tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post2369489501518262431..comments2024-03-28T21:56:51.675-04:00Comments on Face to Face: How the striving trends have broken down religionagnostichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12967177967469961883noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-88053275044504219092023-04-14T12:22:59.658-04:002023-04-14T12:22:59.658-04:00It's also the case in Latin America, where aft...It's also the case in Latin America, where after the 1980s Latinos started converting en mass away from Catholicism to evangelical Protestantism and Pentecostalism where they espouse stuff like prosperity theology. Prosperity theology is basically the ideology of the striver dressed up in religious language. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-25579225925243659662015-12-18T00:29:32.098-05:002015-12-18T00:29:32.098-05:00The most famous video on church ritual ghastliness...The most famous video on church ritual ghastliness sums up the Boomer effect:<br />http://gloria.tv/media/nchwHi67zr2<br />Liturgical Abuse: Puppets (WCCTA 2008)<br /><br />The late Lawrence Auster had a field day with this one.<br /><br />I vaguely recall the back story, but I believe this was some little schismatic Catholic group.<br />The most memorable to me, beyond the Puppets of Doom, were the menopausal women acting like young, ethereal maidens...Dahlianoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-88210726407221141532015-12-17T18:34:35.123-05:002015-12-17T18:34:35.123-05:00BTW, that's what keeps driving these recurring...BTW, that's what keeps driving these recurring "revivalist" movements in Protestantism. There simply is no rich tradition for them to draw on, so they try to rewind the clock before there were any traditions to speak of, more or less.<br /><br />The irony is that there was greater diversity at the beginning of Christianity than there has been later, both in doctrines and practices. Cultural selection has removed the variants that were not favored (and some went out just due to chance, if they were small in number). So trying to revive the original is destined for failure -- too many strains to choose from, back before a fairly homogeneous tradition settled into place.<br /><br />Some revivalist movements go further and bring back non-traditional elements -- like the non-Trinitarian view of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in Mormonism, or their view that the Father and Son both have physical bodies (albeit "spirit bodies").<br /><br />Groups that have made further and further breaks from the Western lineage of Christianity are destined to have only two choices available -- deviate even further (turn Episcopalian services into a yoga meditation session), or wind back the clock to (what they believe to be) the pre-traditional era of early Christianity.<br /><br />Either way, there's little to hold onto, and ultimately they will morph into distinct religions altogether. That's clearest for Mormonism, with the Book of Mormon being utterly alien to Christianity, and is becoming clear for Pentecostalism, which is more and more a spirit possession cult.agnostichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12967177967469961883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-83690147769235283642015-12-17T18:21:02.133-05:002015-12-17T18:21:02.133-05:00"To be fair to Catholics, many people who see..."To be fair to Catholics, many people who seek out the Traditional Mass do so because they're looking for something that the "priest with a guitar" mass can't deliver."<br /><br />It goes to show how foreign the contemporary Catholic Church is to outsiders that we (non-Catholics) don't even know what the "priest with a guitar" phenomenon is. In the popular imagination, it's still like it was in The Godfather and The Exorcist.<br /><br />Ultimately the richer history (further back in time, spread across more of the West) of the Catholic Church will help to re-orient itself. Even converts have a pretty good vicarious memory of traditional Mass and other practices like Confession. So once the will is there, it will be easier to re-establish.<br /><br />Baptists, Presbyterians, Methodists, Lutherans... doesn't seem to be as rich of a cultural memory for the old ways (plus they aren't as old). Even if there were a popular will to return to tradition, it would be more vague and elusive for these groups.agnostichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12967177967469961883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-3000727798336804202015-12-17T18:05:40.205-05:002015-12-17T18:05:40.205-05:00"Churches started failing when they became fe..."Churches started failing when they became feminized... and became just another self-help group."<br /><br />The decline is due more to the self-help approach to religion than feminization or modernization.<br /><br />Midcentury Mainline churches weren't exactly masculinized. One of the largest, the Methodist Church (precursor to the United Methodist Church), voted to ordain women in 1956.<br /><br />And where did people go after leaving the historical churches? Not to even more traditional churches, as though they were turned off by the modernizing trends. They went to more radically experimental innovations like the de-Christianized mega-church, the Pentecostal spirit possession cult, and the newest major religion, Mormonism (which saw huge growth from within white America during 1960-1990, although falling numbers since then).<br /><br />The shift toward treating religion as self-help, however, was enough to remove large numbers who found religion of any kind not so self-helpful, transformed the historical churches into religiously-staged therapy sessions, and fueled the even greater growth of new churches that made little pretension of being Christian but heavy on self-help.<br /><br />I know people want to blame the churches themselves for modernizing, but the reality was the other way around. The members at the grassroots turned religion on its head, asking "Yeah, well what does all this stuff get me anyway?" rather than "How can I contribute to church life?"<br /><br />Those who left, left for even less historical churches, or didn't attend anywhere and downgraded their religious thoughts / behaviors to "believing in a higher spiritual power".agnostichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12967177967469961883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-48138852660015298052015-12-17T17:13:53.218-05:002015-12-17T17:13:53.218-05:00I don't know about fine-grained trends in Juda...I don't know about fine-grained trends in Judaism, Islam, or Hinduism.<br /><br />Most Buddhists in the West are lifestyle or persona strivers who have no background in the religion, but chose it in order to advertise their lifestyle of yoga, meditation, etc., or to project a mystical / spiritual persona.<br /><br />Last time I looked, a good fraction of Western Buddhists were Jews. They're not a very god-minded people, so when they do adopt a religion, it must have a minimal role for gods.agnostichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12967177967469961883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-34223325950098278132015-12-17T10:13:50.433-05:002015-12-17T10:13:50.433-05:00You hadn't mentioned Judaism...how do you thin...You hadn't mentioned Judaism...how do you think Judaism has been affected by "striverism?" I do know that now some 55 percent of Jewish people marry outside the faith, and that Conservative/Reform congregations are shrinking, while Orthodox ones are holding their own, and are very conservative morally, politically and economically.<br /><br />Also, where do Eastern Faith's like Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism figure in?BAWhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01776991172578419994noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-40427888517904561032015-12-17T04:18:34.279-05:002015-12-17T04:18:34.279-05:00Churches started failing when they became feminize...Churches started failing when they became feminized, drove away all of the men (by elevating women as the moral superiors of men and pushing men into groveling servitude to their wives,) and became just another self-help group. They rendered themselves superfluous by being a less efficient (and more boring) way to deliver back-patting, Oprah-level platitudes, and motivational seminars. About the only things they're still good for are bake sales and group therapy for people too cheap to afford a psychiatrist.<br /><br />To be fair to Catholics, many people who seek out the Traditional Mass do so because they're looking for something that the "priest with a guitar" mass can't deliver. The power of ritual - the art of the music, the connection to something with a thousand year history. Not all of them are cosplayers looking to show off their "Cathedral Cred." As someone who spent countless hours of her youth trapped in the Purgatory of Modern Progressive Catholic Mass (which makes a paint-drying competition look like a Ben-Hur Chariot Race in comparison,) I can sympathize with those who want a more dynamic worship experience.TroperAnoreply@blogger.com