Do Conservatives Drive People Away from the Church?
by Anthony Esolen, Crisis Magazine:
According to some critics, the main causes of the decline in churchgoing are to be attributed to conservatives. Let’s break down why that’s ridiculous.
From what I gather on what is called, with irony that could only come from Hell’s own propaganda department, “social media,” the main causes of the decline in churchgoing are to be attributed to conservatives. They do not welcome people of the whole range of oddball sexual proclivities, they insist upon liturgies that put everyone off but themselves, and they are generally obnoxious and unloving.
Let me take these one by one.
First, it has been many years since the liberal Protestant denominations in the United States, Canada, and Europe have sung “Over the Rainbow.” Their precipitous decline continues apace. Here and there it is stalled by pockets of real resistance: I am thinking, for example, of Episcopalian parishes that have united themselves with African bishops, and of parishes in the liberal Evangelical Lutheran Church in America that hold the line locally.
In general, though, things are as they were in the Church of Sweden when I went to the cathedral in Uppsala twelve years ago. The church was festooned with signs telling one and all that though the New Testament clearly forbids homosexual relations, still the law of charity is greater; begging the question, since if a thing is wrong, it will work its harm, and it is no charity to stand by while people poison themselves. The Church of Sweden is moribund. Only two percent of its members regularly attend services.
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