PROPHETIC VOICE - What America's mainliners can expect!

Is Christianity facing a slow, inevitable death? That's the question posed by Steve Bruce this at the Scotsman.com. Bruce editorially laments the decline of Scotland's religious, the prophetic future being all darkness for the Kirk in all its flavors and colors.

Americans should see the writing on the proverbial wall. We have a huge influence on the EU when it comes to culture and politics, but the religion flows toward the setting sun.

What would happened to Europe, and Scotland, after buying into Germany's theology of higher-criticism during the 19th Century, was predicted by many stawarts on the continent and in the United States. The Europeans didn't listen; they were enthralled with "the scientific method" and "the survival of the fitist."

Statistics for the faith, even Anglican and Catholicism in Europe are abismal at best.

The English lost their interest in religion first; Scots (at least those of the countryside and the burgh) still "took" the People's Friend and the Sunday Post (the medicinal verb was deliberate) and dutifully attended the national church. Deprived of political autonomy, a stateless nation sustained its somewhat joyless but utterly reliable soul by adhering to the Presbyterian Kirk.

No more. (Half century ago), the Kirk had 1.34 million members. The current membership is less than half that. More worrying for the Church of Scotland's future, only 7,500 babies were christened last year, 500 fewer than the year before. Not all of those will go on to become actively involved, but this is the pool from which recruits are drawn. The effect of it drying up can be seen in every congregation in the land: the men and women in the pews are mostly old. In a major 2001 survey, the most popular religion among Scots under 35 was "None".

When a people stops hearing or stops listening to the Good News - that people will perish. Europe is living in a time of the judges and, unless like the Hebrews they cry out to God, humble themselves, seek God's forgiveness, and turn from their wicked ways, Africa will no longer be the only Dark Continent. (In fact statistics show just the reverse is true in much of Africa.)

The Kirk's loss of 60 per cent of attenders since 1960 is dramatic enough, but the full extent of secularization becomes clear if we take a longer time span. In 1851, about half of Scots regularly attended church, most had some formal Christian instruction, and basic Christian ideas were taken for granted. Now, only 10 per cent attend church and the proportion familiar with Christianity is barely larger. In 1900, being Christian was expected; in 2005, it is exceptional.

We can expect the same here if we don't return to the simple message of Jesus Christ and Him crucified, dead, buried, and resurrected from the dead, coming again in glory to judge the world. I am becoming increasingly alarmed by my pastoral and theological brethren as they attempt to create the New News or invent the New Theology or recreate the Reformation.

Bruce says, "It is not easy to explain secularization." Like heck it isn't! Just ask the Lord to stay out of your secular lives and guess what? He will! You know what a nation looks like without God? Well, start in Jerusalem and head toward the setting sun and count them until you hit New York!

Bruce, professor of sociology at the University of Aberdeen and author of "God is Dead: Secularization in the West," continues ...

For a while in the 1980s, it looked like circling the wagons might keep the injuns at bay: the two extreme wings of Scottish Christianity - the conservative Catholic Church and the conservative Protestant sects - seemed to be holding up. But their support is now collapsing. With hindsight, we can see that their success was an accidental consequence of having larger-than-average families and being marginal to affluent, industrial, liberal society.

Bruce, as a secular acadamecian, says ...

When the Kirk has been declining relative to total population for at least 150 years, it is hard to expect next year to be different.

Statements like this are typical of nominal Christians and non-believers. They just don't know my God ... there is simply nothing He can't turn around. He turned me around.

Professor Bruce is part of the problem, not a part of the solution. I don't say this because I don't like the man, but for other reasons ... you'll have to read the rest of his article to find out why.