Decline of religion

[Fake Messiah]

[Fake Messiah]

21 Brutally Honest Confessions From An American Evangelical Pastor Who Left The Church

Recently, a former American evangelical pastor took to the Reddit's r/AMA board to talk about everything from why he left the church to what he believes in now, and it's a perspective you don't often see.

He wrote, "I converted to Christianity at 21, became a minister in the late nineties, and left the faith in 2021.

Q Why did you leave the faith?

A: I didn't see Christianity making people better, and in many cases, I saw it making people worse. For years, other pastors and I promised that people would feel a greater sense of peace and, over time, become more like Jesus, but I just never saw it happening.

Some would point to examples of people they know who are wonderful Christians, but I'd argue that they're wonderful people who would be sterling examples of whatever faith (or non-faith) they believed in.

For Christianity to be true, it feels to me that the percentage of people becoming more caring, loving, and self-sacrificial needs to be higher than normal. It just doesn't seem to be.



Q: What was the process of leaving the church like?

A: I was asked to leave when I came out in support of LGBTQ inclusion.



Q: Why do you think many in the Christian community are so against the LGBTQ+ community?

A: Mostly, it's become a litmus test to judge someone's faith and sincerity. It's abhorrent that Christianity sees itself as a marginalized community that suffers persecution but can't empathize with legitimate marginalized and persecuted groups.



Q: Did patriarchy, complementarianism, or any of the sex-based rule hierarchy play any role in your decision to leave the church?

A: Sure. The colonialism inherent in the faith played a big role, too. A faith that turns a blind eye to chattel slavery and disempowers half a population based on gender just stopped making sense. And let's be honest: when a faith devalues one of two genders, it's not prepared to be thoughtful and kind to the idea of gender as a spectrum.



Q: What are your thoughts on the megachurch leaders such as Copeland, Osteen, etc? And have your views on them changed over the years?

A: No. I always thought they were opportunist garbage dudes.




Q: Did you ever take issue with the representation of Jesus being portrayed as white?

A: In a lot of Japanese art, Jesus is portrayed as Japanese. In African art, he's portrayed as more African than Near Eastern. So, on some level, portraying Jesus in a way that aligns with your culture is natural.

That said, the fact that white Jesus is often the default does point to the problems with colonialism, where we outsource and force our culture on others.

So no, but also yes.



Q: Churches today have deviated so far from Christ's simple but powerful message of love, compassion, charity, inclusivity, and to stay out of worldly affairs, i.e., politics. How do these people justify their blatant disregard for Jesus while preaching Jesus? I really need to understand.

A: A lot of American Christians spend more time being discipled by Fox News than Jesus of Nazareth.



Q: When you were still a believer, did you believe people needed religion to have a moral compass, or were you already conscious that it was not the case?

A: I felt that was nonsense forever, and I hated any time someone suggested that faith made people moral. If you need a god in order not to kill or steal, you're kind of telling me that you're a terrible person who needs to be coerced to do good.



Q: How do you find purpose without god or the Bible? I've left religion and struggle to find meaning in things like I used to.

A: I think I find more meaning, beauty, and wonder in disbelief than I did in belief.



Q: Presuming you felt the Holy Spirit over the years, how do you rationalize what that feeling was?

A: People from all religious backgrounds have moments of devotional euphoria. Hell, people at Taylor Swift concerts experience it.

https://www.buzzfeed.com/meganeliscomb/a...the-church

[Fake Messiah]

'There was anger, sadness, tears': Two Buffalo Catholic churches set to close

Final masses will be held on Saturday at two popular Buffalo churches. St. Thomas Aquinas in the heart of south Buffalo and St. Bernard’s in Kaisertown are closing and will merge with nearby parishes.

“There was anger, sadness, tears,” reflected Marty Brownsey, parishioner, St. Thomas Aquinas.

The church is among the 78 churches the Buffalo Diocese plans to close and merge from now until next June as part of Road to Renewal to right size and reshape the shirking Catholic community in Western New York and as the bankrupt diocese deals with debt and a priest shortage.

“When I announced the closing, I cried on the altar,” declared Father Bill Quinlivan, pastor, Catholic Family of South Buffalo.

The parish was established 104 years ago, and the priest noted it will be the “end of an era” for this South Buffalo parish.

Father Quinlivan said a decline in attendance and collections is driving these changes.

"There's no questioning the beauty of the church. There's no questioning the faithfulness – the goodness of the people, but the ability to sustain it,” Father Quinlivan remarked.

https://www.wkbw.com/news/local-news/the...t-to-close

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

^Given Matthew 18:20, it makes wonder why they even NEED churches:

‘For Whenever two or three are gathered together in my name, I am there among them.’ Jesus doesn’t need those big, fancy-schmancy houses.
Boru

[Fake Messiah]

People shifting from Catholicism to Satanism is considered progress.

The Temple of Satan gains ground in Chile as faith in traditional religions wanes

Scholars, believers and residents consulted by The Associated Press note that Chile, where a long-lasting tradition of Catholicism has played a leading role in public discussions, is experiencing a crisis of faith, following revelations of multiple sexual abuse scandals within the Catholic church over the years.

“These types of organizations now feel that they have greater support to challenge what was virtually impossible before,” said Luis Bahamondes, a professor at the Center for Judaic Studies at the University of Chile. And that’s because, “until very recently, the Catholic Church enjoyed an unprecedented power. It had an opinion on everything: politics, economics, geopolitics, sexuality and education.”

Despite its name, The Temple of Satan: Satanists and Luciferians of Chile does not embark on sacrifices nor asks its congregants to worship the devil. Among its 100 members are people who work as publicists, firefighters, police officers, lawyers and psychologists, who have found in the organization a way to defy moral norms, dogmas and religious impositions.

While they embrace the term Satanist, they don’t revere or believe in Satan. Instead, they worship rationality, individualism, pleasure and the mundane life.

Rather than gods, they praise humankind.

“You are the owner of your present and future, there is no God that makes decisions for you,” said Haborym, a spokesperson for the group, during a walk through tombs and mausoleums at the General Cemetery of Santiago. He notes that the figure of Satan is purely symbolic and their rituals are performed “to bring out the emotions and leave the intellect aside.”

https://apnews.com/article/chile-satan-t...ccab985a6e

[Fake Messiah]

Baltimore Catholic churches are celebrating their final Mass this weekend. Here’s what to know.

The Baltimore-area Catholic Church is grappling with declining attendance at Sunday Mass and the high cost of maintaining aging church structures and continuing services, so archdiocesan officials redrew parish lines to conserve resources. Sixty-one parishes at 59 worship sites are being consolidated into 23 parishes at 30 worship sites in the city and parts of Baltimore County, with some churches dating back to the 19th century set to close their doors.

Many of those combined parishes will hold their first Mass on Dec. 1, the first day of Advent.

Auxiliary Bishop Bruce Lewandowski, who has overseen the consolidation plan, acknowledged “these are not easy times for a lot of folks as they form new parishes” and that the archdiocese needed to give attention to the need for mourning. Come December, he said earlier this year, routine Masses would no longer be celebrated at the parishes being folded into others.

https://www.thebaltimorebanner.com/commu...6KEMUL6F4/

[Fake Messiah]

There's also a personal article from the same newspaper in Baltimore where a Catholic woman whose family history is interwoven with the Church explains why she was alienated from Catholicism.

But when I am in a Catholic church, I also think of pain.

I think of the more than 600 people who told investigators with the Maryland Office of the Attorney General that they had been sexually abused as children by a Catholic clergy member. I think of the survivors of abuse who shared their stories with me. I will never forget the horrors they endured and the immense strength with which they fought for justice.

I am keenly aware that many see the Catholic Church, and the hierarchy that covered for abusers, as irredeemable.

For many of us who grew up Catholic, the allegations of clergy sexual abuse hit close to home. One of the priests included in the attorney general’s report was a friend of my parents who visited my childhood home several times. Another priest in the report reportedly groomed and kissed on the lips a teenage relative, who fortunately told his parents before things further escalated.

For years, I identified as Catholic, even though I disagreed with much of Catholic dogma. I don’t believe premarital sex is wrong. I think birth control is great. I do not believe life begins at conception. As a bisexual person, I believe that all loving relationships between consenting adults are equally sacred. I believe all of us are created in God’s image, and that trans and nonbinary people are just as divine as everyone else — if not more so.

When my husband and I got married, we asked Father Richard Lawrence at St. Vincent de Paul to perform the ceremony. I was familiar with Father Lawrence because I had seen him passionately fight for the rights of unhoused people. I also knew that he and his parish were staunch supporters of LGBTQIA+ people.

But that generation of liberal Catholic leaders is dying off, and hundreds of thousands of laypeople, like me, no longer feel comfortable calling ourselves Catholic. In the middle of the last century, more than 250,000 Catholics worshipped in the city, yet just 5,000 to 8,000 attend Mass at city churches today.

https://www.thebaltimorebanner.com/opini...BARTLPBOE/

[Fake Messiah]

My church is closing, and I don’t know what comes next — for me, or America

How do you get rid of a pulpit? Or a communion table?

Does anyone want 30-year-old choir robes?

What do you do with the baptismal records of a church that dates back to the 1860s?

I never thought I would be asking myself these questions, but here I am, like many other pastors across the country as the number of Americans who belong to a faith community shrinks and churches that once housed vibrant congregations close.

When I first became a pastor, right out of college, there were ominous signs, but I did not foresee how quickly the end would come, hastened by a pandemic.

I first took the pulpit of First Baptist Church of Mount Vernon, Illinois, in the fall of 2006. The church was a part of the American Baptist denomination, a mainline tradition that welcomed women into leadership and tended to take a more moderate stance on theological and social issues.

I preached in a sanctuary that could easily accommodate 300 people. That first year or two, I could count about 50 people scattered around the pews. It felt sparse, but not empty — a relief, since I wasn’t the most credentialed pastor in the history of the church.

I tried to light that match every Sunday morning. People didn’t show up.

The church’s membership began to dwindle in the 1970s and 1980s. If you talked to five members of my church about this period of time, you would get five different reasons for the decline: An ill-advised sermon drove off a few key families. Lots of kids who grew up in the church went off to college and didn’t return to rural Illinois because of the lack of employment opportunities. Other churches in town seemed more attractive with their drums, guitars and high-energy worship. Regardless of the cause, the membership of First Baptist dipped below 100 by the late 1990s.

After a couple of years, the discussion about revitalizing the church began to grow quiet. A sense of resignation started to creep in. I came to a disheartening conclusion: I wasn’t going to be able to turn things around. I think at that point most members knew in their hearts that the end was coming for the church. We were just all afraid to speak that truth into existence. It was better to keep our heads down and focus on the next worship service and not worry about what would happen in three or five years.

I’ve heard several people say that organizations die slowly, then all at once. That’s what happened to us.

My church went from 50 people to less than 10 under my watch. If I knew anything about how to grow a church I would have done it by now.

Many pastors are in the same boat that I was in. They are watching the waves lap over the side of their rickety vessel every day. The bucket to bail out the water is too small to do any good. Still, thousands of pastors are trying to keep the boat seaworthy by any means necessary, even as more cracks begin to emerge in the hull.

Last Sunday, I stood behind the pulpit of First Baptist Church for the last time.

Then I told them once more, “Go in peace to love and serve your neighbors.” I know that I may never see some of those people ever again.

I walked out those doors into the blinding heat of a summer day in southern Illinois and stepped into a future where I don’t know where I will go to church next Sunday, or even if I want to go. Frankly, I don’t know if my own faith will survive, and I’m not sure if the church in America will be there for the next generation like it was for me.

And I’m terrified because for the first time in my spiritual life, I don’t know what’s next.

https://www.deseret.com/faith/2024/07/25...the-nones/

[Angrboda]

I've heard people asking for "tricks" to drive viewers to their website. The plain answer is always the same. Have content that people want.