church break up as painfully as we are now seeing world Anglicanism break up into bodies each holding a particular reading of Scripture’s teaching in the controverted matter.
Many of our mainline brothers will see their churches should not have wound up as they have, and many of those will wonder whether the fault is in their founding, if their traditions were flawed from the beginning. Almost all of them will look at the Catholic church with more sympathy than ever before, they will ask if she is indeed who she said she is.

 

[OneTrueCathApos]

This explains why I think Catholics should be encouraged by the mainline churches problems. I know this may seem cold-hearted or triumphalistic, but it isn’t. We are not interested in saying " See, we were right.", but excited by the possibility of finally being able to say Welcome home, good friend."

 

[JonNC]

While we participate in a senseless whizzing contest between Christians, the very future of our religious freedom is in doubt, from the extreme secularists who will move to limit the speech rights of our communions and clergy (see Canada), to the radical Islamists who, as they are in Europe, will move into our cities and exercise their religion under the protection of religious freedom, but have no intention of extending the same rights anywhere they become the majority.
The day is coming that we will need each other more than we know, and we scoff at each other to our own peril.

Jon

 

[BrianH]

The number of mainline going down at joining the ranks of evangelicals and the nonreligious growing is bad news for Catholics. Mainline folks tend to have the most positive attitude towards Catholics. The nonreligious and evangelicals are not exactly supporters of Catholicism. It also seems the percentage of Catholics is fluctuating
26.2
24.5
25.1

The number of Christians going down as a percentage is bad news…I would THINK all of us Christians would think so:shrug:

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

No of course not. Luther failed to reform the true church Jesus established. He failed, and if he was doing God’s work, he wouldn’t of failed because God doesn’t fail.

That’s Jesus taken care of - for he was about as abject a failure as anyone could ask for. He died - but Judaism hasn’t died; it has survived everything anyone has been able to do to it. So much for him then. It’s no good to say he was God - if the gospels are any guide, his disciples did not think that during his minisstry, & neither did his critics & enemies.​

Is there a Christian reply to that ? Certainly - but your logic forbids you to use it. If you do use it, you leave a loop-hole for defending Luther’s work.

 

[BrianH]

This explains why I think Catholics should be encouraged by the mainline churches problems. I know this may seem cold-hearted or triumphalistic, but it isn’t. We are not interested in saying " See, we were right.", but excited by the possibility of finally being able to say Welcome home, good friend."

It would appear that those who leave the mainline churches are joining the ranks of the nonreligous or evangelicals. According to this survey the numbers of Catholics are slightly increasing due to immigration, not an influx of mainline Protestants.

 

[OneTrueCathApos]

That’s Jesus taken care of - for he was about as abject a failure as anyone could ask for. He died - but Judaism hasn’t died; it has survived everything anyone has been able to do to it. So much for him then. It’s no good to say he was God - if the gospels are any guide, his disciples did not think that during his minisstry, & neither did his critics & enemies.​

Is there a Christian reply to that ? Certainly - but your logic forbids you to use it. If you do use it, you leave a loop-hole for defending Luther’s work.

What does this have to do with Luther’s failure to reform the church Christ established?

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

There’s no doubt Roman Catholicism has seen a recent surge and Protestantism has had its numbers decline to the point where I believe now it represents either right at 50% or just below it for the population of the US.

But the problem we run into with these counting surveys is the methodology. The RCC claims there are about 1.2-1.3 billion Catholics worldwide. Give or take some. But the RCC does not reduce it’s membership when parishioners leave unless they formally write to their local Bishop announcing their departure. I can personally introduce you to about 10 thousand people that fall into this category just from some local areas in MD. Project that across the country or the world for that matter. Point of fact in a Religious study conducted last year something like 2-3 out of every 10 Catholics didn’t actually consider themselves Catholic anymore. When this is factored in the truer number of Catholics in the world is more like 900,000,000 or so. So maybe the number of registered Catholics has increased over the last few years but that does not mean the number of true Catholics has gone up. Some scholars believe the RCC is floating just above water while others claim the RCC is a dying branch of Christianity. The Restoration movement is still the fastest growing form of Christianity running at about 19% per year or so.

Right now 60% of Christians live below the equator. 66% of all Christians are females. The average age of a Christian today is 24. The US while once a leader in Christian missionary work is now the 2nd largest recipient of Christian missionary work. Either way I think it’s pointless to celebrate the number of Christians declining whether it’s RCC or non-RCC. The real question is where do they go? Are those leaving the Catholic faith converting to Protestantism and vice versa? Or do they just stop believing? I have no problem if someone feels more in touch with the Catholic Faith then a non-Catholic faith. They’re Christians in both situations. I would rather see someone move to the RCC than to leave Christianity. So none of it is good news unless we are reaching the lost and bringing them to Christ while strengthening those already baptized into Christ. Agreed?

PEACE

Agreed, completely.​

Method is of the first importance. Some of these triumphalist threads remind me of nothing so much as of Boettner’s “Roman Catholicism” - they rely on the same fallacy as he does at one point: the fallacy of pointing to the prosperity of a religious body at a particular point in time as evidence of its character. The difference is, that he argues from the unprosperity of Catholicism, whereas they argue from its prosperity. The fallacy is the same. What both ignore, is that no one period or place is the whole of a Church’s life. As log as one looks only at the weaknesses (or the strengths) of a Church, & ignores its strengths (or weaknesses), one is sure to get a pretty lop-sided idea of it.

Catholic boasting of the Church & depreciation of everyone else is all the more unwise as the CC in the US was riding very high from 1945 to 1965; then it was taken down a few pegs. What happened once, can easily happen again. And a Church which has had its dirty washing aired so publicly is hardly in a position to belittle others; it should be sympathetic, compassionate, helpful - not boastful. Christianity seems to help people not to be sympathetic, it seems to wither the heart & sour the milk of human kindness, so that Christians always find wonderfully good reasons to ignore the woes of others, or to rejoice over them. That is not Christ: that is Christ “the Word made Rambo”.

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

so there are more dollars in our deficit than there are humans on the face of the earth…

hmmm…

If everyone on earth gave the U.S. Treasury $50, the latest U.S. rescue package would all have been made good ​

That is how much 300 billion dollars is And I don’t think that includes any of the previous rescue packages in the US. It certainly doesn’t include any of the rescue packages elsewhere.

Or: 300 billion is 23 times as many years (give or take) as the earth has so far existed. So someone earning a dollar year & beginning work at the beginning of the Pre-Cambrian Era, 600 million years ago, would need to work 500 times as long as the period from then until now to earn all 300 billion dollars. (I think ) Anyway, $300 billion is a gigantic sum of money.

 

[OneTrueCathApos]

Agreed, completely.​

Method is of the first importance. Some of these triumphalist threads remind me of nothing so much as of Boettner’s “Roman Catholicism” - they rely on the same fallacy as he does at one point: the fallacy of pointing to the prosperity of a religious body at a particular point in time as evidence of its character. The difference is, that he argues from the unprosperity of Catholicism, whereas they argue from its prosperity. The fallacy is the same. What both ignore, is that no one period or place is the whole of a Church’s life. As log as one looks only at the weaknesses (or the strengths) of a Church, & ignores its strengths (or weaknesses), one is sure to get a pretty lop-sided idea of it.

Catholic boasting of the Church & depreciation of everyone else is all the more unwise as the CC in the US was riding very high from 1945 to 1965; then it was taken down a few pegs. What happened once, can easily happen again. And a Church which has had its dirty washing aired so publicly is hardly in a position to belittle others; it should be sympathetic, compassionate, helpful - not boastful. Christianity seems to help people not to be sympathetic, it seems to wither the heart & sour the milk of human kindness, so that Christians always find wonderfully good reasons to ignore the woes of others, or to rejoice over them. That is not Christ: that is Christ “the Word made Rambo”.

you may say whatever you want about the Catholic church, fact of the matter is we’ve been here for 2,000 years and you haven’t. That’s it. period. Case closed. Can’t deny it. Jesus told us his church will prevail against the gates of hell, so it hasn’t yet has it. The true church that Christ established is the Catholic church. Like it or not, bash it or not, doubt it or not, insult it or not, it will always stand and it will never, never go away. Your churches of the Protestant sects will decline and fade away, but the Catholic church won’'t.

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

Contarini, let me give you an example, say, we’ll pick the Anglican Religion. The question in point for them, as well as for others was the question of authority. It was really never settled. The Anglican founders declared their belief in the supremency of Scripture but left unanswered the question of who was to decide what Scripture actually taught. The founders thought this would be obvious. This arrangement worked alright when good, middle class Englishmen and Americans agreed on the practical matters, until few decades ago, when they started disagreeing about them and asserting contradictory views of what Scripture taught.
No Anglican authority could convincingly declare who was right.
Some found in the Scriptures the traditional view that ministers must be male, while others found them a new view (which they claimed to be the original view, long supressed): That ministers could also be female. Both sides offered substantial biblical arguments for their position. The ones who couldn’t accept it, left for Rome and became Catholic.
**This is what happens when your body doesn’t have a Magisterium. **You might get along without one for a long time, as Anglicanism has, for a host of reasons, (one of which, not often noticed, is having the Catholic church to hold the line for you.)
But when the disagreements finally become too great and too practical to avoid, you will see your church break up as painfully as we are now seeing world Anglicanism break up into bodies each holding a particular reading of Scripture’s teaching in the controverted matter.
Many of our mainline brothers will see their churches should not have wound up as they have, and many of those will wonder whether the fault is in their founding, if their traditions were flawed from the beginning. Almost all of them will look at the Catholic church with more sympathy than ever before, they will ask if she is indeed who she said she is.

Having a Magisterium has not stopped the countless schisms & heresies that have grown up with in the CC - it has not stopped argument about the status of Vatican II. It isn’t useless - but neither is it worth anymore than the paper Magisterium that is the Bible; they are equally helpless to quell disagreement; because people believe or agree or obey only if they wish to. The problem is not solved by externals - it lies much deeper, in the heart. There is nothing a mere organisation, whether Church or not, can do about that.​

 

[Hesychios]

Triumphalism is distasteful.

It is hubris.

 

[NDfan]

so there are more dollars in our deficit than there are humans on the face of the earth…

hmmm…

Incredible isn’t it.

 

[Daedelus76]

Having a Magisterium has not stopped the countless schisms & heresies that have grown up with in the CC - it has not stopped argument about the status of Vatican II. It isn’t useless - but neither is it worth anymore than the paper Magisterium that is the Bible; they are equally helpless to quell disagreement; because people believe or agree or obey only if they wish to. The problem is not solved by externals - it lies much deeper, in the heart. There is nothing a mere organisation, whether Church or not, can do about that.​

That’s a good point. Wheather there is a magisterium or not, in an atmosphere of religious voluntarism and pluralism, the individual is the one that determines what happens.

Anglicans are not necessarily “sola scriptura” in the Protestant/Evangelical sense. I’ve visited an Anglican church a few times and studied some of the history- it’s not exactly Protestant, and it is not Roman Catholic, though it retains more Catholic traditions. It is more like Orthodoxy in some ways, a national church, but it also has latitudinism- respect for theological differences, and a prominent role of conscience and reason. Even the Anglo-Catholics or ritualists are mostly against the concept of a Magisterium or infallibility, seeing it as an authoritarian tendency that is not renconciled with Anglicanism (also, Anglo-Catholicism tends to embrace married clergy, and there is even a wing of that which supports the ordination of women).

 

[NDfan]

you may say whatever you want about the Catholic church, fact of the matter is we’ve been here for 2,000 years and you haven’t. That’s it. period. Case closed. Can’t deny it. Jesus told us his church will prevail against the gates of hell, so it hasn’t yet has it. The true church that Christ established is the Catholic church. Like it or not, bash it or not, doubt it or not, insult it or not, it will always stand and it will never, never go away. Your churches of the Protestant sects will decline and fade away, but the Catholic church won’'t.

OTCA so at the end of the day the point of your posts is there is no point Only to keep doing the same thing over and over and over again. Praising the Catholic church and bashing anything else. You can’t even understand the data presented in the poll and realize it doesn’t paint the picture you are painting. If you can’t engage in quality conversation then why be here? I chuckle at your posts because I see Christ at work in HIS church at our location. Oops sorry Jesus doesn’t just work within the Catholic church.

 

[BareKnuckler]

An ARIS Survey recently unearthed a very worrisome trend for some Protestant denominations. Of the drop in the percentage of Christians since 1990, “Ninety percent of the decline comes from non-Catholic segment of the Christian population, largely from the mainline denominations, including Methodists, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Episcopalians/Anglicans, and the United Church of Christ.” These all experienced sharp numerical declines this decade and now just constitutes at just 12.9%.
The Catholic share of the population actually edged up from 2001 to 2008.
Breaking up is hard to do but breaking up is good for you.

How come Baptists aren’t on that list? I am pretty sure they are the largest Protestant denomination in the world aren’t that? As a former baptist, I can admit, in our church, we were growing rather large, like: Some churches have just a bunch of old people (my grandpa’s church before he died) was all old people, like 5 kids, my church is kinda opposite. Out of the like 150 people, I’d estimate: 30 (41-90), 100 (20-40), 20 (0-18), and their are about 5-6 women that are pregnant, usually always lol, its rather funny, most of the people at our church know exactly what to do if she complains about a pregnancy thing, we’ve had to do all kinds of **** there, but anyways, ya, our church is growing, I’d say it will be larger by the time I am 18, then it is now, by probably 30-50 people at the minimum.

 

[bbarrick8383]

Last year was the first year in my 30 years that I had ever stepped foot in a Catholic Church. My area is predominately Baptist, which I call the easy way out religion. Just from my experience, sorry if you take offense. I really enjoyed the Church and can not wait to begin RCIA classes. But after talking to the priest there I will not step foot back in that Church until he is gone. He was downright rude to my wife and I, while we were holding our newborn in front of the crowd. He embarrased us completely. So, we have a few more options in this area that will require a 30 minute plus drive, but it will be worth it.

 

[4Squarebaby]

How come Baptists aren’t on that list? I am pretty sure they are the largest Protestant denomination in the world aren’t that? As a former baptist, I can admit, in our church, we were growing rather large, like: Some churches have just a bunch of old people (my grandpa’s church before he died) was all old people, like 5 kids, my church is kinda opposite. Out of the like 150 people, I’d estimate: 30 (41-90), 100 (20-40), 20 (0-18), and their are about 5-6 women that are pregnant, usually always lol, its rather funny, most of the people at our church know exactly what to do if she complains about a pregnancy thing, we’ve had to do all kinds of **** there, but anyways, ya, our church is growing, I’d say it will be larger by the time I am 18, then it is now, by probably 30-50 people at the minimum.

Baptist, like most pentecostals are not called “mainline”. The survey shows less loses in the other then mainline churches. In the case of one specific Christian church the growth seems to bre just the movement of people north, while those in the tradition center of that church in America’s northeast seem to be disappearing. Through a combination of lower birth rates and maybe not formally, but self identifying themselves as no longer members.

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

you may say whatever you want about the Catholic church, fact of the matter is we’ve been here for 2,000 years and you haven’t. That’s it. period. Case closed. Can’t deny it.

**## **FYI, I’m not a Protestant. Of course that statement can be denied, & very easily too. It is perfectly conceivable, logically & historically, that the Church was Catholic, not because it excluded everything Protestant, but because it did not. What we call Protestantism, would, on this hypothesis, be little more than the taking shape in the 16th century, in more or less organised social forms, of parts of Christianity which had previously been indissolubly connected with the part of Christianity governed from Rome. In that sense, Protestantism is as old as Catholicism - & because this “Protestant” instinct (for lack of a better word) was not yet distinct from the rest of “Catholicism”, & would not be distinct until about 1530, St. Ignatius of Antioch is in this sense as much a Protestant as he is Catholic or Orthodox or whatever: none of the sectarian uses of those words applied in his time; so all those words can be applied to him. St. Patrick is as Orthodox as Roman; the Orthodox don’t avoid him; he lived before the Great Schism, so he “belongs to” them as much as to us.

ISTM that the only benefit of a Catholic upbringing is a total inability to understand or sympathise with any POV not current in the CC. It may well have certain advantages - I am very glad that it was not my experience.

**Jesus told us his church will prevail against the gates of hell, so it hasn’t yet has it. **
**The true church that Christ established is the Catholic church. **

There is nothing in the passage, nor in the NT, to suggest (let alone spell out in so many words), the interpretation you put on the passage. Other interpretations are possible than that which makes the passage a proof-text for Catholicism. There is no explanation of what is meant by “prevailing” - does it mean:​

• The gates of hell will attack but not overcome the Church
• the gates of hell will not be able to withstand attack by the Church

Either is possible. And, does the promise of Jesus mean that:

• the church will be victorious in each & every contest from first to last
• the church may lose a great many of its battles, but will be preserved so as to overcome in the end

Again, either is possible.

And what is meant by “church” ? It is not clear from the context whether the followers of Jesus were to be one group among many within Judaism - or, whether he meant, from the beginning, to found a group within Judaism but not confined to it.

Again, either is possible. It seems to be taken for granted that

• the Church = the Church with the Pope of Rome in it - & that
• no other body can be intended; IOW, that the CwPoR is guaranteed to endure,
• & to be replaced by none.

There’s a great deal in the passage which is simply ignored when it is used as a Catholic proof-text; and while this may not be a problem for one who is concerned only to show that the CC is Top - or Only - Church, it is most certainly a problem if one is concerned, not to show that the CC is alone right, but to know what in fact the passage means as a whole, without having the interests & doctrines of later generations imposed upon it.

Like it or not, bash it or not, doubt it or not, insult it or not, it will always stand and it will never, never go away. Your churches of the Protestant sects will decline and fade away, but the Catholic church won’'t.

The CC, like all Churches, is a broken reed, apart from Christ - there is nothing in it, nothing at all, to be trusted or relied on. Don’t take my word for it: I’m doing no more than paraphrase something in the Liturgy - to be specific, this:​

• [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veni_Sancte_Spiritus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veni_Sancte_Spiritus)

Without your divine will*****

there is nothing in man,
nothing is harmless.

*****Literally: “Without Thy Godhead”.

It makes no sense whatever to exalt any Church: in themselves, they are dust & ashes. (I notice that you say nothing about the rest of that post - if** I** were a Protestant, I’d be tempted to think it was more favourable to the CC than to Protestantism.)