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The Disappearing, Shrinking Church in America: Why?
Why the dramatic and continuing decline of the so-called "mainline" Protestant Churches in America over the past half century? Should their falling membership numbers be a cause for concern? Why or why not? What is the wider significance of this trend and its implications for the church or body of Christ generally?
Click here for background information and sources/footnotes.
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Rita Cullimore on
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Roy,
1962 is the year I graduated. I believe you are referring to something I mentioned recently. That was the last year we were allowed to have morning prayer in our school. AND we have been going downhill ever since. One woman, with the help of many lukewarm Christians and nonbelievers were able to accomplish this. It was the start of a few dictating to many. The first after that of major consequence was the losing of the Vietnam War. The next was the Roe vs Wade decision. It is the era of liberalism taking over our country.
Blessings....
Rita
I wrote in this discussion the following
Madelyn Murray O'Hare effectively threw God out of our schools and eventually our nation. She, to keep her son from being educated about God, started a ball rolling that has continue to roll for the last nearly 50 years. We've turned from *must worship God to we will if we want to* attitude. There are many pastors that are using the ministry as a way to make a living. If one is watching, one sees the pastor with this mind set. The result is....
15 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves.
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Permalink Reply by RoyW on
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Rita,
God bless you. You get the prize. I have never sent anyone one of those ribbons but you will be the first. It may take me a few days to figure out a way to buy one of those ribbons but I will get it figured out and will send it to you.
Yes, we decided prayer in school was unconstitutional and the following year our beloved court threw the Bible out right with it.
But, not only did they throw God out but invited Satan in. Today, it is perfectly okay to teach a lie that came straight out of the pit of hell which is a beloved name called evolution. Yet, if there is any mention of design (you don't even have to mention God) the teacher is subject to discipline or dismissal. This is according to federal law. Any state that does not go along with this will lose their funding. The state schools have failed to teach our children morality and our churches are spending so much time entertaining them very little time is left to devote to the only educational Book in the world that can save us.
Rita, you have hit the nail on the head and the nail is driven straight into the coffin.
Satan has deceived us into getting into such heavy debt that we will have great difficulty doing what now needs to be done. Yet, here we are. We must do what we need to do or it will be too late. God is not going to go under. But, this modern day church just may.
We do not have the money but we are still spending billions sending space ships to Mars, Jupiter, and other places trying to discover the origin of life. I have no idea how God puts up with us.
Colby, do you have statistics to support your claim? I would like to see those. Thanks.
Roy
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Rita,
Did you get your prize? It was very easy to do and only cost a couple of dollars. Bless you for your faithfulness to God's Word.
Roy
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Roy, Yes I did and thank you.
I guess remembering something from 50 years ago is worthy of a prize. My memory isn't usually so keen but this is an issue that is important to me in the scheme of things.
Blessings...
Rita
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Permalink Reply by Colby on
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SOURCES OF INFORMATION:
The blog accompanying this discussion includes footnotes linking to Internet sources (including the denominations themselves) with statistics regarding trends in church membership.>> http://www.allaboutgod.net/profiles/blogs/the-disappearing-shrinkin...
This website provides year-by-year membership data by denomination: http://www.thearda.com/.
Current and past annual population figures for the U.S. can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_States.
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Permalink Reply by Amanda on
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Roy, I was born several years after 1962 and went to public school, but for a little while, when I was in second grade, I did recite the Lord's Prayer every morning with my classmates right after we said the Pledge of Allegiance. That was in the 1970s.
I grew up in Ohio and attended a tiny elementary school in a very small river town along the banks of the Ohio River. My second grade teacher was Catholic but was teaching in a public school. I think for several years after the law was passed, it must have gone through appeals by various school boards who still were practicing it. Many did dissent it or thought they could get around it somehow.
Clearly my second grade teacher was breaking the law and I think someone must have complained because I remember one morning we only said the pledge of allegiance and sat back down and I slowly made my way up to the teacher's desk. She was very young and I adored her and I asked why we didn't say the Lord's Prayer. She told me I could say it silently at my desk but she could no longer ask us to recite it at the beginning of each school day. But I do have the memory of reciting the Lord's Prayer in her classroom in second grade. And it made a lasting impression upon me.
Prayer in schools ended in 1962 by the Court's ruling in Engel v. Vitale. Madalyn Murray O'Hair worked to stop Bible readings in her son's public school. She was an atheist who claimed her son was being bullied for refusing to participate in the Bible readings at school and that teachers and the other school officials were condoning the bullying.
Someone else did the same -- Edward Schempp, a Unitarian Universalist, filed a law suit against Abington School Distrist in Pennsylvania around the same time as Madalyn filed hers. From what I have read about it, the two lawsuits were consolidated into one lawsuit and I think this is when America really failed its youth -- when mandatory Bible verse recitation at public schools was banned. Faith comes by hearing ... At least kids used to hear it at school even when parents never took them to church or taught them to read the Bible at home. The Supreme Court banned Bible reading in schools in 1963, Abington School District v. Schempp.
I took a World Literature class when I attended college and we read from both the Old and New Testaments in that class but they were considered to be masterpieces of the ancient world right along with Homer and Aeschylus, Sophocles, Plato, and Aristotle and nothing more. It was a public university. I was majoring in social work with a minor in psychology.
My son is in public school. I live in a small community where the district has four elementary schools and one middle school and one highschool. There is a vocational school here, too, as well, as a small branch off of technical college. My son is a sophomore in highschool and he is taking a biology class that will count as a college credit which they are offering to students at his highschool. That biology course is about life sciences and teaches macro and micro evolution. Most colleges ask students to take this type of biology class or a similar science class as requirements for finishing undergraduate studies and getting a degree. He has not decided yet what he wants as a major in college but can work on getting some of the general studies out of the way that are required for all students to take.
On the other hand, his Spanish teacher gave him an assignment to learn the Lord's Prayer and be able to say it in Spanish as a piece of Spanish literature. I am not kidding. I was surprised she could give such an assignment but pleased and I hope no parent complains. It is a small district. I've been wanting him to learn the Lord's Prayer. Now he will know it in two languages! :)
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It's interesting that the Supreme existed for almost 200 years before they finally realized that God should not be allowed in our schools. Now they are realizing that God should be not in any government building, display, monument, anthem, motto or anything government related. It is going to be difficult since our founding fathers had God in everything in DC and the following generations continued suit. Now, our new leaders are becoming engaged in removing all the God in our society and replacing Him with naturalism. All the while this goes on many leaders claim to be Christian while continuing to support the false doctrine of separation of church and state. Actually, Bush did put in a couple of conservatives that I really thought would vote to stop this onslaught against God but I was really taken back by Roberts this summer. I don't know what to think. The only way we can ever get this turned around is to elect a leader that will put in justices that are not in a war against God. "Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord."
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That is very nice. Can you give me the name and copyright date of that textbook? That is a pretty good way to get prayer in the school.
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Roy, I just sent an email to his Spanish teacher asking her for the information. The assignment was given to him as a single piece of paper handout that I posted above. I looked on his syllabus for the class and the Libros de texto are Spanish for Mastery II, Ventanas Dos, and Lecturas Para Todos II. But there are no copyright dates listed along with the names of the texts. If she answers my email, I will let you know, but I am sure the handout came from one of those texts, most likely the Spanish for Mastery II.
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You really need to be complimentary to the Spanish teacher. That is a wonderful thing she is doing.
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I thanked her and told her it is a blessing to me because I have been wanting him to learn it in English! Lol! He is 16, Roy. He does pray but the Lord's Prayer has been such a comfort to me all of my life. I still say it at night before I try to go to sleep. I am going to learn it in Spanish, too, and say it twice now! Lol!
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