>Some Christian conservatives have framed the Sept. 10 assassination of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk as a potential inflection point for a religious “awakening” and for Gen Z to revitalize churches.
>Reality check: There is no widespread academic or mainstream evidence of a large-scale national religious awakening
>Despite anecdotal and media reports about Gen Z men returning to church, there’s little evidence it’s happening beyond scattered examples to reverse the overall decline, she said.
No_Celery_5373 on
Well, some of America’s biggest advertisers for Christianity are a drunken murderer,
A pedophile, murderer and felon,
A low grade house speaker who covers for pedophiles and shares porn habits with his son
Just to name a few, you just have such good role models. Why wouldn’t you be sending out a good message here?
flyover_liberal on
People like Charlie Kirk are one of the biggest reasons that Americans started staying away from churches in the first place.
If churches became community centers again, places where all are welcome, places where the actual words of Jesus are taught and practiced, then I bet they’d do a bit better on attendance.
bem783 on
Being a “Christian” in America no longer has much to do with actually practicing the tenets of Christianity. It’s more of an ethnic and political marker than a religious marker. That’s a big part of why the founding fathers made sure that separation of church and state was an explicit part of the Constitution. They knew that commingling politics and religion was bad for both.
I think the story arc of Jesus in South Park this season kind of sums it all up. A lot of “Christians” in America couldn’t care less about the actual teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. They are just looking for something to use as an excuse for treating other people like shit.
StrigiStockBacking on
Tax them. It’s a free campaign platform for the right.
Rfun2024 on
Sane people are offended by religions that use Jesus and God as a weapon of hate. Certainly smart enough not to give 10% + of their income to finance hate.
CelticSith on
Good, keep it up
Aggressive-Will-4500 on
Finally, some good news about the USA.
Tokie-Dokie on
>And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the money changers, and the seats of them that sold doves, And said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves.
— Matthew 21:12–13, King James Version
daddyneedsadrink on
Organized religion is a giant grift
Aggressive-Foot4211 on
Churches covering up the abuses their leaders do is rampant and unchecked. and because their emotional abuse works so well, they use the threat of being labeled a bad Christian to coerce their followers into bad decisions, it’s not even a crime you can build a case against in court. All the donors to Kenneth Copeland’s ministry failing to ask the critical question of why they need to donate when he’s clearly a multimillionaire, and they are on food stamps, are making the choice. Religion is a perfect grift.
TlocCPU on
Hard to believe in a higher power watching over you when everything sucks all the time and evil wins every time
astrozombie2012 on
I used to go to church every Sunday, tithe 10% of my income, volunteer, etc… then Trump and the MAGA crowd somehow infested the church, or maybe they were always there waiting for a chance to show who they really were without fear. Either way, back before Covid during one of the pastors sermons he started talking about how great a Christian Trump was and how Democrats don’t represent Christian values were demonic and such. I literally called him out on his lies right there in front of everyone, told him he was the demonic one and walked out and have not and will never go back to church.
Edit: this wasn’t the first time they had made statements like this, I had just gotten sick of it and couldn’t take it anymore… pretty sure that church is on hard times last I heard
Kioskwar on
“Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful.” – Seneca
“If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent Him.” – Voltaire
“If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by.” – Marcus Aurelius
encrypted-signals on
I moved to a Bible Belt state for three years, in an area where people had 2-3x the average salary, and yet the roads were shit, there weren’t a lot of parks, and whatever parks there were were poorly kept, the public schools were terrible, everything looked rundown…and there was a tax-exempt church on what felt like every corner. Needless to say it was a relief that I could easily get the fuck out of that shit hole.
KatMakes69 on
Hold on while I cry for the tax free grift machine that is religion. Tax churches.
totalkpolitics on
I left a long time ago due to the Prosperity d
Doctrine. Since then other family members have left due to the Christian Nationalist Doctrine.
Churches in America haven’t been teaching/preaching the bible for a loooong time.
snakelygiggles on
almost every person i know who thinks of themselves as “a christian and a patriot” is a bigoted selfish sexist. why would i want to stand with people who hate me and mine.
everything_is_bad on
The easiest moral question of the last 5 years was vote Trump or Kamala. There was a clear right and wrong answer. Looking at exit polls the demographic most likely to get that question wrong was Christians (but especially white Christians). Which is truly ironic because their main argument for what Christianity provides people is a set of morals.
This leaves us with the conclusion that Christianity counter indicates morality.
It’s funny cause for years we go through the motions, expose our kids, and keep up the pretense that Christianity=morality. But not anymore now you have to protect your kids from Christian influence lest they get the wrong idea.
dterran on
Christians clearly wanted to destroy their own brand.
You can’t make a worse association than electing a person who embodies the exact opposite of virtually every tenant of Jesus and the bible.
An adulterous bearer of falsehoods about his neighbors who supports predatory lending, turns away the poor and the immigrant, preaches taking your wealth into heaven and shelters child predators.
I’m agnostic and this ‘builder of towers’ creep checks so many boxes that he makes even me consider believing in the antichrist.
I’m convinced my mother is stupid or senile to have studied the bible for a lifetime and then backed this maskless, unashamed barbarian.
yosarian_reddit on
Given the lead role of christian nationalism supporting fascist politics, uplifting sociopathic billionaires, and the inhumane treatment of non-whites, this is good news. If I was a devout Christian I’d suspect Trump is the anti-Christ.
The true teachings of Jesus are: compassion, moderation, and respect for all people. James Talarico is showing how it should be done.
KuronFury on
But I just saw of Faux News the other day that there was a 200% increase in church attendance amongst Gen Z and younger people… surely they can’t be lying, right? (/s)
factorum on
I grew up in the evangelical movement and around the time I was in high school, during the peak of the war on terror is when I left. I did what I was told, I read the bible and read the gospels in the particular and nothing I read conformed with what my church community was doing. I couldn’t see how we could support blowing up people half the world away on nothing but rumors. It seems really quaint now that we have American vice personified blowing up dudes fishing to distract the public from him being a rapist.
I think it was the convergence of me having access to the internet that led me out of evangelicalism but also gave me access to the writings of previous christian dissidents namely Leo Tolstoy. That led me to drift from tradition to tradition till I just ended up back in the United Methodists, the biggest mainline protestant tradition in the US. I feel at home there, but I don’t think as things stand that we’ll see a revival of the protestant mainline despite it on paper looking like exactly what people leaving evangelicalism want. Theologically honest, open to all, community and service oriented.
I think they could make a come back and some do. But for many of these denominations I see a similar set of issues:
– older congregations that are resistant to change or rocking the boat in any way. Of course not all, but often the demographics of these churches result in older folks with money being unwilling to alter a single thing, while fretting that no one under 50 comes to their church anymore.
– extremely bureaucratic institutions that also resist change and seem to mostly be around to keep the senior clergy paid and with pensions.
– apathy, maybe just coming from the #jesusgeneration crowd gives me a bit of a weird perspective. I do think it is notable that the most active volunteers in my church tend to be younger ex-evangelicals whom we all agree seem to still have this instinct that being involved in Church logistics is a social market. But for too many of these organizations they just don’t seem to care that American Christianity is going down the gutter and creating a ton of unnecessary suffering as a result. It’s not enough to simply state when asked “well of course we aren’t going to try to torture gay teens” or collaborate directly with ICE. It’s not a active practice of our faith to simply just not do evil. Instead even if our numbers and budgets are waning, we could be much more active to speaking to the culture at large and at least not ceding the default christiain voice in the US to Nick Fuentes.
DarkstarWarlock on
The faster the churches disappear and we start funding and backing science again, the faster we will become a better nation.
There is zero proof of any Gods or omnipotent beings ever existing. It is all hearsay, or oral history. The Bible is not the word of God. It is the word of humans, that are cosplaying God.
I used to be a devout Christian but after the Maga Christian Nationalist took over the majority of churches I dipped away from that nonsense. Churches in the United States just want to preach politics and enjoy their tax exemption (just like the rich they pay no taxes) I mean they aren’t worshipping anything but the fat, disgraced, pedophilic President of the United States now. Who, by the way, has no idea about how the government works. He is an absolute moron with dementia creeping in his already child-like brain like his father. If he died tomorrow the world would rejoice, (except for his racist redneck cult, they would move on to the next great genius leader; whoever the GOP tells them to endorse.)
FrankAdamGabe on
The absolute worst people I know in life go to church and use it as an excuse to keep being shitty people.
athensugadawg on
I am being dead honest….if someone volunteers “I’m a Christian “, I am automatically thinking I am going to be screwed over in a business deal or shanked in the back.
boston_shua on
“When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.”
-Sinclair Lewis
bad_retired_fairy on
I was kind of exploring returning to church about 10 years ago but then the whole MAGAification of Christianity completely changed my mind. I can’t be in a place that is a sanctuary for so much hate. No thanks. I’m good.
Ok-Pomegranate-9330 on
Good. Teaching people to believe in thousand year old fairy tales with literally no evidence just trains people to believe in other nonsense with no critical thought. Like MAGA…
Co1dNight on
Religion holds us back significantly as an “intelligent species”.
FlautenceWizard on
If some says they are a Christian, I automatically assume they’re a judgemental hypocrite with only a superficial morality. This is their brand now.
One_Weird2371 on
Evangelical MAGA morons are doing wonders to increase the atheist population.
32 Comments
>Some Christian conservatives have framed the Sept. 10 assassination of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk as a potential inflection point for a religious “awakening” and for Gen Z to revitalize churches.
>Reality check: There is no widespread academic or mainstream evidence of a large-scale national religious awakening
>Despite anecdotal and media reports about Gen Z men returning to church, there’s little evidence it’s happening beyond scattered examples to reverse the overall decline, she said.
Well, some of America’s biggest advertisers for Christianity are a drunken murderer,
A pedophile, murderer and felon,
A low grade house speaker who covers for pedophiles and shares porn habits with his son
Just to name a few, you just have such good role models. Why wouldn’t you be sending out a good message here?
People like Charlie Kirk are one of the biggest reasons that Americans started staying away from churches in the first place.
If churches became community centers again, places where all are welcome, places where the actual words of Jesus are taught and practiced, then I bet they’d do a bit better on attendance.
Being a “Christian” in America no longer has much to do with actually practicing the tenets of Christianity. It’s more of an ethnic and political marker than a religious marker. That’s a big part of why the founding fathers made sure that separation of church and state was an explicit part of the Constitution. They knew that commingling politics and religion was bad for both.
I think the story arc of Jesus in South Park this season kind of sums it all up. A lot of “Christians” in America couldn’t care less about the actual teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. They are just looking for something to use as an excuse for treating other people like shit.
Tax them. It’s a free campaign platform for the right.
Sane people are offended by religions that use Jesus and God as a weapon of hate. Certainly smart enough not to give 10% + of their income to finance hate.
Good, keep it up
Finally, some good news about the USA.
>And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the money changers, and the seats of them that sold doves, And said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves.
— Matthew 21:12–13, King James Version
Organized religion is a giant grift
Churches covering up the abuses their leaders do is rampant and unchecked. and because their emotional abuse works so well, they use the threat of being labeled a bad Christian to coerce their followers into bad decisions, it’s not even a crime you can build a case against in court. All the donors to Kenneth Copeland’s ministry failing to ask the critical question of why they need to donate when he’s clearly a multimillionaire, and they are on food stamps, are making the choice. Religion is a perfect grift.
Hard to believe in a higher power watching over you when everything sucks all the time and evil wins every time
I used to go to church every Sunday, tithe 10% of my income, volunteer, etc… then Trump and the MAGA crowd somehow infested the church, or maybe they were always there waiting for a chance to show who they really were without fear. Either way, back before Covid during one of the pastors sermons he started talking about how great a Christian Trump was and how Democrats don’t represent Christian values were demonic and such. I literally called him out on his lies right there in front of everyone, told him he was the demonic one and walked out and have not and will never go back to church.
Edit: this wasn’t the first time they had made statements like this, I had just gotten sick of it and couldn’t take it anymore… pretty sure that church is on hard times last I heard
“Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful.” – Seneca
“If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent Him.” – Voltaire
“If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by.” – Marcus Aurelius
I moved to a Bible Belt state for three years, in an area where people had 2-3x the average salary, and yet the roads were shit, there weren’t a lot of parks, and whatever parks there were were poorly kept, the public schools were terrible, everything looked rundown…and there was a tax-exempt church on what felt like every corner. Needless to say it was a relief that I could easily get the fuck out of that shit hole.
Hold on while I cry for the tax free grift machine that is religion. Tax churches.
I left a long time ago due to the Prosperity d
Doctrine. Since then other family members have left due to the Christian Nationalist Doctrine.
Churches in America haven’t been teaching/preaching the bible for a loooong time.
almost every person i know who thinks of themselves as “a christian and a patriot” is a bigoted selfish sexist. why would i want to stand with people who hate me and mine.
The easiest moral question of the last 5 years was vote Trump or Kamala. There was a clear right and wrong answer. Looking at exit polls the demographic most likely to get that question wrong was Christians (but especially white Christians). Which is truly ironic because their main argument for what Christianity provides people is a set of morals.
This leaves us with the conclusion that Christianity counter indicates morality.
It’s funny cause for years we go through the motions, expose our kids, and keep up the pretense that Christianity=morality. But not anymore now you have to protect your kids from Christian influence lest they get the wrong idea.
Christians clearly wanted to destroy their own brand.
You can’t make a worse association than electing a person who embodies the exact opposite of virtually every tenant of Jesus and the bible.
An adulterous bearer of falsehoods about his neighbors who supports predatory lending, turns away the poor and the immigrant, preaches taking your wealth into heaven and shelters child predators.
I’m agnostic and this ‘builder of towers’ creep checks so many boxes that he makes even me consider believing in the antichrist.
I’m convinced my mother is stupid or senile to have studied the bible for a lifetime and then backed this maskless, unashamed barbarian.
Given the lead role of christian nationalism supporting fascist politics, uplifting sociopathic billionaires, and the inhumane treatment of non-whites, this is good news. If I was a devout Christian I’d suspect Trump is the anti-Christ.
The true teachings of Jesus are: compassion, moderation, and respect for all people. James Talarico is showing how it should be done.
But I just saw of Faux News the other day that there was a 200% increase in church attendance amongst Gen Z and younger people… surely they can’t be lying, right? (/s)
I grew up in the evangelical movement and around the time I was in high school, during the peak of the war on terror is when I left. I did what I was told, I read the bible and read the gospels in the particular and nothing I read conformed with what my church community was doing. I couldn’t see how we could support blowing up people half the world away on nothing but rumors. It seems really quaint now that we have American vice personified blowing up dudes fishing to distract the public from him being a rapist.
I think it was the convergence of me having access to the internet that led me out of evangelicalism but also gave me access to the writings of previous christian dissidents namely Leo Tolstoy. That led me to drift from tradition to tradition till I just ended up back in the United Methodists, the biggest mainline protestant tradition in the US. I feel at home there, but I don’t think as things stand that we’ll see a revival of the protestant mainline despite it on paper looking like exactly what people leaving evangelicalism want. Theologically honest, open to all, community and service oriented.
I think they could make a come back and some do. But for many of these denominations I see a similar set of issues:
– older congregations that are resistant to change or rocking the boat in any way. Of course not all, but often the demographics of these churches result in older folks with money being unwilling to alter a single thing, while fretting that no one under 50 comes to their church anymore.
– extremely bureaucratic institutions that also resist change and seem to mostly be around to keep the senior clergy paid and with pensions.
– apathy, maybe just coming from the #jesusgeneration crowd gives me a bit of a weird perspective. I do think it is notable that the most active volunteers in my church tend to be younger ex-evangelicals whom we all agree seem to still have this instinct that being involved in Church logistics is a social market. But for too many of these organizations they just don’t seem to care that American Christianity is going down the gutter and creating a ton of unnecessary suffering as a result. It’s not enough to simply state when asked “well of course we aren’t going to try to torture gay teens” or collaborate directly with ICE. It’s not a active practice of our faith to simply just not do evil. Instead even if our numbers and budgets are waning, we could be much more active to speaking to the culture at large and at least not ceding the default christiain voice in the US to Nick Fuentes.
The faster the churches disappear and we start funding and backing science again, the faster we will become a better nation.
There is zero proof of any Gods or omnipotent beings ever existing. It is all hearsay, or oral history. The Bible is not the word of God. It is the word of humans, that are cosplaying God.
I used to be a devout Christian but after the Maga Christian Nationalist took over the majority of churches I dipped away from that nonsense. Churches in the United States just want to preach politics and enjoy their tax exemption (just like the rich they pay no taxes) I mean they aren’t worshipping anything but the fat, disgraced, pedophilic President of the United States now. Who, by the way, has no idea about how the government works. He is an absolute moron with dementia creeping in his already child-like brain like his father. If he died tomorrow the world would rejoice, (except for his racist redneck cult, they would move on to the next great genius leader; whoever the GOP tells them to endorse.)
The absolute worst people I know in life go to church and use it as an excuse to keep being shitty people.
I am being dead honest….if someone volunteers “I’m a Christian “, I am automatically thinking I am going to be screwed over in a business deal or shanked in the back.
“When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.”
-Sinclair Lewis
I was kind of exploring returning to church about 10 years ago but then the whole MAGAification of Christianity completely changed my mind. I can’t be in a place that is a sanctuary for so much hate. No thanks. I’m good.
Good. Teaching people to believe in thousand year old fairy tales with literally no evidence just trains people to believe in other nonsense with no critical thought. Like MAGA…
Religion holds us back significantly as an “intelligent species”.
If some says they are a Christian, I automatically assume they’re a judgemental hypocrite with only a superficial morality. This is their brand now.
Evangelical MAGA morons are doing wonders to increase the atheist population.