Posted on 11/17/2010 5:17:23 AM PST by RJR_fan
These look like liberal churches.
I did some research on the Presbyterian church PCUSA a couple years ago and found that they were losing about
50,000 members annually. Most were single women because
the young men never joined their congregations in the first
place. So there are no young men in the church for the young women to marry.
If you know anything about the PCUSA—and this is likely true of the other liberal denominations—there is a mutual contempt society between the pastors and the men in the congregation. Because for the most part the pastors are preaching to the women. Because the women do most of the work toward maintaining the church.
This contempt goes from father to son.
So the sons bail rather than live the lie.
My Presbyterian church “wrings its hands” over its less than successful youth program. The church has gone so far as to hire a consultant to find out why our church loses families when their kids hit the teen years. The study made me laugh because the consultant only “consulted” the parents and teens who are still members of our church and who participate in youth group (kind of like asking the choir how they’d rate the music). The departing families join other churches in the area that have stronger youth group programs. Some church members are particularly dismayed that children who have grown up in our church have left in their teen years to attend the Evangelical Christian church (with a strong youth program) about 2 miles down the road. Such horror and apostasy!/sarc When a friend was lamenting to me about the situation a few years back when our own children were grade school age, I replied that if the most rebellious thing my kids want to do as teens is join the church down the road where they believe in a literal hell, then I will rejoice and praise God for my many blessings.
I find your comments about the Pres church and males to be interesting as my church just installed a new female senior pastor. Hmmm...
Although you do raise an interesting parallel discussion -- according to Leon Podles' ground-break book The Church Impotent: The Feminization of Christianity, the more liberal the church, the less masculine its atmosphere.[1]
In both cases, the cure is the same: Christian men need to stand up for their families, get their kids out of Caesar's thought reform gulags, and take personal responsibility for catachetizing their families.
Our family's approach to "youth ministry:" have non-Christian friends over for dinner, and entertain them hospitably. The bouncy offspring are fully engaged with us in this ministry. In fact, it is the witness of an intact and loving family that makes a profound impression on the guests.
When our girls went to a party sponsored by our church's "youth ministry," I embarrassed them up front with an admonition to "don't go forward at any altar calls!" I was gratified when they came home underwhelmed -- it was like "church, jr." with dumbed-down worship music (too loud), a lecture on stuff they already knew, and the sensory overload of too many pheromone-emitting teenage bodies in one place.
If parents send kids into our godless government schools these children **WILL WILL WILL** learn to think godlessly and believe in the government established religion of godless secular humanism.
Yes, I have read excerpts from the Barna studied. The stats are discouraging. Nearly 85% of youth who attend our godless, collectivist, government schools will walk away from their Christian faith within 2 years of graduating. Yet...The opposite is true for homeschoolers. More than 95% of homeschoolers remain faithful in their denomination.
Of those youth who claim to be Christian these kids deny the very fundamentals of Christianity. What they really believe in a warm fuzzy, save Mother Earth, “do good-ism”.
I am on this and other forums every urging parents to remove their children from the godless, collectivist, compulsory government schools. I am continually trying to help conservatives understand that government schooling can NOT NOT NOT be reformed and are literally destroying our nation. I am EXASPERATED!
"Marrieds in Room 4?" What happened to "Studies in Daniel in Room 4" and everyone is invited?
Everyone seemed to pull this nonsense (Including some of the most respected churches in conservative Christianity) Propriety in other ways also fell. Applause during worship, amens, slovenly manners, etc.
But guess who was the rare one denounced it as expedient "human viewpoint" accomodation? Your friend--R.B. Thieme.
Now, what do we have? In a complete capitulation to the Youth is Beautiful movement, we have tossed out the reverential hymns for drums, electric guitars, and lounge singers, reworked songs, and called all this "Praise."
The "contemporary" evening service. Projected lyrics, unrecognizable modern tunes, etc. (Where's the exit?) The pastor comes out in a Hawaiian shirt. Prayers are glib, glib, glib nonsense which approach our highly exalted God with. "Lord, I just wanna say . . . " "OK, everyone, let's give Jesus a big round of applause. . . Now, stand-up, shake hands with your neighbor and say Jesus loves you." It's all vapid, irreverent, slop that passes as worship in the church growth movement.
We're singing from the same page. But be of good cheer, the future is not shaped by majorities, but by "exasperated" (irate) minorities that stand firm on their convictions. And we have such a remnant in the USA today -- millions of parents who politely refuse to render unto Caesar that which is God's, the children entrusted to their care. A better day is coming, and will probably surprise us with how suddenly it breaks through. As my favorite Marxist Jesuit, Ivan Illych, wrote:
We need depth as Christian churches, but we also need to live what we say we believe.
These “platte river” churches are causing a lot of the problem.
If it takes a circus to get them there it will take a circus to keep them there.
Several thoughts come to mind.
Gary North referred to charismatics a decade or two ago as "Baptists without hymnals." Nowadays, alas, even the Baptists are discarding those grand repositories of living faith. We are like children sitting in a cobwebby treasure room, ignoring the precious items around us, as we play with disposable plastic trinkets.
Before the Jesus Movement was aborted by the contagion of end-times hysteria, we thought we were in the midst of a history-making supernatural event. Today, the only discernible mark this event made on the American culture seems to be worship services modeled on rock concerts: soloist, backup singers, drums, etc.
I guess we just need to teach the hymns -- and the catechism -- and the faith -- to our own children.
We can start by working to shut down our godless, collectivist government schools.
We can start by getting our nation's children in to private schools the fully integrate the Judeo Christian values of the child's family, and our nation's Founding principles, into every minute of the school day.
I used to be Presbyterian. I am now Southern Baptist and loving it. Very man friendly, unlike the Presbyterians.
I no longer feel that my church is trying to turn us males into women. Actually, they’re trying to turn us into real men. Which is great.
When Robert Rakes invented the Sunday School, an astute commentator wrote, “This innovation will be the death of family Christian instruction.” Once parents got used to outsourcing the religious education of their children, it was but a short step to outsourcing the “secular” education as well.
Among the presbyterians you can get the story of what happened to the church from Gresham Mecham. And from him infer as to why the traditional liberal protestant church fell over nearly stone
dead in just 100 years in Europe and today is shrinking rapidly in the USA. What happened was that the higher criticism gained ascendancy in Europe in the 1840’s and then jumped the pond in the 1890’s. It took over all the mainline seminaries by the 1940’s. Basically it treated the bible
as a myth maybe a bit better than the Greek myths or the norse gods but a myth just the same. In consequence it took a low view of Jesus. That is it considered Jesus to be just a man. This was traditionally known as the arian heresy. The nicean is said in many different denominations including the catholics as a result of this heresy that dates from 324 AD. and the council of Nicea.
The higher criticism school willing ears in the USA because the english speaking world was lead away from trinitarianism about the same time as the continentals through the work of Newton. He was held in demigod status in the english speaking world. His name showed up in 19th century theological tracts. Newton was an ardant arian. From his writing the Unitarians got their start in the late 17th century. The first Unitarian preacher jumped the pond with franklin. Several american presidents were unitarians including two adams and Jefferson —but unofficially—he didn’t go to church. 40 years later after Melville finished moby dick he attended a unitarian church for the first time.
American seminaries were ready and willing to embrace the
european Higher Criticism school.
The problem with the arian heresy is that you have a congregation worshiping a dead guy. And not just any old dead guy but a human sacrifice. Everyone might as well come to church with paint on their face and feathers. Heck its pure aztec. oh yeah and that’s another thing. Aztec priests like the priests of Baal were homosexuals.
We were told that we had to adopt this apostate worship style to attract the youngsters.
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