Sunday, March 25, 2018

The Barely-Beating Heart Of Christendom

From The American Conservative-

A few days ago, I blogged about a story in the Guardian concerning the stark decline of Christianity among Europeans age 16 to 29. The news comes in a new report issued jointly by the Benedict XVI Centre for Religion and Society, based at St. Mary’s University, London, and the Institut Catholique de Paris.

The report — which you can download here — is a stunner.“Christianity as a default, as a norm, is gone, and probably gone for good – or at least for the next 100 years,” said Prof. Stephen Bullivant, the report’s author, in an interview with The Guardian. An English parish vicar e-mailed me to say that he finds the “next 100 years” claim to be extravagantly optimistic. In truth, he said, we’re looking at 500 years, if ever.

The report’s findings aren’t surprising, exactly, but they are shocking. They confirm that Europe’s is a post-Christian civilization, and they make clear the stark challenges facing the churches there going forward. For American Christian readers, the report may serve as a portrait of our own civilization in the future, if we don’t take strong measures now to prevent that fate.


More here-

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/bullivant-the-barely-beating-heart-of-christendom-benedict-option/

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