What Will Christianity Mutate Into?

[Ahh!]

Eventually, its going to get to a point where it's going to be too hard for current Christian doctrine to hold up to scientific advances and greater communications of what is wrong with doctrine. Religions however tend to mutate rather than simply just disappear. What do you think Christianity as an entity will become next? Will it become more esoteric? Will it be read more symbolically and its practitioner's more secular? What do you think?

[Taphophilia]

Unfortunately, I think there will always be people who hang on to fictional beliefs that defy any facts. As far as the bulk of Christianity, they will just do what they have always done. They will come up with new interpretations and mix new doctrines with old ones in order to fit facts.

 

One thing I've noticed is that the most popular, well known, Christians today, are nothing more than motivational speakers who sprinkle a dash of Christianity into their speil.

[Llwellyn]

I think that you will always have people on the hardcore edge who will preach of divine vengeance for non-believers, and who will believe every irrational idea in the Bible, like Creationism, and the abomination of homosexuality. You will always have people like the Westboro Baptist Church and hardcore Calvinists like RC Sproul, John Piper, and JI Packer. It just thrills them too much to believe evil things and to relish in their oddity and hatefulness. People just get a pleasure from being "out there" -- especially when they imagine that they are somehow "favored" by God and others aren't, and they are "standing up for God" while others have departed from God.

 

In other words, obnoxious religion will always exist so long as the human population has obnoxious people.

 

But, the mass of Christians will remain the people who neither read the Bible or care about what it says. Those are the people who fill the mega-churches these days -- people who are looking for an emotional experience, a connection to something beyond their mundane daily lives, and a place where they can meet people and find a mate.

 

I really don't imagine the dynamics of the religion changing much -- in a 100 years or in a 1000 years if we survive that long as a species. I think your "liberal mainline denomenations" -- UCC, United Methodists, PCUSA, and Congregationalists, will remain tiny churches at the fringe, with an aged congregation.

 

I think that "church membership" will become less important, being substituted with "church involvement." People will feel less committed to any denomination, but will float about from church to church and back home to their religious television programming. Some will become closer followers to a person rather than a denomination.

 

I wish the whole damn religion would just be forgotten. Unfortunately, it won't. Even if it did, the texts would remain in the libraries and on the web, and people would just find them again and continue on with the disordered mania.

[Piprus]

Eventually, its going to get to a point where it's going to be too hard for current Christian doctrine to hold up to scientific advances and greater communications of what is wrong with doctrine. Religions however tend to mutate rather than simply just disappear. What do you think Christianity as an entity will become next? Will it become more esoteric? Will it be read more symbolically and its practitioner's more secular? What do you think?

The key to your answer just might be found within the demographic trends. In other words, what will happen within xiantity might be addressed within the question, "Who is breeding the dominant next generation?" Right now, birth rates are down in the populations of the Western-European cultures: USA, Spain, Italy, Canada, France, Germany, etc. They are rising in Latin American countries (catholic) and among Islamic middle eastern populations. So 100 years from now, science just may not matter to the then-dominant groups: Catholic vs. Islamist. You could see a battle of these religious ideologies for world domination, neither of which has any reverence for science. Scientific knowledge will become just a tool for the religion oriented group who happens to hold power. We who are alive today won't be here to see it, but it's a possibility IMO.

[Robbobrob]

The vast majority of Christians no matter what denopmination are fairly secular. That has been true for centuries. Lip-service to their faith, but most don't even make it to church except for the holy Days (Midnight Mass, Easter Sunday, etc).

 

There will always be a very vocal minority group of Fundies who will challenge science...even as they take the next space bus to their orbiting Heavenly Cathedral so they can be closer to God.

 

I do agree with Piprus that the demographic changes will make the pendulum of religion swing toward the countries (southern Americas, eastern Europe, western Asia) that have long been hiding while the Cold War went on. The old ties that bound them in silence globally are gone.

 

Sadly, science will continue to be the tool to build the weapons of future religious wars, while at the same time being ripped apart for being a tool of Satan.

[robbie]

So 100 years from now, science just may not matter to the then-dominant groups: Catholic vs. Islamist. You could see a battle of these religious ideologies for world domination, neither of which has any reverence for science.

 

 

Both Islam--and Catholicism in particular--have a great deal of reverence for science, certainly by comparison with every single non-Catholic Christian denomination there is.

 

I would rather have Catholics and Muslims influencing science's place in society than any evangelical Protestants.

[Ouroboros]

Sorry, but I have to disagree. I don't want any religion influencing science. I've heard an interview with a secular muslim about that subject, and he's against it, because they do the same thing as evangelicals. The Intelligent Design movement is going on in Turkey too, under Muslim flag. They take all the arguemnts from the evangelical fundamentalist creationists group in America, but only remove the parts that don't fit Islam. They do and act the same way. Same type, different name.

[Ouroboros]

Eventually, its going to get to a point where it's going to be too hard for current Christian doctrine to hold up to scientific advances and greater communications of what is wrong with doctrine. Religions however tend to mutate rather than simply just disappear. What do you think Christianity as an entity will become next? Will it become more esoteric? Will it be read more symbolically and its practitioner's more secular? What do you think?

I think it will group up in fewer factions. Some extremely militant (it wouldn't surprise me if we see Christian terrorists in 5-10 years), and other ultra liberal Christians. The liberal/secular Christians will side with science and the militant extremists will answer with a bomb when they disagree. Somewhere in the middle you will still have the pseudo-scientific creationist movement that disagree with the violent group and the liberal group and yet take the Bible literal. It's the same groups we have today, but they will crystalize more, and many of the smaller sects will join up in the larger groups.

[Gary Thompson]

Christianity is constanly evolving, as for the future, it seems that John-Donahueism is spreading very fast.

 

That is:

"I'm better than you because I'm christian"

"I can as many immoral things as I please because god will forgive me at church on Sunday"

[Amethyst]

I think the hardcore fundies will get even more and more hardcore, until they turn everyone else off of religion entirely, or make them convert to a religion other than Christianity. It's starting to happen already. I think that will be the death of organized religion as we know it.

[Amethyst]

I think it will group up in fewer factions. Some extremely militant (it wouldn't surprise me if we see Christian terrorists in 5-10 years), and other ultra liberal Christians.

 

I wouldn't be surprised if it happened in less than 5 years, with the kinds of extremist leaders we're seeing like Fred Phelps.

[Lycorth]

Xianity will certainly grow more "harmless" and secular, I think. I can see it easily becoming something people just identify with, as a sort of default spirituality, but without being devout by much. Church will fulfill the basic social ceremonial functions, like weddings and funerals and such, and will be there for people to go socialize at, but will be a shadow of a shell of its former self. It will evolve into allegory and metaphor, and all concept of "God" or "Jebus"will lose most of its terror - and one day, all of it.

 

The fundies will always exist, I fear, but they will end up more and more marginalized. So far, one day, that only they will hear their own demented ravings. Human society will simply grow and evolve without them, like it does without the drop-outs who turn to lives of drug addiction on the streets and fail to exert any influence on the rest of their peers.

 

The Jebus addicts will end up in a similar position over the next few generations, I believe.