The Reason Christianity is Dying in the West

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exnihilo

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I came across this guy’s YouTube channel and enjoyed some of the videos. I thought this was particularly good. I think he is right. People don’t value what is free or easy. I myself learned that in business. I think we have the wrong attitude for how to attract people to the Church.

 
The video makes some good points. Part of the decline in Mainline Protestantism and Catholicism is due to the “I’m ok, you’re ok, Come as you are, Stay as you are” mentality. In my RCC diocese, they announce a new “evangelism” program every 3 years. Everything is designed to try to bring people into the church, nothing is designed towards bringing anyone into the Catholic Faith, or towards conversion. They never ask why the last 10 programs failed, they do the same thing over again.

Hospitality has been raised almost to the level of a sacrament. Dogmas are mentioned rarely, and only in the context of “we aren’t going to shove dogmas down anyone’s throat”.
The irony is that this user friendly fixation on “getting bodies into the church” results in churches where there is no particular reason to remain. In my area we have lots of friendly, nearly empty Catholic and Protestant churches.
 
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Exactly–I don’t need to go to church to learn to be “nice”. I can watch Sesame Street and Mr Rogers for that.

I need Church for truth, even when it ticks me off.
 
commenter said:
Hospitality has been raised almost to the level of a sacrament. Dogmas are mentioned rarely, and only in the context of “we aren’t going to shove dogmas down anyone’s throat”.

The irony is that this user friendly fixation on “getting bodies into the church” results in churches where there is no particular reason to remain. In my area we have lots of friendly, nearly empty Catholic and Protestant churches.
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As a young adult in my Protestant Church, which was and is becoming more liberal, I realized this. Church was something you could do. But if you couldn’t it was no big deal. You didn’t really have any obligation to attend. You didn’t have any real moral obligations, other than be nice to people and feed the poor. It seemed to me, a teenager, obvious enough that this meant people would take that teaching and fully live it. And they did.

This kind of religion was a teenager religion. It wasn’t anything an adult would come up with. It appealed to the laziness of a young man and not the fortitude and sense of duty of an adult.

There is no esprit de corps in this kind of Christianity. There is no reason to sacrifice. If you took it to heart you’d look at the martyrs and think them to be fools.
 
I don’t buy it. A few moved holy days, changing the Friday discipline, and such small disciplinary changes are not responsible for the decline of Catholic participation. The main “cross carrying” requirements have not changed.

He’s attempting to use a physiological blip to explain the decline of Christianity. In a free market economy it’s normal to have the mindset of “you get what you pay for”, but even a mature person knows that norm is not always true. And to apply it to spirituality doesn’t work; we aren’t talking about shoes or community status here.
 
commenter said:
Hospitality has been raised almost to the level of a sacrament. Dogmas are mentioned rarely, and only in the context of “we aren’t going to shove dogmas down anyone’s throat”.

The irony is that this user friendly fixation on “getting bodies into the church” results in churches where there is no particular reason to remain. In my area we have lots of friendly, nearly empty Catholic and Protestant churches.
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This is what I was thinking yesterday on the other thread where someone was having a meltdown because they wanted to re-vert and called the Catholic church/ Catholic organizations a few times and didn’t get much of a response. Their reaction was to say, “This is terrible customer service! The Protestants across the way were MUCH more friendly, so forget you, Catholics, I’m just gonna go over there, and maybe you want to work on your welcoming act!”

As I posted in that thread, that kind of mentality makes me question the person’s commitment to any faith. He will end up going to the church where they fawn over him the most or where he most likes the “atmosphere”, but the minute he sees something he doesn’t like, or people don’t pay enough attention to him, he will leave.

Attending a church is not like being a member of a social club. You need to have a strong belief in some central teaching or tradition of that church in order to have a reason to remain when you hit potholes in the road, which could be anything from having a personal crisis of faith to not liking the new priest (or minister), or the new building, or the new hymnal.

The only two things that are going to keep people coming back are faith and tradition. Faith being the stronger one, because old traditions do evolve and change and die off and get put in the closet sometimes. That’s not to say that maybe we can’t work on being friendlier to people who attend, but somebody who is going to leave the Church over not getting a red carpet treatment when he comes to Mass is a poor risk for staying involved over the long term.

We need to focus on quality, not so much quantity. And by “quality” I don’t mean everybody has to be perfect and accepting of every single thing without question, rather I mean they are committed enough that even when they have some issue, they won’t walk out. Same as a marriage partner. The vast majority of people in long marriages could name one or more habits of their spouse that drive them up a wall or one or more disagreements they have had repeatedly, but because of their commitment to each other, they found a way to live with that or set it aside and just keep on truckin’.
 
1Lord1Faith said:
I don’t buy it. A few moved holy days, changing the Friday discipline, and such small disciplinary changes are not responsible for the decline of Catholic participation. The main “cross carrying” requirements have not changed.
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The cross carrying requirements have not changed…in theory. In practice, the great majority of people are far less aware than the great majority several decades ago, of ongoing conversion, of the need to not follow the World, the Flesh, and the Devil.

The particular disciplines themselves were not the most important thing; they were a means to an end. The reason for the disciplines is the most important thing. That is what most Catholics know far less than their grandparents. The dropping of disciplines by parish, diocese, school, religious order, is a symptom that powerful people don’t understand the reason. That lack of understanding is the real problem.

If we would start concentrating on conveying the content of the Faith, the pews would get filled. If we keep up the current strategy of trying to fill the pews any way we can, the pews will stay mostly empty. Recent decades are full of cliches, such as “Values are caught, not taught”; “What’s more important, doctrine or love?”, and my favorite fake Franciscan quote, “Preach always. When necessary use words”.
 
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commenter said:
If we would start concentrating on conveying the content of the Faith, the pews would get filled
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That’s easier said than done. Preaching can be bad and off putting if it isn’t done correctly. Especially if it’s not done with it’s particular audience in mind. And that, I believe, is what the problem was just before Vll.
 
Tis_Bearself said:
That’s not to say that maybe we can’t work on being friendlier to people who attend, but somebody who is going to leave the Church over not getting a red carpet treatment when he comes to Mass is a poor risk for staying involved over the long term.
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I am not so sure people are looking for red carpet treatment. Many people have things like social disorders or bad memories. It could be all they are looking for, to accompany their return or entrance into a Church that is strange to them like a foreign country, is some warm smiles and introductions. Maybe someone occassionally asking them how they are doing in their journey. Maybe then they will feel comfortable reaching out to others. This attitude of “we are here for the faith and nothing else really matters” is such a shame. I know so many good Catholics. If they would just stretch outside of their comfort zone a little bit and show some hospitality to newcomers it would make a huge difference. Just my thoughts, though.
 
Yes, you put the same thing in the other thread.

There is a difference between somebody saying they are sad that the Church is not a friendlier place and wanting to go find another parish, and somebody saying they are going to go be a Protestant because of that. The latter is a sign of a fair-weather Catholic. The Church is not strengthened by these people, any more than a marriage would work if somebody was going to threaten to leave every time things got a little tough.
 
I guess a lot of Catholics look at it that way. Again, I think it is a shame. You have to start someplace. At least the person is looking for a religion, and one that is Christian. Looking for things in common instead of differences seems to me to be a good start. You never know what may grow.
 
I and a number of other people tried to ask if there was a specific situation that the person was seeking help with, so we could offer other suggestions, such as go to the deacon, call the diocese for RCIA info, etc. The person didn’t respond with anything concrete and just continued to complain about “bad customer service”.

I just finished reading an article about the parish consolidations in Pittsburgh and how the guidelines specify 1 priest for every 2,400 people.

People need to have realistic expectations.
 
In the past only Catholics were admitted to the Mysteries. Non Catholics weren’t allowed at Mass. Catholics who had sinned greatly had to do penance and the order of penitents was also kept outside of Mass.

I mention that because there is a certain logic to that. However people today have a different expectation. And we even encourage it. But the ancient way was more clear and in a sense honest.

The welcoming strangers at Mass idea is more consistent with modern Protestantism. The Catholic Church can’t be as Protestant as Protestants and will therefore always be at a huge disadvantage if that is our idea of how to convert people.

In fact in many ways the more we do it the worse we look. I mean once you let everyone come to Mass you have a harder time explaining why they can’t go up for communion. So then you let them come up for a blessing. That doesn’t really solve the problem though because they are still not completely ‘accepted’.
 
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Well, I didn’t say we can’t welcome everyone at Mass. but if you have a problem with not welcoming everyone at Mass take it up with the early martyrs for the Faith.
 
On this thread, both sides are right, in a way. Yes, we need hospitality. We need to reach out to people - to men, to women, to children, and - what is so weak nowadays - to young adults. We need to adapt our presentation to fit the persons. But we also need to hold to our doctrine, which should not adapt to fit changing times. Chesterton said we don’t need a church that will help us keep up with the times, we need a church that will change the times.
 
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