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njlauren -> RE: Young Christians are leaving churches and some atheists are unhappy (4/15/2013 8:33:38 PM)
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I think the real answer is that young people have been turned off by churches (when people say the church, they don't necessarily mean the RC, technically 'the church' is all Christians, the body of Christ, etc...) because they don't mean anything to them and their experience. The conservative Churches, including the RC leadership, have turned the faith into being anti gay and anti abortion (tell me, anyone recall any of Pete the Polish Princes minions here in the US, or Derr Pope's minions, threatening politicians with not being able to take communion for cutting funds for the poor, supporting the death penalty or an immoral war like Iraq? Ever see the church censor nuns for not speaking out about the plight of the poor, corporate greed and the like? The answer is no, they censored the nuns because they didn't speak out enough on 'church teaching', which turned out to mean abortion and same sex marriage, and the young people see that.
They are looking for meaning, and all the churches seem to give them is rhetoric and stupidity. Older Catholics, who have been taught that the church is its leaders and they are perfect, will sit there and do nothing while priests molest children and their Bishops routinely covered it up, shifted priests, you name it, then will wonder why young people will say "you have to be kidding me, the Bishops and the Pope are always right? What fucking rock did you grow up under, gramps?". They see the hypocrisy, they see the hate that Christianity has put out there, and they see liberal Christianity, which may be doing good things, sitting their quietly saying about the haters "Oh, we understand your faith". I belonged to a pretty radical episcopal church, and when the whole crap with the Anglican Communion and the uS having a gay bishop (who, btw, had to wear a bullet proof vest at his own induction as Bishop, so much for Christian loving), and the rector of our church telling us we had to understand the African Bishops, that they were converted by White Evangelical Missionaries, I wanted to absolutely throw the SOB through a stained glass window for saying that (among other things, that is blaming their ignorance and hatred on others to deflect; the reality is that African culture is extremely homophobic and hateful, and the whole white guilt crap was a sham)......Young people are better educated despite what the morons say, they are more worldly then we ever were, and they see the hypocrisy and the bullshit.
The interesting part is even though Atheism is growing, the fastest growing group are people who believe in something, but take beliefs from a wide range of sources, the idea that somehow the RC has all the answers rings false, or that the Bible or Jesus represent it all causes cognitive dissonance, and that is how it should be, young people should find their own answers, explore, talk, you name it. The UU would be great, that is basically what it is, but my experience with the UU was a bunch of well educated, upper middle class people, who were nice enough, but kind of were like cats, they were nice enough, but always kind of distant, and the UU churches I was in when my kid was young were not very friendly towards kids, they were amazingly victorian, children should not be seen or heard, except when we give them their 5 minutes......
I think churches are in deep trouble, if the US hadn't been inundated with immigrants from South America, I don't think the RC would have many in their pews. Last numbers showed when the old farts like myself and older, 50+, start leaving this earth, the churches are going to look like Italy, where only 10% of the people go to church regularly..in bloody italy, amazing.
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