FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
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User ID: 1739
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
2d ago
Tell us how you really feel!
If you define a Christian as someone who believes the Nicene Creed, then Evangelicals qualify. And they seem pretty good at following Christian practices: 72% of Evangelicals pray daily, compared to 51% of Catholics, 53% of Orthodox, and 45% of Mainline. 51% of Evangelicals read scripture (outside of religious services) weekly or more, compared to 14% of Catholics, 15% of Orthodox, and 18% of Mainline. 30% of Evangelicals participate in weekly prayer or bible study groups, compared to 8% of Catholics, 6% of Orthodox, and 9% of Mainline. And of course (true to their name) 32% of Evangelicals discuss their religion with nonbelievers monthly or more often, compared to 13% of Catholics, 12% of Orthodox, and 13% of Mainline.
When it comes to Christian beliefs, 93% of Evangelicals agree that "God is a perfect being and cannot make a mistake" compared to 75% of Catholics and 80% of Mainline. 92% of Evangelicals agree that "God is unchanging" compared to 76% of Catholics and 79% of Mainline. 82% of Evangelicals believe in hell, compared to 69% of Catholics, 60% of Orthodox, and 59% of Mainline. 91% of Evangelicals agree that "There will be a time when Jesus Christ returns to judge all the people who have lived" compared to 72% of Catholics and 76% of Mainline. 82% of Evangelicals agree that "Sex outside of traditional marriage is a sin" compared to 49% of Catholics and 55% of Mainline.
And as far as "surrendering to secularism", 61% of Evangelicals say that homosexuality should be discouraged in society, compared to 23% of Catholics, 39% of Orthodox, and 25% of Mainline. 64% of Evangelicals believe that greater social acceptance of transgender people has been a change for the worse, compared to 26% of Catholics, 20% of Orthodox, and 22% of Mainline. 65% of Evangelicals believe that abortion should be illegal in most cases, compared to 39% of Catholics, 37% of Orthodox, and 29% of Mainline. 84% of Evangelicals are in favor of allowing prayer in public schools, compared to 63% of Catholics, 63% of Orthodox, and 57% of Mainline.
Overall, despite your dislike of Evangelical worship aesthetics, Evangelicals seem to be doing a better job of keeping to Christian practice and beliefs than anyone else in the USA.
And as someone who has been in Evangelical churches my entire life, I was completely taken aback by your claim that Evangelicals believe Christ was crucified, but never experience the spirt of that. I mean...I feel like it got pounded into us quite a bit! I've heard a lot of sermons trying to drive home how much pain and suffering Jesus went through on the cross. Usually they went a bit overboard, in my opinion, but that's the better side to err on I suppose. And while the lack of centralization leaves individual churches more vulnerable to bad actors, it also prevents bad actors from taking over the whole movement. We're too decentralized to all agree to follow a single flim-flam man!
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
3d ago
You're right to label "lets actually win the fight" as the Evangelical option: so far, Evangelicals have done the best job of fighting and surviving secularism. Ryan Burge over at Graphs About Religion has a post with some good graphs about this, but Evangelicals have gone from 18% of all Americans in 1972, to a height of 29% in 1991, to 19.5% today. In contrast Catholics have gone from 27% in 1972 to a height of 28% in 1994 to 22% today, with a long slow decline from 2010 to the present. Over the same time period Mainliners went from 30% of the population in 1972 and has been in steady decline ever since, now standing at 8.7% of the population. Of course Eastern Orthodox has remained at ~1% from 1972 to today.
In other words, from the 1970s (when 90% of the USA was Christian) to today (when 62% are) Evangelicals have treaded water while all the other major Christian traditions have declined. And according to Pew Research, the overall decline of Christian identification in the US seems like it has leveled off in the low to mid 60s since 2019. Pew also found that the number of Americans who pray daily has stabilized at around 45% since 2021, and the number who attend religious services at least monthly has stabilized in the low 30s since 2020. If Evangelicals could hold steady over the course of decades of decline in Christianity, who knows what they might do now that the decline has stopped? Perhaps the long siege is coming to an end and the Winged Hussars are coming, though this time they're bearing grape juice in communion cups and copies of The Purpose Driven Church while charging to the sound of CCM.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
3d ago
Based on him comparing the Evangelicals to the Catholic integralists, I think he is meaning "liberal" as in "liberal democracy": all citizens having a vote, freedom of speech and religion, that sort of thing.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
3d ago
Perhaps, but what you fear may happen in Israel is actively happening in just about every other country in the Middle East. Islam has long agreed that the presence of Dhimmi in the House of Submission must be a transient state.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
4d ago
Israel has a long history of oppressing Christians
Worse than the rest of the middle east? Last I checked Christians were allowed to prostelytize in Israel, while it's illegal in Turkey, Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, the West Bank, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, the UAE, Yemen, and Afghanistan. Open Doors is a nonprofit that tracks persecution of Christians: Israel did not break the top 50 globally, compared to Saudi Arabia at 12th, Yemen at 3rd, Iraq at 17th, Syria at 18th, Oman at 32nd, Iran at 9th, Egypt at 40th, Turkey at 45th, and Jordan at the #50 spot.
My point being, the Middle East is very hostile to the West in general, and Israel is by far the most pro-Western country in the region and the safest place in the Middle East to be a practicing Christian.
Well, you're not wrong about the aesthetics. We Evangelicals famously have bad taste! Fortunately that doesn't seem to have watered down the message too much.
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