It is no surprise that a recent Pew Poll of adults has shown a near 8% decline of Christianity in America between 2007-2014. With Catholic numbers alone showing a 3.1% drop. In applying common sense, one has to note a curious correlation between the verifiable state of American societal decline and the Pew findings. Secular relativism has viewed Christ’s Church as a solely institutional ideal born of the subjective views of men, rather than the omnipotent idea of the living God.
History has recorded the Church’s ebbs and flows. It’s ebbs are found in scandals created by its custodians’ own making, or by attacks from outside heresies. On the other hand, the flows are seen in the early Church’s establishment of the first hospitals and universities, promoting and preserving the sculpture and art of the Renaissance greats, and historically has often been a patron of science. The Church’s influence, as has just been shown, has played a most significant role in the formation of Western society. Yet after 2000 years, despite the challenges to the Church’s existence; She still stands.
The Church asks much because it offers everything; and it is as alive as is its founder. G.K. Chesterton best affirms these two points, in the order in which they appear, by saying: “Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and not tried.” And, “The Church has survived its own death, because it had a God who knew His way out of the grave.”
It is quite ironic that the findings of the Pew Poll should in truth validate Christianity; simply by the poll’s practice of one of the Church’s main doctrines: “free will.” The 35,000 choices tallied in the poll is an act of free will. And through free will we can either do what we should or what we want. Eventually, we all make our own beds; don’t we?
