The Minneapolis Star Tribune has posted one of those head-scratcher stories about the decline in church involvement in Minnesota led by mainstream protestant churches with Catholic churches not far behind.
I’m sure you can all give many reasons for why this is happening, but for me, I say a major reason is that Cultural Marxism is winning. When Communism was all the rage around the world, it didn’t catch on in America (in any big way) for a couple of reasons—strong families and strong churches.
Those who wanted to change America knew they had to destroy the family and the church and so they are!
As we see with the immigration issue, they knew too that they had to import poverty as Americans were doing better and moving up the ladder to more prosperity.
The Leftists have taken over and politicized many churches (Episcopal here in my post just yesterday) and the rest of us don’t want to have anything to do with political Leftwing agitators using the pulpit for their socialist/commie message, so (some) churches will die and maybe that isn’t a bad thing!
Here, below, is just a bit of the Star Tribune story. They say it will be part of a series.
Will the next installment tell us about church buildings being transformed in to mosques?
By the way, I write about Europe as a harbinger of what is to come, but look no further than Minnesota!
AS CHURCHES CLOSE, A WAY OF LIFE FADES
Minnesota’s mainline Christian denominations face unprecedented declines, altering communities and traditions celebrated for generations.
La Salle, Minn. — For 100 years, Lutherans in this farming community on the Minnesota prairie have come to one church to share life’s milestones.
They have been baptized, confirmed and married at La Salle Lutheran. Their grandparents, parents and siblings lie in the church cemetery next door.
But the old friends who gathered here early one recent Sunday never imagined that they would one day be marking the death of their own church.
When La Salle Lutheran locks its doors in August, it will become the latest casualty among fragile Minnesota churches either closing, merging or praying for a miracle. Steep drops in church attendance, aging congregations, and cultural shifts away from organized religion have left most of Minnesota’s mainline Christian denominations facing unprecedented declines.La Salle, Minn. — For 100 years, Lutherans in this farming community on the Minnesota prairie have come to one church to share life’s milestones.
[….]
St. Paul’s On the Hill Episcopal Church on prestigious Summit Avenue was recently sold to a developer after more than a century of religious service. Bethany Lutheran Church in the Longfellow neighborhood of Minneapolis held its “holy closure” ceremony last fall. St. Michael Catholic Church in West St. Paul celebrated its last mass 18 months ago.
Mainline Protestant churches have been hit the hardest. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) in Minnesota has lost almost 200,000 members since 2000 and about 150 churches. A third of the remaining 1,050 churches have fewer than 50 members. The United Methodist Church, the second largest Protestant denomination in Minnesota, has shuttered 65 churches since 2000.
Catholic membership statewide has held steady [Hispanics?—-ed], but the number of churches fell from 720 in 2000 to 639 last year, according to official Catholic directories. The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, which closed 21 churches in 2010 and merged several dozen others, is again looking at ways to consolidate church staffing and programs.
[….]
Church attendance has been declining for decades nationally, but the pace appears to be accelerating. Since 1990, the Episcopal Church, the Presbyterian Church U.S.A. and United Church of Christ have lost nearly half their national members. The ELCA has lost a third. The Catholic church still shows membership growth, but has 2,000 fewer parishes today, according to Catholic studies.
Much more here.
I can hear the cheers about this news from a certain segment of the Minnesota population!
Take heart, in some parts of the US (maybe even in Minnesota!), conservative churches are doing very well.