Weird Time for Christians

[knapplc]

3 hours ago, The Dude said:

 

His antics are cringey, but there's tens of millions of Americans who believe in faith healing.  I'd stop well short of saying he's promoting some fringe idea.

 

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-divinehealing-life/a-third-of-americans-report-divine-healing-pew-idUSN2042499020080623

"A third of all Americans (34 percent) say they have experienced or witnessed a divine healing of an illness or injury," the survey said.

 

This article is from 12 years ago.

 

From a few months ago:

 

Quote

 

In U.S., Decline of Christianity Continues at Rapid Pace

The religious landscape of the United States continues to change at a rapid clip. In Pew Research Center telephone surveys conducted in 2018 and 2019, 65% of American adults describe themselves as Christians when asked about their religion, down 12 percentage points over the past decade. Meanwhile, the religiously unaffiliated share of the population, consisting of people who describe their religious identity as atheist, agnostic or “nothing in particular,” now stands at 26%, up from 17% in 2009.

 

Both Protestantism and Catholicism are experiencing losses of population share. Currently, 43% of U.S. adults identify with Protestantism, down from 51% in 2009. And one-in-five adults (20%) are Catholic, down from 23% in 2009. Meanwhile, all subsets of the religiously unaffiliated population – a group also known as religious “nones” – have seen their numbers swell. Self-described atheists now account for 4% of U.S. adults, up modestly but significantly from 2% in 2009; agnostics make up 5% of U.S. adults, up from 3% a decade ago; and 17% of Americans now describe their religion as “nothing in particular,” up from 12% in 2009. Members of non-Christian religions also have grown modestly as a share of the adult population.

 

 

I mean... any time any Christian wants to pray Covid-19 away, go right ahead. We're waiting.

 

[Landlord]

2 hours ago, The Dude said:

 

How does one acquire three quarters of a billion dollars on the fringe? 

 

I could see how one would acquire that kind of wealth preaching mainstream ideas to the mainstream. 

 

 

You could get 1,000 Patreon followers to pay  you $7 a month for a podcast/show/whatever.

 

That's getting close to six figure income with 1,000 people. Out of 300 million in the country or 7-8 billion in the world. It's not hard to make buckets of money and still be fringe.

[The Dude]

5 hours ago, Landlord said:

 

 

You could get 1,000 Patreon followers to pay  you $7 a month for a podcast/show/whatever.

 

That's getting close to six figure income with 1,000 people. Out of 300 million in the country or 7-8 billion in the world. It's not hard to make buckets of money and still be fringe.

 

That's about three quarters of a billion dollars away from answering my question. 

 

Almost made it.

[Landlord]

10 hours ago, The Dude said:

 

That's about three quarters of a billion dollars away from answering my question. 

 

Almost made it.

 

 

 

No need to be pedantic. The answer is that you can make a lot of money (across varying degrees of scale) off a very  small irrelevant number of people.

 

10,000 people tithing you 10% of their income is 30 million a year. That could still be an extremely fringe, out there idea with a miniscule impact or relevance in the world. This guy brainwashes vulnerable people of a belief that specifically if they give him their money, they  will be healed. His income is as simple as telling people to give him money and then having them do it. 

[The Dude]

I wouldn't exactly consider 10,000 people "extremely fringe".  You could call the Westboro Baptist Church extremely fringe.  That's the classic example people tend to use when talking about the fringe in religion.   That's about 70 people total.  70!

 

And let's not pretend Kenneth Copeland is reaching only 10,000 people, or anything close to that.  Also let's not pretend he's the only person making a living preaching devine healing.

 

You like to call it fringe because it's comforting for you to believe.  Not because it's true.  He may be a quack to you and me, but he's not articulating a fringe idea.

[funhusker]

6 hours ago, The Dude said:

I wouldn't exactly consider 10,000 people "extremely fringe".  You could call the Westboro Baptist Church extremely fringe.  That's the classic example people tend to use when talking about the fringe in religion.   That's about 70 people total.  70!

 

And let's not pretend Kenneth Copeland is reaching only 10,000 people, or anything close to that.  Also let's not pretend he's the only person making a living preaching devine healing.

 

You like to call it fringe because it's comforting for you to believe.  Not because it's true.  He may be a quack to you and me, but he's not articulating a fringe idea.

I have a significant portion of my family who grew up Missouri Synod Lutheran.  They believe prayer is more important that medicine in our current situation.  They share FB posts from people like Copeland all the time.  I don't know if they give money, but I wouldn't put it past them.

[Landlord]

10 hours ago, The Dude said:

I wouldn't exactly consider 10,000 people "extremely fringe".  You could call the Westboro Baptist Church extremely fringe.  That's the classic example people tend to use when talking about the fringe in religion.   That's about 70 people total.  70!

 

And let's not pretend Kenneth Copeland is reaching only 10,000 people, or anything close to that.  Also let's not pretend he's the only person making a living preaching devine healing.

 

You like to call it fringe because it's comforting for you to believe.  Not because it's true.  He may be a quack to you and me, but he's not articulating a fringe idea.

 

 

 

Then I guess the entire conversation turns into a conversation about what the word fringe means. Is it strictly a number of people? Is it the outlandishness of what they believe? I don't actually have a working definition other than things I attend or am interested in that the overwhelming majority of the population is totally oblivious to. 

[TGHusker]

So perhaps the real  question is, Is the Copeland 'faith message' on the fringe of Christian orthodoxy?  That isn't a 'fringe' based on numbers but on what is considered sound doctrine. Just because a large # of people believe a specific doctrinal position doesn't mean it is sound or orthodox.  

I believe the 'faith message' is on the fringe of Christian orthodoxy and actually outside of traditional Christian orthodoxy.  When God becomes a "means to an end" and not the end Himself - then we are outside of orthodoxy.  The faith message is basically this: Use God to get health, wealth and prosperity.  God is a means - our spiritual slot machine.   Therefore if there is a large segment of the church that accepts this doctrine as orthodox, then it  is more of an indictment on the American church.  If his faith message is outside of traditional orthodoxy and a high % of people of Americans believe his message to be 'true gospel' then I think we can say that the church is 'spiritually sick' because too large of a segment is living on spoiled bread. 

[TGHusker]

opps wrong thread 

[Landlord]

6 minutes ago, TGHusker said:

So perhaps the real  question is, Is the Copeland 'faith message' on the fringe of Christian orthodoxy?  That isn't a 'fringe' based on numbers but on what is considered sound doctrine.

 

 

Who determines the sound doctrine and orthodoxy? 

[TGHusker]

10 minutes ago, Landlord said:

Who determines the sound doctrine and orthodoxy? 

I think you look through history and you look at the major faith components - Catholic and Protestant - and you find the common threads they all believed - and there are many threads that make the cloth of sound doctrine.  Ultimately you go back to what the apostles said, what the New Testament is clear on and what the early church practiced and the Creeds devised by the church during different times in history.  Even in the multitude of denominations we have today - there are certain main threads that make the blanket of orthodoxy that most churches hold. 

I like these definitions:

Orthodoxy :   authorized or generally accepted theory, doctrine, or practice

Orthodox means adhering to accepted norms and creeds - especially in religion. In Christianity, the term means "conforming to the Christian faith as represented in the creeds of the early Church.”

[commando]

the Taliban!   

 

 

this guy

 

 

[BigRedBuster]

 

[RedDenver]

7 minutes ago, BigRedBuster said:

 

That plot should be devastating to Christians.

[TGHusker]

4 minutes ago, BigRedBuster said:

 

A little leaven spoils the whole loaf.    When history is written 50 years from now, the historians will look back and clear show how tRump may indeed be the worse president ever.  Not only for his self serving narcissistic traits, not only for his political corruption ,  not only for his ineptitude, not only for his handling of the major crisis of our day, etc, etc but I think most of all on his corrupting influence on politics, religion, and culture.  He's hijacked a whole party, drew a religious segment from its roots by promising too much and delivering too little, and he has invigorated the alt right movement while greatly increasing the political divide in DC.