Ken Ham explores demise of Christianity in EU and US

[Twilight]

I strongly urge everyone to see Ken Ham's fan-tas-tic 64-min free podcast now :

http://www.answersingenesis.org/events/state-of-the-nation

He shows how Christianity was effectively killed in the EU (Church attendance at far less than 10% in some areas, as compared to about 50% in the middle of the 20th century)

in Christ,

Bob

I live in England, he is pretty spot on with his assessment...

Mark :-)

[Gerr]

If what you said is true about conservative churches, how can you explain that the Orthodox Churches like the Greek Orthodox, are growing by leaps and bounds?

[Tom Wetmore]

...The video makes the point that the survey assumption is that liberal church membership loss is even worse -- we know that is true over all of those churches -- and merely assume it is holding true at the level of their youth...

After having listened/watched the whole video I don't recall that being a point made or even implied. I think you're simply reading into it based on your own assumptive bias that all things liberal must be worse than all things conservative. Your own sentence that immediately follows belies your assumption and correctly identifies the real focus of Ham's survey:

Quote:

So measuring the rate of loss in the conservative camp was an attempt at "best case" rather than "worst case" scenario at that macro level slice...

Ham's emphasis and focus is on the failure of conservative/fundamentalist/traditional Christian Churches to keep youth in the church. It is his point that the failure rate in that sector of Christianity is 75%. His focus was on the loss of youth that are not staying. That implies that the youth start out there and are dissatisfied and eventually leave.

I really don't know, but my assumption would be that the paradigm of failure is very different among liberal/old mainline/ traditional-high church, such as Episcopal, Presbyterian, Anglican, Lutheran, Methodist, Catholic, etc. Statistics show that the age demographics of these denominations are aged/aging and their declining numbers are dying, literally, rather than leaving at some earlier age. My assumption, based on those stats would be that there are no youth there to leave. A majority of youth already left those denominations a generation or two ago.

Tom

[Tom Wetmore]

If what you said is true about conservative churches, how can you explain that the Orthodox Churches like the Greek Orthodox, are growing by leaps and bounds?

First of all, it was Ken Ham that was saying it. I was only echoing what he said. And second, his point was not about overall church growth, but the movement of a specific age demographic, the youth. His point was that 75% were leaving conservative/fundamentalist/traditional Christian Churches.

And the questions that should be screamingly obvious is - So where are all these young people going? Are they joining liberal mainstream denominations? Obviously not. (See previous post) Are they turning their back on all organized religion? Are they going to any church at all? Are they going to non-traditional churches? Are they exploring other non-Christian religions? Are they checking out of any spiritual journey entirely? Are they abandoning faith entirely? Are they becoming secular humanist or atheists?

And finally, conservatism and orthodoxy are not necessarily the same thing. In a sense the Orthodox Church may seem conservative and may truly be best able to rightly claim that title in the sense of keeping (conserving) to the original faith. But clearly, the clump of Christian Churches that generally get lumped into the conservative camp (but which I have broadly understood to include fundamentalists and traditional) and which were the focus of Ham's survey are most definitely not orthodox in its real and true sense. Not even close!

And your question begs a further question. Is the growth in the Orthodox Churches from all those youth leaving other Christian Churches and coming over to the Orthodoxy? I seriously doubt it. And given the relative numbers, even explosive growth in orthodoxy is far fewer people than the numbers leaving other organized Christian Churches.

Tom

[Tom Wetmore]

And since I still have the floor -

Explain or describe the SDA church you would like to see.

How would it be different in any way you believe would help keep young people in the church?

Perhaps "a brand of evangelical that favors authenticity over authority and messy narrative over formulas for success." - Christianity Today Article.

Or alternatively, the answer may be in the links to the two books in my first post to which you were responding.

Tom

[carolaa]

If what you said is true about conservative churches, how can you explain that the Orthodox Churches like the Greek Orthodox, are growing by leaps and bounds?

I'm guessing that Christianity in general is losing members in the wealthy U.S. and western portion of Europe, while it is growing in the poor regions of eastern Europe. I don't think that has much to do with whether it is conservative, liberal, orthodox, or whatever.

[Dr. Shane]

I'm guessing that Christianity in general is losing members in the wealthy U.S. and western portion of Europe, while it is growing in the poor regions of eastern Europe. I don't think that has much to do with whether it is conservative, liberal, orthodox, or whatever.

I haven't seen any studies showing that liberal churches in the US and Western Europe are doing any better than conservative churches. I know there are conservative Assemblies of God and Pentecostal churches that are growing by leaps and bounds here in the US. I also know there are a lot of conservative Baptists churches with healthy growth.

In Latin America the Adventist church is quite conservative and is growing faster than they can build churches and schools. We don't have a school in the town across the border where I attend church and we could fill it tomorrow if we had the money to buy land and build one.

[Dr. Shane]

I tend to think that the percentage of Americans that actually live a dedicated life to Christ isn't much different now than in years past. I think the type of people that use to attend church on a superficial basis no longer attend. I think that is where we see the "decline" of the church.

[phkrause]

Can't you find anyone to donate some land, , and than get maranatha to help build the school? Just a thought.

pk

[bonnie]

Can someone give independent info on why liberal chruches/congregations are not flourishing and busting at the seams.

Where are the children of the liberal parents?

Can any of you here that believe that give an example of a belief or doctrine that is driving conservative children out?

[fccool]

I tend to think that the percentage of Americans that actually live a dedicated life to Christ isn't much different now than in years past. I think the type of people that use to attend church on a superficial basis no longer attend. I think that is where we see the "decline" of the church.

I think that you've nailed it! Mere 20 years ago it was popular to be a "moralist" in the least, if not Christian. In today's generation MTV Christianity is not so cool anymore. This is one of the biggest reasons for the decline of the younger generations in churches that fail to accommodate that generation's preferences (I'm not talking about immoral preferences).

To say that we see the demise of Christianity is a far fetched statement is a sense that Christianity does not root itself in church attendance. This was a mistake of fundomentalism to assume that a moral Christian ABSOLUTELY MUST BE a church going christian.

I do see more and more the growing phenomenon of home based churches where people can come, clearly communicate and express and share their concerns with each other... something that larger churches today don't give them opportunity to do when political issues get in a way.

I am excited to see the church going back to the roots of family worship and studies, which is essentially where it should be rooted in... and not in 3 hours of Saturday/Sunday (in this case) rituals.

[carolaa]

Can someone give independent info on why liberal chruches/congregations are not flourishing and busting at the seams.

Where are the children of the liberal parents?

Can any of you here that believe that give an example of a belief or doctrine that is driving conservative children out?

I don't have any research, so I'll just give my opinion.

I don't think kids leaving the church has much, if anything, to do with how liberal or conservative their parents are/were. I think it has more to do with whether the kids sense hypocrisy in their parents, or with how the kids were treated by the church, or with how relevant the church is to their lives.

[carolaa]

I'm guessing that Christianity in general is losing members in the wealthy U.S. and western portion of Europe, while it is growing in the poor regions of eastern Europe. I don't think that has much to do with whether it is conservative, liberal, orthodox, or whatever.

What I take from that is that the wealthier countries do not sense their need of religion/God/church as much as the poorer countries do.

[Bravus]

Education is the culprit

[olger]

This is - or ought to be - the goal of a lifelong education: not merely to make a living but to find out what living is for.

g

[Dr. Shane]

What I take from that is that the wealthier countries do not sense their need of religion/God/church as much as the poorer countries do.

I agree with that.

[BobRyan]

Fiction is the culprit. The more the Christian church promoted the "happy fiction and mythology" of evolutionism "as if" that was "education" the more the churches dwindled. In the 40's and 50'5 those same nations had over 50% attendance in church -- and now it is at 7%.

As for wealth destroyed church attendance - the U.S is doing better in church attendance all through that period of time - than the EU group was doing - because we were not as fast to pick up on the novel idea of including fiction along with Christianity as fast as the UK and other EU nations did it.

Not too surprising if you stop and think about it for a second.

in Christ,

Bob

[olger]

'decline' might have been a better word choice...

That has to hurt, since evolution theory insists upon inevitable progress...

g

[carolaa]

Education is the culprit

No. :smile: Love of money is the culprit.

[Bravus]

I guess the point is that we have all, including me, managed to project our own pet issue onto it...

[olger]

If evolution was my pet, I would "put it down".

[Bravus]

Indeed - but you'll notice it was Bob, not me, who went in that direction...

[BobRyan]

Actually the thread is on Ken Ham's video -- if you happen to watch it you will find that it already mentions the problem of evolutionism.

[Bravus]

Yeah, I was being concise but I should have mentioned that. I know what Ham does and knew that'd be his angle...

[Dr. Shane]

Ham is a believer in Sola Scriptura. Integrating evolution into the teaching of the church certainly does harm that doctrine. Whether or not it is the reason for the decline in church attendance is quite another subject. I think there a quite a number of issues that have driven down church attendance and churches compromising on creation is probably not the greatest of them.