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Most young Europeans don't think that Christian practice is useful or relevant. They're not bulldozing churches or burning books, they're just deciding not to p

Most young Europeans don't think that Christian practice is useful or relevant. They're not bulldozing churches or burning books, they're just deciding not to participate in something that they see as archaic. If the churches want to survive as living institutions rather than relics of history, they need to make the case for their survival. They need to put forward a coherent, plausible answer as to why going to church is the best use of a Sunday morning. Indifference is actually the best case scenario for European churches. In Ireland, the Catholic church is widely regarded as little more than a criminal conspiracy. The church has done practically nothing to change that perception. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bon_Secours_Mother_and_Baby_Home https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bon_Secours_Mother_and_Baby_Ho... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magdalene_Laundries_in_Ireland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magdalene_Laundries_in_Ireland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commission_to_Inquire_into_Child_Abuse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commission_to_Inquire_into_Chi...

unknown_apostle 9y ago
Agree mostly with your answer. 20 centuries of Christianity has been reduced to a caricature. Most people don't even understand what has been given up. It's all persecution, corrupt popes, hatred for science, opium for the masses, child molestation and the flying spaghetti monster. Like you mention: being active in a church community in the country where I live, will induce flippant jokes at best and real hostility at worst. I'm also tempted to look at the clergy. They seem to have lost a certain kind of "fighting spirit" and focus on avoiding controversy. Modern masses are spineless and devoid of flavor or a sense of history. It sometimes feels like they hired f*cking Nickelback or the marketing board of the Disney Corporation to advise them on liturgical reform. (Except Nickelback and Disney sell and they don't...) The cultural loss of all this is imho enormous. It's not just stuff like being part of an active community that includes the broadest possible cross section of the population (across class, age, wealth, profession, personal interests, ...). Or the weekly ritual of this community, the gentle but firm reminder that we're all mortal and that we should at least try to live the good life. It's also more mundane stuff like the feasts, the fasts, the saints, the pilgrimages (basically an entire village hiking to a nearby basilica), the processions, the choirs, the maintenance of beautifully decorated popular chapels in the middle of fields, all the local cults and customs, some of which probably even predated Christianity, etc. These things gave local places a lot of flavor and it's all gone in a few short years... Once again, I don't even think you need to believe in God to appreciate all of this wealth. Some day, its loss will be greatly lamented.
- eesmith 9y ago
  Part of those 20 centuries includes the Inquisition, slavery, selling of indulgences, persecution of the Protestants, the expulsion of the Jews, The Killing Time in Scotland, witch hunts, and corrupt popes, so it's not like this most of these caricatures are new or that a sense of history would help. While it's true that everyone attended the parish church, it's not like historically they mingled and used the church as a place to put worldly status aside. Or rather, not since the 1400s (https://thesecondeclectic.blogspot.com/2012/12/churches-without-chairs-how-christians.html https://thesecondeclectic.blogspot.com/2012/12/churches-with... quotes 'Church Architecture' as “In the late Middle Ages the congregation sat down on the job and there was a drastic change in Christian worship—perhaps the most important in history. People, in effect, became custodians of individual spaces which they occupied throughout the service, and social distinctions made some spaces more privileged than others.” ) That weekly ritual also reminds us that "we have all sinned and fall short of the glory of God." Nothing like a bit of negging to start the week. The pilgrimages were during the medieval era. When I researched it a few years ago (after learning about someone who did the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela some 20 years ago), I was surprised to know that something like 20-50% of the adult population of Europe went on at least one pilgrimage, during the period 1150-1450. Along with, as you say, many feast days. (Parts of the US still have many feast days; eg, the Native American pueblos in New Mexico.) But then we had the rise of power of central kings, who wanted people to work more, giving power and wealth to the king(dom). For example, the Swedish king Gustav Vasa forbade pilgrimages in 1545. So this loss, and "the State", occurred a long time ago, not just a few years ago. And yet, pilgrimages are on the rise since Paulo Coelho's 1987 book about walking the Camino de Santiago, and the follow-on renewals of other pilgrim routes like Norway's St. Olav’s Way.
  - unknown_apostle 9y ago
    This is exactly my point: you mix up 20 centuries of christianity with 20 centuries of specific christian institutions and worldly regimes that existed in christian societies. And then you cherry pick some terrible, big historical events. You completely miss the 20 centuries of Christianity that inspired a vast cultural patrimonium and provided courage, justice, moderation and dignity to its laymen and clergy. Unlike what you say, abandoning this patrimonium has only started recently. Definitely not centuries ago. For instance, where I live, there is still an annual Christian pilgrimage. Attendance started dropping only a few years ago. I'm not sure if it will still exist in a few years. A lot of us are fascinated and sometimes even a little envious when learning about foreign cultures. Yet when our own culture is dying or has died, we shrug. Some even want to beat on the corpse. Also: "we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God" sounds to me like a pretty accurate description of mankind, including Christianity itself. Other ways of saying the same thing are: "don't be too satisfied with yourself" or "try to do better next week". I'd say the first version packs more punch but that's a matter of taste. (Then again, as I implied earlier in this thread: maybe this matter of taste is an important part of modern Christianity's problem.)

unknown_apostle 9y ago

Agree mostly with your answer. 20 centuries of Christianity has been reduced to a caricature. Most people don't even understand what has been given up. It's all persecution, corrupt popes, hatred for science, opium for the masses, child molestation and the flying spaghetti monster. Like you mention: being active in a church community in the country where I live, will induce flippant jokes at best and real hostility at worst. I'm also tempted to look at the clergy. They seem to have lost a certain kind of "fighting spirit" and focus on avoiding controversy. Modern masses are spineless and devoid of flavor or a sense of history. It sometimes feels like they hired f*cking Nickelback or the marketing board of the Disney Corporation to advise them on liturgical reform. (Except Nickelback and Disney sell and they don't...) The cultural loss of all this is imho enormous. It's not just stuff like being part of an active community that includes the broadest possible cross section of the population (across class, age, wealth, profession, personal interests, ...). Or the weekly ritual of this community, the gentle but firm reminder that we're all mortal and that we should at least try to live the good life. It's also more mundane stuff like the feasts, the fasts, the saints, the pilgrimages (basically an entire village hiking to a nearby basilica), the processions, the choirs, the maintenance of beautifully decorated popular chapels in the middle of fields, all the local cults and customs, some of which probably even predated Christianity, etc. These things gave local places a lot of flavor and it's all gone in a few short years... Once again, I don't even think you need to believe in God to appreciate all of this wealth. Some day, its loss will be greatly lamented.

eesmith 9y ago
Part of those 20 centuries includes the Inquisition, slavery, selling of indulgences, persecution of the Protestants, the expulsion of the Jews, The Killing Time in Scotland, witch hunts, and corrupt popes, so it's not like this most of these caricatures are new or that a sense of history would help. While it's true that everyone attended the parish church, it's not like historically they mingled and used the church as a place to put worldly status aside. Or rather, not since the 1400s (https://thesecondeclectic.blogspot.com/2012/12/churches-without-chairs-how-christians.html https://thesecondeclectic.blogspot.com/2012/12/churches-with... quotes 'Church Architecture' as “In the late Middle Ages the congregation sat down on the job and there was a drastic change in Christian worship—perhaps the most important in history. People, in effect, became custodians of individual spaces which they occupied throughout the service, and social distinctions made some spaces more privileged than others.” ) That weekly ritual also reminds us that "we have all sinned and fall short of the glory of God." Nothing like a bit of negging to start the week. The pilgrimages were during the medieval era. When I researched it a few years ago (after learning about someone who did the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela some 20 years ago), I was surprised to know that something like 20-50% of the adult population of Europe went on at least one pilgrimage, during the period 1150-1450. Along with, as you say, many feast days. (Parts of the US still have many feast days; eg, the Native American pueblos in New Mexico.) But then we had the rise of power of central kings, who wanted people to work more, giving power and wealth to the king(dom). For example, the Swedish king Gustav Vasa forbade pilgrimages in 1545. So this loss, and "the State", occurred a long time ago, not just a few years ago. And yet, pilgrimages are on the rise since Paulo Coelho's 1987 book about walking the Camino de Santiago, and the follow-on renewals of other pilgrim routes like Norway's St. Olav’s Way.
- unknown_apostle 9y ago
  This is exactly my point: you mix up 20 centuries of christianity with 20 centuries of specific christian institutions and worldly regimes that existed in christian societies. And then you cherry pick some terrible, big historical events. You completely miss the 20 centuries of Christianity that inspired a vast cultural patrimonium and provided courage, justice, moderation and dignity to its laymen and clergy. Unlike what you say, abandoning this patrimonium has only started recently. Definitely not centuries ago. For instance, where I live, there is still an annual Christian pilgrimage. Attendance started dropping only a few years ago. I'm not sure if it will still exist in a few years. A lot of us are fascinated and sometimes even a little envious when learning about foreign cultures. Yet when our own culture is dying or has died, we shrug. Some even want to beat on the corpse. Also: "we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God" sounds to me like a pretty accurate description of mankind, including Christianity itself. Other ways of saying the same thing are: "don't be too satisfied with yourself" or "try to do better next week". I'd say the first version packs more punch but that's a matter of taste. (Then again, as I implied earlier in this thread: maybe this matter of taste is an important part of modern Christianity's problem.)