General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: A ray of sunshine: A megachurch preacher repents. [View all]KY_EnviroGuy
(14,483 posts)Having been raised in a very genteel main-line Southern Baptist Church in the 50s and 60s in a small TN farm town, I struggle to understand this spike in popularity of evangelical churches. I supposed it's simply became many people's entire social life and escape from modern reality, complete with theater-quality sound and video - not to mention valet parking!
Now, like most American fads, I'm thinking eventually megachurches will suffer the same fate as megamalls. People will tire of them and tire of giving them their tithe, and maybe transcend to something like fast-food style religion.....
Hell, Christians nowadays could save lot of time and gas by just holding prayer meetings in their local Chic-Fil-A or Home Depot.
What I do know is that America is slowly becoming less religious (10% drop from 1990 to 2008) and that's evidenced in your story.
However, there's probably a practical limit to that because human psychology suggests that so long as mankind has something to fear (including death) or things that are unknown, we'll keep on inventing gods and religions.