
Is Christianity Dark Enough for Millennials? - dataker
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/04/rachel-held-evans-on-her-new-book-searching-for-sunday/390459/?utm_source=SFFB&amp;single_page=true
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angersock
Interesting that they should mention Fellowship Church--I've been there a few
times, several years ago. It's this sort of giant complex (we'd nicknamed it
"consumer Christianity"), with big auditoriums and a separate youth center and
all the bells and whistles, a coffee shop, I think a book store? Here, photos
of them:

[https://instagram.com/fellowshipchurch/](https://instagram.com/fellowshipchurch/)

Even at the time, one wondered why God would need such lavish and hip
furnishings for His people. Big screen TVs and broadcasts and sound systems
and powerpoints and the whole nine yards. Yuppie Christians living in DFW ate
that shit up--Starbucks Christ.

For my two bits I preferred the earnest fervor of some pentecostal friends of
mine, a married couple who ran a small traveling ministry that would setup
shop in strip mall and praise Jesus until they hit hard times again. Over and
over this happened, but they never gave up. Real salt-of-the-earth hard
workin' folks, doing drywall and painting until it was time to put on the
bright pastel suits and start fighting the Devil all over again--and for these
people and their congregation, this was a very real and present struggle. I
have a lot of respect for that.

I think there are a lot of reasons behind the assumed decline of Christianity
in America.

It's not particularly popular in intellectual circles, for example, to talk
about Right and Wrong--with a notable exception for identity politics, it
seems. In fact, expressing a nonsecular faith of any sort tends to get you
looked a bit askance at, because it's basically something we assume only
uneducated folks maintain.

It's also trivially straightforward to poke holes in the original holy texts,
and so every smartass with a copy of the Bible can gleefully go after
followers and impress their friends with easy attacks. At the same time, a lot
of even the reasonable stuff just doesn't make scientific sense anymore--we
know that homosexuality doesn't kill anyone, we know that pork properly
prepared won't hurt you, we know that a menstruating woman is not actually
helped by isolation, and so on.

Even more, I think we see just how shitty and callous and uncaring the world
can be, and how hypocritical even the devout are. Easy access on Youtube and
Twitter and the news show us just how badly off a lot of humanity is and how
much they suffer. It's hard to believe in a benevolent God in such a case.

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t3hSpork
It's pretty dark considering it promotes cannibalism of the savior.

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smt88
The symbol of a man nailed to a cross with his side run through with a spear
is also pretty dark.

