There seems to be a backlash going on at the moment regarding people’s affiliation with faith groups. People are angry at terrorists and, mistakenly, believe that it is a fault with belonging to a faith. Hence the dramatic rise in those who claim no affiliation to any religious group. I think there is also a belief that there is something hypocritical about saying you belong to a religion and yet never have anything to do with its institutions – maybe this is people being more honest but in my view it is more people being confused over what it means to be a Christian (or whatever).
Of course the church has colluded in this in many ways. It has not been open and honest and (like all institutions) has suffered from those who have used the organisation for their own selfish ends – people have got fed up with it (I note that the church has apologised for this behaviour but no one seems to notice). The church itself has suffered from a crisis of faith sometimes preferring doubt to faith and being confused by various modern approaches to thinking about faith that have left us all wondering what it is we actually do believe. The church has avoided confrontation with atheists (presumably in the hopes that if we stick our head in the sand it will all just go away) – handing the atheist the intellectual high ground where they have set about disturbing the minds of countless University students who have been persuaded (wrongly) that atheism is the only intellectual option. This has been passed on to the whole education system which is now so confused about what Christians believe that it prefers a simplistic ‘all religions say the same thing’ approach – they don’t. How can people say they are Christian (or not) when they don’t have a clue about what being a Christian is? I notice that this leads the ignorant to call for less Christianity in our institutions – we don’t need less we obviously need more.
The situation just seems to be getting worse. I do see signs of hope and my understanding of history is such that I can take assurance from bad periods in the history of our nation where things became pretty Godless previously.
I guess what concerns me most is that the majority of the country seems to be quite happy to go along with being Godless. I am worried about the soul of this nation and although others do feel the same how can we convince the media – who seem to have a tight grip on what we as a nation believe?