Jesus. There. I said it. Out loud. Did I offend anyone?
Last week the Pew Research Center released a report subtitled, “If recent trends in religious switching continue, Christians could make up less than half of the U.S. population within a few decades.”
According to a Gallup report last December, “Fifty years ago, in 1971, 90% of U.S. adults identified with a Christian religion, 6% were non-Christian or another religion, and 4% did not have a religious preference.” Last week’s Pew report said, “Since the 1990s, large numbers of Americans have left Christianity to join the growing ranks of U.S. adults who describe their religious identity as atheist, agnostic or ‘nothing in particular.’”
Pew estimates only 64% of Americans identified as Christian in 2020, with 30% identifying as religiously unaffiliated which many pollsters call religious “nones.” All of these polls measure only how people identify themselves religiously, but rarely include any qualifiers such as beliefs about the Bible, God, or Jesus.
Sunday morning Franklin Graham was asked for his take on these numbers. He noted the obvious that generations had failed to pass on their faith to younger generations, but also that American culture had shifted from talking about Jesus to talking about God. It’s still ok to talk about God, but not to talk about Jesus because talking about Jesus is offensive to many people.
Remember when we were warned not to discuss politics or religion in polite company? Nowadays everybody is talking about politics, but anybody who talks about politics and Jesus is likely labeled a radical MAGA extremist along with a few other words like white supremacist, racist, and semi-fascist.
Interestingly, the Washington Post, New York Times, and other woke news sources have carried op-eds recently explaining why Christians and Evangelicals in particular should not support Donald Trump. None of the authors claim to be an Evangelical, but they have plenty to explain why Evangelicals are violating their own faith by supporting Trump.
Needless to say, there are a lot of flavors of Christianity, and the debates arguing what is Christian and what is not Christian will continue until Jesus returns and straightens us all out. After all, those who identify as Christians and those who don’t can all tell stories about good Christians and bad Christians. They just don’t want to talk about Jesus.
Speaking of Jesus’ return, op-ed writers have noted some Evangelicals supporting Trump have salted their reasoning with eschatological rhetoric about signs that Jesus is coming soon. By the way, the Bible says Jesus’ return will be preceded by the blowing of trumpets, and this coming weekend is the Jewish festival of Rosh Hashanah or the Feast of Trumpets. Just sayin’.
Matthew 24 records an interesting conversation between Jesus and His disciples. (3) Jesus’ disciples asked, “Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?” Jesus’ answer included: “you will be hated by all nations on account of My name;” “many false prophets will arise, and will mislead many;” and, “because lawlessness is increased, most people’s love will grow cold.”
10 comments:
It's always been tasteless to shoutingly extort Jesus name with a severe warning of apocalypse and eternal perdition in a redneck "Jay'zuss" accent, emphasis 1st syllable, whilst holding a brownbagged bottle, in an intersection, with bucket adjacent for contributions toward the next bottle.
It's far worse for leftists to abuse His name to bless their socialist dependency scams. Is it any wonder so many keep their sacred love of Jesus private?
Or could it be that the politicizing of religion has appalled more than a few people.
To some of us, the words and deeds of " religious leaders" are not consistent with the teachings of Jesus which we still embrace. We also still believe in The Ten Commandments and The Golden Rule.
"Bearing false witness" mean "lying" to us.
Nor do we believe that forgiveness of sins is instanteous but is related to acknowledgement, atonement, and going "forth to sin no more"....at least not the same one over and over again.
We also don't believe in being " puffed up".
Men have bastardized religion to use it for personal gain...pretty sure Jesus' only displays of anger was toward those who profited but lost their souls in doing so.
Is the crank from Starkpatch a pharisee? Or does he just worship them?
Discuss.
Define pharisee?
12:42 is a doofus and wouldn't know a Pharisee from an Essene if his life depended on it.
Jesus would object to his name being used to support your agenda.
Moving to mississippi is an eye opener , People talk like they are JC's biggest friend and get to tell everyone else what to do ....
They love to pray on the street corner...
complete BS and has not helped this state one bit .
keep sky daddy happy and do what republicans say (not what they do )
Maybe you should try "sky daddy" as you call him. Here you are in Mississippi, a place you don't seem to like. You don't appear to be doing too great.
@8:22
Careful that your don’t cut yourself on that edge while tipping your fedora!
Edit: Thanks for the reddit gold, kind stranger!
@9:52 I like it here , i have a great job (that i got 2x the $ to move here )
they had Show me the $ before i would move.
see you can make mississippi's short comings pay off .
I thank Sky Daddy every day :)
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