In this article I’m going to explain why I think there are almost no people remaining (in the West) who are really Christians. Instead, I’ll suggest that nearly all people who call themselves Christians are people who have convinced themselves to think they are Christians despite the fact that, even given their own understanding of their religion, they are not. This view is somewhat speculative and somewhat odd so I don’t think it warrants a high degree of confidence. Nonetheless, I find this issue intrinsically interesting and was further motivated to write about it because some people on the religious right have argued that pushing religious politics is pragmatic because most Americans are Christian and I think a clearer understanding of the unserious nature of people’s religious beliefs undercuts this view.
The fact that 30 000 of people left Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland after some bishop made anti-gay marriage comments says everything you need to know about modern self-identified Christian.
As a Christian conservative, I'd say it's uncontroversial that a majority (though I would say not an overwhelming majority) of self-professed Christians in the US are nominal or cultural Christians. My guess would be that if people are saying the majority is genuinely Christian, they're old, not very observant, and quite possibly nominals themselves. As a Millennial, my Christian peer group fully recognizes that our lifestyle is countercultural -- and we're living in the Deep South!
Scripture calls out nominals a number of times; they are presumably, for the most part, not saved. The nominals have always been with us, but when the cultural heights were controlled by Christianity, they largely went along with it. Now they go mostly go with whoever else controls those cultural heights and retain Christianity as a sort of vaguely-defined family tradition.
A term you'll often hear used for the belief system of nominals (which you partly outline) is "moralistic therapeutic deism," or MTD.
If you look at responses to surveys and actual church attendance, probably 20-30% of the total US population (skewing old) agrees with the core historic doctrines of the Christian faith by any reasonable definition, and for the most part this is a group that is active in church, engages in some sort of spiritual practice outside church, and supports missions/evangelism in at least some way.
I'm an American, but my sense is that in Europe this percentage is almost certainly lower, even after adjusting for the lower percentage of self-professed Christians in those countries. I'll speculate that this is a result of the greater dynamism of American Christianity, which, while producing a number of new heresies, has also allowed it to evade total bureaucratic capture and thereby pursue inconvenient orthodoxies.
It's a tribal signifier. A religion is more than just a rigid set of beliefs, it is a culture. I don't believe Christianity is true but I am a Christian because it is the religion of white western people and has been so for 2000 years. Being a part of this religion signifies my preference for this culture. I converted from Judaism because I don't like Jewish values and culture.
Christinaity needs to make a transition which Judaism made centuries (if not millennia ago): keep the religion and traditions because this is the culture of your ancestors and find a way to accommodate people who don't believe it is literally true. Also use the religion to push pro social values.
The fact that 30 000 of people left Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland after some bishop made anti-gay marriage comments says everything you need to know about modern self-identified Christian.
As a Christian conservative, I'd say it's uncontroversial that a majority (though I would say not an overwhelming majority) of self-professed Christians in the US are nominal or cultural Christians. My guess would be that if people are saying the majority is genuinely Christian, they're old, not very observant, and quite possibly nominals themselves. As a Millennial, my Christian peer group fully recognizes that our lifestyle is countercultural -- and we're living in the Deep South!
Scripture calls out nominals a number of times; they are presumably, for the most part, not saved. The nominals have always been with us, but when the cultural heights were controlled by Christianity, they largely went along with it. Now they go mostly go with whoever else controls those cultural heights and retain Christianity as a sort of vaguely-defined family tradition.
A term you'll often hear used for the belief system of nominals (which you partly outline) is "moralistic therapeutic deism," or MTD.
If you look at responses to surveys and actual church attendance, probably 20-30% of the total US population (skewing old) agrees with the core historic doctrines of the Christian faith by any reasonable definition, and for the most part this is a group that is active in church, engages in some sort of spiritual practice outside church, and supports missions/evangelism in at least some way.
I'm an American, but my sense is that in Europe this percentage is almost certainly lower, even after adjusting for the lower percentage of self-professed Christians in those countries. I'll speculate that this is a result of the greater dynamism of American Christianity, which, while producing a number of new heresies, has also allowed it to evade total bureaucratic capture and thereby pursue inconvenient orthodoxies.
It's a tribal signifier. A religion is more than just a rigid set of beliefs, it is a culture. I don't believe Christianity is true but I am a Christian because it is the religion of white western people and has been so for 2000 years. Being a part of this religion signifies my preference for this culture. I converted from Judaism because I don't like Jewish values and culture.
Christinaity needs to make a transition which Judaism made centuries (if not millennia ago): keep the religion and traditions because this is the culture of your ancestors and find a way to accommodate people who don't believe it is literally true. Also use the religion to push pro social values.
It's literally judaism for gentiles. Paganism is the native belief of Europeans.
I wonder how many Christians surveyed would agree that it's morally justified to fight back in self defense.