We all know that religions go through periodic revivals. The assumption seems to be that such revivals serve to strengthen religion in some fashion, usually in the face of difficult social changes that earlier forms of religion were having trouble with.
But perhaps that's not always the case -- perhaps a religious "awakening" is followed by religion being weakened, even if that's not immediately obvious to all those involved.
Marvin writes:
North America has gone through a number of "awakenings" or revivals since the 1600's, and in every case I think it's safe to say that religion came out of them weaker than it was. The one I'm most familiar with is the Penticostal revival of the early 1900's that spawned the Assemblies of God, Foursquare, United Penticostal, and probably a number of others.
I grew up in this movement, and when I was a child in the 40's and 50's, there was a long list of things we took great pride in NOT doing because we were holier than everyone else. But when evangelical Christianity began to be popular, almost all of those things dropped away. Now, except for their hysteria over gays and abortion, "under God" in the pledge and on soda cans, and "in God we trust" on coins and Indiana license plates, there's little left.
I think a big reason that much of it is gone is the fact a new generation studied the Bible and found nothing to support most of these prohibitions. I suspect that today's younger generation of evangelicals will further moderate the list of taboos.
I'm not as hopeful as some that religion will ever die away, but I feel sure it will continue to become less and less central in the lives of believers. Unfortunately, there's still likely to be occasional awakenings that have an unfortunate tendency to destroy lives and lead to violence.
[original post]
If the conservative, Protestant strain of Christianity in America can drop its opposition to dancing, perhaps a new form of conservative, Protestant Christianity will be able to drop the opposition to homosexuality. It seems improbable to us now, but I don't suppose it's completely impossible.
On the other hand, conservative Christianity is able develop new prohibitions as well. Not that long ago conservative Protestants were comfortable with birth control; now, though, there is increasing opposition to birth control of all sorts, mirroring conservative Catholic positions. So the trajectory isn't always in a straight line.
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