The Sunday sermon

Don't worry, I'll probably get round to a few 'Sunday Rumbles' later as I become more irritable but this, given the subject matter, is more of a sermon, although I am hardly qualified to deliver one, however, I have just watched my neighbours tootling off to St. John's whilst the chiming bells rattled my windows, so I am, in a sense, in the mood for sermonising.  You have been warned!

It would be unfair to blame St. John's for my sermonising because the fact is that is Mr. Garland Tucker at The National Review who has, so to speak, rung my bells!  He in turn has been provoked by Mr. Douglas Murray’s latest book The Strange Death of Europe.  (I was about to add it to my Xmas Books Wish List but the chances of a mouth-dribbling Euro fanatic like 'SoD' buying his poor old Dad a trenchant criticism of 'Euro-phantasy-land' are slightly less than the snowball in hell!)  Returning to Mr. Tucker, he has recently visited Scotland with, I presume, a copy of Mr. Murray's book in his luggage.  He is not happy!

During my recent vacation to Scotland, the National Centre for Social Research released a major new survey, which documented the continuing decline of Christianity in the U.K. The headline read: “Non-believers outnumber the faithful by widest margin yet.” This fall has been driven primarily by young people. Of those between 18 and 24 years old, 62 percent have no religion. The figures for the Church of England were devastating: The proportion of the population describing themselves as Anglican has dropped from 30 percent in 2000 to 15 percent today — with just 3 percent of 18- to-24-year-olds. In Scotland, church attendance has fallen by over half in the past 30 years.

Actually, on my personal basis of a life-time of absolutely zero church-going, those stats are somewhat better than I would have guessed.  Mr. Tucker, with the observant eyes of a visitor, takes note of the drippingly wet and utterly useless Archbishop of Canterbury who whined that it was the unfair system of capitalism that was letting our children down!  Anybody not suffering with political myopia would recognise that from Hong Kong to 'Noo Yawk' to London it has been capitalism that has, to paraphrase an old slogan, 'set the people free'!

Europe itself has abandoned Christianity, there is not a single mention of it in their new constitution written in 2000.  Mr. Tucker turns again to Mr. Murray's book:

Murray traces this crisis of identity back to the late 19th century, to two seminal events. First, the textual criticism of the Bible, originating in Germany and spreading throughout the West, undermined the Biblical foundation of Western Christianity. The second seismic blow occurred simultaneously, with the development of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution. Whereas it had been a foundational belief that a divine, awe-inspiring plan was behind all of civilization, it suddenly was widely held that science — not faith — held all the answers.

Or, you might say, "Put not your faith in God but in the Academy of Sciences!"  Well, it's an idea, I suppose, until you actually consider the average scientist who frequently appears to be a Grade I dingbat of the first order.

Here endeth the first lesson - waddya mean, thank God for that?!

 

 

Comments

[Whitewall]

Well my stars! You and Malcolm must be on a similar wave length. His post is very good stuff:
http://malcolmpollack.com/2017/10/21/go-not-gently-2/

[Peter Whale]

What you believe or what I believe has no bearing or influence on whatever the truth happens to be.

I do not believe in any deity whatsoever but I am inclined to pose to myself that there is a higher level of consciousness that sometimes makes awareness within see with a bit more clarity.

Again I can also get that from a large dose of a single malt.

[David Duff]

Crikey, Peter, I bet that single malt makes your, er, Holy Communion an enjoyable treat!

[Pat]

15% identify as Anglican on a survey.
Far far less than that attend Anglican churches, or indeed do anything to back up their claim to be Anglican. I'd bet most of that 15% have never heard of the 39 articles, much less know what they say. They are in other words less than committed.
And note there is not the slightest penalty for renouncing the Church of England.
We are told, also on the basis of surveys, that there are 2.5m Muslims in the country. I doubt they are any more sincere. In fact given the penalties for renouncing Islam I would doubt many of them to be sincere, apart from their sincere wish to avoid those penalties.

[Bob]

Since we've never had the more obvious evil of state religion we're a bit behind Europe. Also, freedom of religion has allowed the spread of variations like Mormonism, Scientology, and literally thousands of others representing varying degrees of daftness. However, the same trend toward non-religion is still apparent in the US. Good riddance to superstition.

[JK]

http://malcolmpollack.com/2016/03/04/live-and-learn/

So many drones ...

[David Duff]

Thanks, JK, for the two links to Malcolm's place, as always, he provides rich fields to plough.

[Loz]

The Toms begging for mercy ...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/10/22/theresa-may-described-despondent-rings-eyes-leaked-account-brexit/

SoD

[Loz]

Any contractions in powerbases stuffed with kiddie-fiddlers and cover-ups is to be applauded and encouraged.

Peeps have found their own direct route to the messages of the bible and God. They miss out the middle-man because they see the middle-man sucks: Takes a skim off the top and abuses you via the authority of monopoly.

Market forces laid organised Christianity low. And they'll do the same to Islam. The laying low of Islam would be hastened by continued exposure to market forces, best enabled through immigration (if the cb's would only see the penny drop).

A world of power sceptics, each with a direct line to God. A better world.

SoD