Yet we cannot think that even these diversions are the sole causes for the growing non-church attendance. There seems to be something back of it all that has changed, to a great extent, the old idea of worship and church reverence, and given the idea that a minister is only wanted at a funeral or a marriage.

We are told that “there is no religion west of the Missouri and no God west of the Rocky Mountains,” and that the church “is now only a retreat for imbeciles, women and children.” That it has had its day, is now dominated by weak minds and mental dwarfs; that it has lost its sympathy and charity for the masses and has been converted into “mutual admiration societies and closed corporations for the rich.” That God has left the church in disgust; that men to enter the church must leave their minds behind; that to get a favor or a job you must not go to the church people; or, having either, you must be a hypocrite to escape the venom of their bigotry, and all such.

To the observant this means something. Indeed it means much, for only a short time back it was thought that only Thomas Paine and Col. Ingersoll would make such remarks. Today the unorthodox speak to crowded houses, and what they write finds immense and ready sales. And, whether right or wrong, good or bad, they appear to have been more successful in conversions than do the churches.

At least something, or a combination of things, has put the public to reading and thinking, and in just this proportion do they seem to be seeking other places and amusements to the neglect of the churches.

Not only this, but many of the old Bible stories, at least in their literalities, are emphatically denied. The old-fashioned hell is now scoffed; the Jonah story is jested with; the school boy is openly told, as a choice between the teachings of his teachers at Sunday school and those of science and the high school, of the story of creation, to accept the latter; while the churches have about agreed that creeds are of human origin and limitations, and not those of the spirit or Deity.

Labels: NOT alternate universe

¶ 2:57 PM