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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 15, 2025

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Mormons are structured like an actual cult

What strikes me is that from European point of view, most of the denominations you listed would be considered to be somewhere between "somewhat weird ultraconservative sect inside the mainstream church" to "They're weird ass cultists, be careful when dealing with them". And I don't mean by young liberals but by people like my friend's retired father who spent 40 years as a pastor with mainline church beliefs before retiring a decade ago.

Do Europeans actually believe in a recognizable Christianity, though?

I once attended a Sunday church service in St. Giles' Cathedral in Edinburgh. It was...a light crowd. I went back hours later to see it as a museum exhibit, and it was much livelier.

Cool building I guess.

There are Europeans who believe in a recognizable Christianity, but a big cathedral of the historical state church in the center capital city of some country (or autonomous region, in this case) is probably going to be quite a bad bet for finding them.

quite a bad bet for finding them.

Why should this be? It may be intuitive to you, but it's not to me.

For the same reason why Venice is no longer Italian. Too many tourists driving out the natives.

Imagine that your hobby spot gets disrupted constantly by tourists who gawk at you like you are a zoo animal. I bet that you'd find a more obscure spot that they can't find.