Moral Therapeutic Deism (MTD) is huge because it’s what most
people want and it is easier from the Evangelical churches to give it to them
than more tradition and rule-bound Catholic Church can (or even the Orthodox).
Are you not the least-bit curious to the fact that the religions which best
hold its membership in modern times in the U.S. (Evangelicals and Mormons) are
the exact same ones that are uniquely American creations compared to the
traditional Protestant and Catholic religions?
People throw out the world “Evangelical” all the time and I
agree the term is useless when some wish to describe it to certain political
views. It’s more a style of religion that is less concerned about tradition and
rules and more about the emotive and the personal and yes, the simple. And it’s
very flexible and can fit into whatever you wish it to be for yourself, the
most individualist of nations. For nation founded in the rejection of
aristocracy and high churchism, it is not surprising a religion that is the
least hierarchal and the least institutionalized would be the most popular
among American Christians? Many may not like this but once again they seem to keep
forgetting they live in the “Good Old US of A” and keep forgetting or don’t
realize the affect it has on religious development. Ask yourself why you don’t
see the same kind of loose style of Christianity in Western Europe with the
same kind of institutional problems? Over there, the “nones” are the ones that
dominate.
If the current trends remain unaltered as stated in the
article, then what you are going to have is an even more polarized society than
now largely between the secular and the Evangelical and the rest trampled on in
the middle between the two. But I would think that many would agree it is the
Evangelical church which would have the easiest time accommodating itself to
the secular society given its less structured form. Again, it may well be MTD
but if one’s tax exemption is at stake for the big, expensive megachurch, then
it will carry on unassumingly and for those who no desire to fight “culture
wars” it will simply drop the subject. This may disappoint those who, like Leftist
radical saw the workers, on the Right who see churchgoers as the new proletariat
put their intellectual theories into practice. But a generation of such leaders
and followers is passing and what is coming up is not interested in cutting
itself off from the broader society into Benedictine ghettos because it lives
and breathes off the society as it exists today. As people have noted, you
break down ethnic neighborhoods and local economies, you’re going to have
wrecked churches left in its wake and people seeking spiritual comfort wherever
they can find it (Tim Pawlenty and I would imagine John Kasich are the best
example of this). Ergo, Catholic to Evangelical.
For all those criticizing “Cultural Catholics” just remember
that Mormonism is a culture too, is much as it is a religion, and culture is
what makes religion as much as what one believes in the Bible. It’s much easier
for a cultural Catholic to go back to church if they have fallen away but
haven’t found a new religion because they know what to expect. What may be
routine to you and what seem “sacrament factory” to others is just simply a way
of life, a structure to anarchic world. Is that so bad? When your charismatic
pastor to your mega-church in the exurbs dies and his successor if that isn’t
quite as “colorful” or has different ideas, then what? There’s something solid
about knowing what has been is always still there even if you’re not around as
much as you once were. Those attacking “ethnic churches” (especially on the
Orthodox side where those churches are the bulwarks of those communities) ask
yourself how the process of creating a uniquely American Orthodox church
without any kind of foreign influence is going?
I understand the frustrations of those Catholics tired of all
the liturgical tinkering. The Novus Ordos mass works well and beautiful in its
simple form too but such simplicity unfortunately worked against it when
certain pastors wanted to be “with it” to evangelicalize. You can’t have bongo
drums and guitars in a Latin Mass, it’s impossible. But the problems with the
Catholic Church go a lot deeper than just Mass style, wouldn’t you all agree?
An establishment church torn by scandal, divided between the pious and the
those seeking to accommodate for themselves, between the political and the
apolitical, between the rule-bound and those hoping for a breakthrough
spiritually, is a church which isn’t in a very strong position in the United
States right now and will probably take generations to recover itself even if
there are fewer members (although I believe immigration levels, especially from
Africa and Asia will keep itself numbers up more than perhaps people believe).
All I know is this: if Joe Biden says his rosary a lot more
than I do, then I’m not going to view one’s faith based on their political
positions. If that makes me “cultural” so be it. I’m a Catholic first before I
am a “conservative.”
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