# To Australians, Irish, Canadians, and Dutch



## R Harris (Mar 24, 2011)

The link below is to a CNN article that appeared on their website yesterday. I wondered which forum to post this under, but I thought this one to be the best, for several reasons.

Organized religion 'will be driven toward extinction' in 9 countries, experts predict – CNN Belief Blog - CNN.com Blogs

So those of you from any of these countries mentioned in the thread title or the article: do you feel this to be true? What are your thoughts about evangelism and church growth in your countries?

From an eschatological standpoint, I suppose some would view this as a serious blow to postmillenialism, but obviously one cannot allow newspaper exegesis to determine the view.

I find it interesting that given the extraordinary times we live in, people would still jettison religion at a point where vibrant, biblical faith in Christ, as Savior and Ruler of the World, is the only hope anyone could possible have.


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## ericfromcowtown (Mar 24, 2011)

I don't think the article is surprising. I would be more interested in church membership as a percentage of the population, than census data, though. I would suspect that the list of countries with severe drops in religiousity would increase dramatically if one had to do more than merely respond "Christian" in a census to not be considered "unafilliated." For instance, how many Americans do you know who would respond in the affirmative that they're Christian, but are neither members of a church nor ever crack open their bible? Interesting findings, none the less.


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## Quatchu (Mar 24, 2011)

When it comes to there mention of Ireland, I claim not to know to much about this, but one thing that i though with the decline in religion in Ireland is this because the people in Ireland are loosing faith or is the economic boom in that country brining in people from England ect that have no religion and it has more to do with more immigration.

As far as Canada goes i don't think so whats so ever. I studied Sociology of Religion a few years ago and religion in Canada is on a rise within Evangelical denominations. Added onto that the increase of Muslim immigrants in the country, i do not think religion is about to die out in Canada. If anything with the mix of new religions in Canada it will grow, because from a sociological stand point tension between religions causes growth.


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## Jack K (Mar 24, 2011)

Nonsense. The mistake the study makes is its assumption that religion operates in a manner similar to language, so that only reason a religion survives is the "social, economic and political advantages" of joining with others in adherence to a particular faith—what they call the "unity effect."

We know better. We know there's an ache for God within every heart that's deeper and stronger than this unity effect. So people will always be looking for some sort of religion. Furthermore, true religion and the true church are held together by God's power—a force far beyond anything these mathemeticians acknowledge. They may indeed be right that the empty, social/political brand of "Christianity" is dying, but that can only help the true church. Humanity cannot give up religion any more than it can give up eating.


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## Skyler (Mar 24, 2011)

Jack K said:


> We know better. We know there's an ache for God within every heart that's deeper and stronger than this unity effect. So people will always be looking for some sort of religion. Furthermore, true religion and the true church are held together by God's power—a force far beyond anything these mathemeticians acknowledge. They may indeed be right that the empty, social/political brand of "Christianity" is dying, but that can only help the true church. Humanity cannot give up religion any more than it can give up eating.



THAT is encouraging.


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## ericfromcowtown (Mar 24, 2011)

Jack K said:


> Nonsense. The mistake the study makes is its assumption that religion operates in a manner similar to language, so that only reason a religion survives is the "social, economic and political advantages" of joining with others in adherence to a particular faith—what they call the "unity effect."
> 
> We know better. We know there's an ache for God within every heart that's deeper and stronger than this unity effect. So people will always be looking for some sort of religion. Furthermore, true religion and the true church are held together by God's power—a force far beyond anything these mathemeticians acknowledge. They may indeed be right that the empty, social/political brand of "Christianity" is dying, but that can only help the true church. Humanity cannot give up religion any more than it can give up eating.



In regards to your last comment about humanity not being able to give up religion, good point. The article's authors also acknowledge this, in a round about way, when they state that "they're not necessarily atheists or non-believers, experts say, just people who do not associate themselves with a particular religion or house of worship at the time of the survey." 

I also agree that we shouldn't fear the Church becoming extinct. It can't as Christ's bridegroom. However, I think that the observation that those self-identifying as "unafilliated" is on the increase is an interesting, although not surprising, observation and a reflection of the reality that the Church is operating in a very different environment than it was in my parent's generation.


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## R Harris (Mar 24, 2011)

ericfromcowtown said:


> I also agree that we shouldn't fear the Church becoming extinct. It can't as Christ's bridegroom. However, I think that the observation that those self-identifying as "unafilliated" is on the increase is an interesting, although not surprising, observation and a reflection of the reality that the Church is operating in a very different environment than it was in my parent's generation.



Agree. It is somewhat similar to the "church house" movement in the US, where perhaps 5-20 people gather in someone's house to hold a "worship" service and have fellowship. It simply represents the ongoing exponential fragmentation of Christianity, and people being "unaffiliated" with any particular church or denomination.

I am postmil in my outlook, and I am well aware that the gates of Hell will not prevail against the Church. Nonetheless, God in His Providence may allow a period of great apostasy for many reasons in His outworking of His plan, before a great outpouing of His Spirit leading to revival and reformation.

Speaking of reformation, I don't know where Jack was going with his "social/political" comment, but I believe that the inward looking and pietistic theology of the last 100 years has been a major contributor to the hyper-individualism that we have seen in the Church during that time. As a result, the Church has not spoken to the major cultural and political issues that threaten the very survival of our nation and shown how Christ and the Gospel, working through the Church, can only bring about meaningful and lasting positive change. 

The " Christian leaders" the general public have come to know have been the TV evangelists and personalities who come across looking silly, uninformed, unpersuasive, and somewhat hapless. There is no unified group or spokesman addressing these matters where people take them seriously, and there certainly has been no _reformed_ voice calling out into our nation. So, nations suffer, the Church suffers, and people (both secular and religious) start to drop out.

But voids only last for so long before someone or some group does come along with usually strongman solutions during a crisis, like the Nazis. We can only pray that does not happen here.


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## jambo (Mar 24, 2011)

Is this not similar to what Karl Marx believed? Once the old people of his generation died then the church would become extinct as the young would see the glory and triumph of communism. However look at the church in eastern Europe, for all its problems it is anything but extinct. Yet communism looks as if it will be dead and buried long before the church will be in that region.



Quatchu said:


> When it comes to there mention of Ireland, I claim not to know to much about this, but one thing that i though with the decline in religion in Ireland is this because the people in Ireland are loosing faith or is the economic boom in that country brining in people from England ect that have no religion and it has more to do with more immigration.
> .



There are a number of factors in the Republic. The evangelical church in Ireland is small but growing whilst the RC church is in big decline. There are a number of reasons.

1. The sex scandals of the early 90s and the revelations of child abuse from priests has been the most significant factor in people turning their back on the church
2. Emigration. Ireland was always quite insular. Now every family has sons and daughters living in the UK, US, Australia etc and people have been exposed and embraced none-Catholic ideas. 
3. Economic boon. Prior to joining the EU, Ireland was very much a poor country. There has been a huge boon and for a time there was the Celtic Tiger. That has all gone and the boon has bust. When people are poor, there is more dependence upon the church (possibly for just superstitious reasons) but when wealth is enjoyed people are more self sufficient and do not see the need for God.
4. The general growth of western materialism, hedonism, secularism and almost every negative ism you can think of.


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## Jack K (Mar 24, 2011)

By the social/political church I mean the church that you join because it's the socially expected thing to do or politically expedient. Europe has had much of this sort of church membership for some time now, and there's a fair amount of it in America as well. The article makes it sound like that's the sort of church affiliation the study's authors are most familiar with, and what they think is dying. Well, _that_ sort of church affiliation may very well die. And good riddance.


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## R Harris (Mar 25, 2011)

Jack K said:


> By the social/political church I mean the church that you join because it's the socially expected thing to do or politically expedient. Europe has had much of this sort of church membership for some time now, and there's a fair amount of it in America as well. The article makes it sound like that's the sort of church affiliation the study's authors are most familiar with, and what they think is dying. Well, _that_ sort of church affiliation may very well die. And good riddance.



Gotcha, completely agree.


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