One of the striking aspects about religion in the US is the number of churches, denominations and the high level of church attendance among the American populace. At a time when church attendance in the UK and parts of Europe is declining, it continues to remain relatively high in the US. About 40% of Americans attend church regularly and only 15% say that they never attend church at all – the remainder are less frequent attendees. <\/p>\n
There was a Gallup poll conducted that identified the reason\/reasons why Americans attend church and makes for interesting reading:<\/p>\n
For spiritual growth and guidance 23%
\nKeeps me grounded\/inspired 20%
\nIt’s my faith 15%
\nTo worship God 15%
\nThe fellowship of other members\/The community 13%
\nBelieve in God\/Believe in religion 12%
\nBrought up that way\/A family value\/Tradition 12%<\/p>\n
Among the reasons cited above, as a regular church goer, if I had to select one reason I’d probably go with “keeps me grounded\/inspired” though a couple of other reasons cited also play a role in why I go to church. If you care to comment on the reason\/s why you go to church or other place of worship, please do so.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
What is striking about Christianity in the US – when compared to other countries I have lived including India, Kenya and England – is the number of denominations that exist. There are, of course, major denominations such as the Roman Catholics, Episcopalians, Baptists and Presbyterians but there are also an amazing number of other denominations some of which are quite large such as the Mormons and the Evangelicals and numerous other small denominations that are relatively unknown. What one also tends to find is that among the smaller denominations there is much more of a tendency to believe that they are the only “true” church that interprets the Bible correctly and that the larger denominations are “not faithful” to the true Word.<\/p>\n
All of this came to mind when I was following a series of angry exchanges between three individuals who all felt that their respective version of Christianity was the only “true” one. All three individuals cited numerical biblical verses to support their respective positions and each was quite blunt that the other two were condemned to damnation. The vituperative language used by the three – all of whom believed that they were assured of salvation – was quite unforgiving and uncharitable. <\/p>\n
I don’t want to overstate the significance of the the exchanges between these three individuals but it is not unique because the evangelical\/fundamentalist movement – which is the fastest growing segment of Christianity in the US and other parts of the world and especially Latin America – is quite candid in viewing much of the rest of Christendom as not being true to the Bible. Even within the evangelical movement there are denominations that believe that other evangelicals are not true to the word of God.<\/p>\n
Anyway, as I followed the exchanges between these three professed Christians, I could not help recalling Gandhi’s comment about Christ and Christians. Gandhi said:<\/p>\n
\u201cI like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.\u201d<\/p>\n
I know that there are differences among different Syrian Christian denominations in Kerala and sometimes these differences are manifested in acrimony and even occasional violence. To the best my limited knowledge, however, I am not aware that denominations among Syrian Christians, despite doctrinal differences, view one as being the only path to salvation to the exclusion of others. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
One of the striking aspects about religion in the US is the number of churches, denominations and the high level of church attendance among the American populace. At a time when church attendance in the UK and parts of Europe is declining, it continues to remain relatively high in the US. About 40% of Americans […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.josephclan.com\/tjblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.josephclan.com\/tjblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.josephclan.com\/tjblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.josephclan.com\/tjblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.josephclan.com\/tjblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=338"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/www.josephclan.com\/tjblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":349,"href":"https:\/\/www.josephclan.com\/tjblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338\/revisions\/349"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.josephclan.com\/tjblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.josephclan.com\/tjblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.josephclan.com\/tjblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}