What’s happening to church? Have people just stopped believing? Has church somehow outlived its usefulness?
Everyone went to church a couple generations ago, or at least a high percentage of them did. Were we all sold a bill of goods? Were we like lemmings? Or is it just about scheduling and calendars anymore?
Did congregations in the same denomination spring up across the street from each other simply because a small group of leader types didn’t agree with how “that other church” was interpreting scripture? Or they thought they could do it better(!)? Or that they were better, or at least had a more enlightened understanding of God’s word?
What the hell was up with two or more (pick a denomination) congregations literally in the same block or on opposite corners of the street, building cavernous structures that said more about penis envy than any amount of reverence or “if you build it…” faith?
It was a model destined for collapse, as it turns out, because untrained “experts” who just wanted to show off decided their understanding of what the Bible does and doesn’t say was superior to what “those other people” were peddling.
Scripture is dynamite, deadly dangerous in the hands of those who think lazy, convenient interpretation will do. Think Mike Johnson, or legislators in Texas who apparently would love to keep women in their place. Congress is full of these types, and it looks like their star is rising.
3 Cents' 