Here is a current story on Drudge that is as unfortunate as it is expected:
Prior
to Christianity, there was no distinction between political and
religious elites; they were one and the same. This meant that rulers
decided what was moral, and usually in nobody's interests but their
own. What Christianity did was to provide a fixed, immutable moral code
that allowed otherwise powerless Romans to condemn the worst excesses
of their elite classes. Stalin proved how poorly he understood this
point when he scornfully asked of the pope how many divisions he had.
Christianity conquered Rome in less than three centuries, proving that a
morality based upon God's will conquers all.
And
this is the way it was throughout the Middle Ages when the Church was
an independent power center called the Second Estate. It took
liberalism to change this. Early liberals, such as Machiavelli, Hobbes,
and Rousseau, had a very cynical view of Christianity. Rather than
empowering average people, they saw it as a means of mind control. This
is why government began taking over the churches by establishing
official state religions. These were funded by government, and thus
spouted the government line.
This is why the
old mainline Protestant churches are all but dead today. Rather than
preach a Christianity that allowed the powerless to offer moral
criticism of their governments, government-owned churches preached the
government line. Unfortunately, my own Catholic Church followed suit,
and went from condemning liberalism as a sin with Vatican I and Rerum
Novarum to positively celebrating liberalism with Vatican II. People
then began flocking to the Evangelical sects which now are following
this same path to suicide. Being a Mormon, perhaps Brother Jim can
enlighten us as to what is going on in that denomination.
The
Bottom line is that the churches are emptying out because they give the
powerless no reason to stay. We get plenty of government propaganda
from all the other institutions. They are doing their best to prove
Nietzsche's prognostication correct; the churches have become the
sepulchers of God. Rather than leading us to salvation, we are being
led to destruction. All the powerless can do is to stay away.
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