04.12.09
Waning of Christianity?
Christianity’s Resurrection From Conservative Decline
By E.J. Dionne
What is surprising is how slowly the waning of Christianity is occurring. This was to have been a nineteenth century phenomenon, or an eightenth,….
Part of the problem can be seen in the stance toward religion of the post-Feuerbachian left, next to the emergence of science/Darwinism.
Society was all set for its ‘secularism’ but inadequate substitutes suddenly emerged. We can see that with Darwinism and the subsequent reemegence of fundamentalism.
The left has been incompetent here, the same kind of dumb incomprehension we now see in Darwin diehards. To oppose religion is one thing, but to be ignorant of its history was a fatal. Into the void came a virtual flood of global religious movements: the New Age movement. The complexity of world religion is beyond the grasp of scientific culture.
Many of these movements are more critical of Christianity that most New Atheists. Religion is on the move, with perilous potential results.
Are we witnessing this Easter season the decline of Christianity in America, or is this rather a moment of reform and renewal, a time when the deterioration that has been under way is arrested?
The death and resurrection of religion, if not of Jesus Christ, has been a favorite subject of newsmagazines ever since Time, on April 8, 1966, momentously asked: “Is God Dead?”
This trend, announced on a somber black and red cover, lasted a little over three years. Or perhaps the original question was premature. In any event, on Dec. 26, 1969, Time offered a bright white, yellow, blue and purple cover carrying the hopeful new question: “Is God Coming Back to Life?”
This Easter week, Newsweek doesn’t pretend to know God’s state, but its cover offers a stark declarative statement positing “The Decline and Fall of Christian America.”
The article by Jon Meacham, a thoroughly knowledgeable student of these issues, offers some powerful data, notably a near doubling since 1990 of the number of Americans who claim no religious affiliation, from 8 percent to 15 percent. Meacham also points to a 10-point drop in the share of Americans who self-identify as Christian, from 86 percent to 76 percent.
Darwiniana » The Enlightenment and post-religion said,
April 12, 2009 at 3:01 pm
[...] that should have taken place in the period of the Enlightenment has been almost endlessly delayed. Waning of Christianity It is worth looking at the history of German Classical Philosophy to see one of the first reactions [...]