The decline of the church is something that borders on an "open secret" - "widely known to be true, but which none of the people most intimately concerned is willing to categorically acknowledge in public." (Lifted that from Wikipedia.)If you want to see evidence of that, take a look at this Bizarro cartoon in todays Pioneer Press, near the top right corner. It actually points out both the reality, and the denial of those "most intimately concerned," in one punchline.
When church decline is well enough established and so widely understood that it can be the source of humor in popular culture, it's way past time for us to do something about it.
6 comments:
Very true.
Yes, the funniest part about this cartoon, sadly, is the un-modulated response of the pastor whose message is addressed to a hypothetical everyone regardless of who is actually there. I recently posted on a similar topic as our Sunday group reconsiders the usefulness centering our meeting on an extended monologue.
http://mschellman.blogspot.com/2010/01/escewing-sermon.html
I can't be sure (because my facts are second hand courtesy of Mr Sy Rogers) but I think the church is growing at about 8% globally; alot in countries where there is heavy persecution. The decline that we often perceive in Western Culture is our own demise which we attribute (somewhat arrogantly) to the rest of the world. I think John Simpson coined the phrase post religious for western society. As a Christian I say good, it is about time we got the religion out of the way of the relationship between good and man.
Perhaps the cartoon illustrates that it is not a coincidence that the word hypocrite has a root meaning of "play-actor". Is the average age of the church council inversely proportional to attendance? How easy is it for a rich country like America to fit through the eye of a needle? I would bet we have slipped in the rankings since our founding...and maybe we (the church) do need more public persecution in order to find realize which biblical truths we are reflecting back to the world.
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/rel_chu_att-religion-church-attendance.
JB from CG
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