Did Jesus fail to convince in the end?

[marco]

Christianity is not the force it was. In the past it swept across continents, converting by one means or another. Churches now sit empty and some have become mosques.
Does this decline suggest that the movement did not have a God behind it, in Jesus, but a strong preacher with an interesting message which is less attractive to modern ears?

Why would a message, authorised by God himself, lose its appeal? Is it the fault of the messenger or the listeners? Is Jesus on the verge of dying out, after a spectacular resurrection?

[alwayson]

Paul never says Jesus was a preacher.

Gerd Lüdemann: "Not once does Paul refer to Jesus as a teacher, to his words as teaching, or to [any] Christians as disciples."

I would go even farther and say that Paul never places Jesus on Earth.

And the Gospels were written after Paul.

[marco]

Paul never says Jesus was a preacher.

Gerd Lüdemann: "Not once does Paul refer to Jesus as a teacher, to his words as teaching, or to [any] Christians as disciples."

I would go even farther and say that Paul never places Jesus on Earth.

And the Gospels were written after Paul.

Lüdemann makes far more interesting claims than those about Christ's teaching qualifications. It makes no difference of course whether he was referred to as a preacher; the accounts given indicate he was. A rose by any other name .... or, to quote the preacher himself, by the fruit shall ye know the tree.

I cannot understand the reference to an unearthly Jesus, since Paul tells us we have to believe he was a human raised, literally, from the dead. I know Lüdemann questions this, with great justification, but I don't know that Paul does.

[alwayson]

I cannot understand the reference to an unearthly Jesus, since Paul tells us we have to believe he was a human raised, literally, from the dead.

Paul believed this resurrection occurred in outer space, not Earth. But thats a long story for another time.

In 1 Cor. 15, Paul explicitly says the resurrection is "according to the Scriptures." Then Jesus "appeared" to people via Visions/Dreams.

"For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. After that He appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep; then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles; and last of all, as to one untimely born, He appeared to me also."

Septuagint version of Zechariah 3 and 6 gives the exact name of Jesus, him confronting Satan and being crowned king in heaven.

Daniel 9 describes a messiah dying before the end of the world.

Isaiah 52-53 describes the cleansing of the world's sins by the death of a servant.

Psalm 22-24, which Mark copies the language of, describes the death-resurrection cycle.

[marco]

Paul believed this resurrection occurred in outer space, not Earth. But thats a long story for another time.

Hmmmm. And Proserpina ate a single pomegranate seed in the underworld. The venue of Christ's resurrection is surely an irrelevance. Paul presumably believed, as others, that heaven was up and hell was down. Allowing for a resurrection in the midst of such assumptions doesn't matter much.

But if Paul had expressed himself in Outer Space terms, then we would be hearing less of him of a Sunday. Luckily he didn't.

[Zzyzx]

.

Christianity is increasing worldwide at a higher rate than the global average.

An empty church doesn't tell us much about worldwide population trends. There are good statistics that do. It appears you aren't familiar with them.

Many Christians seem to take great pride in announcing that Christianity is growing -- what they do not seem to take pride in is that Christianity is growing in undeveloped parts of AFRICA and ASIA but declining as a percentage of the population in educated 'First World' nations -- particularly rapidly in European nations, but increasingly so in the US.

Does that tell us anything? Is religion an appeal to ignorance?

Also, when Christians count noses to claim importance, they tend to count every one possible. Then they often knock each other out as 'not REAL Christian' -- dismissing entire denominations (but count them in again when grasping for numbers).

The growth of Christianity is heavy in underdeveloped areas of Africa and Asia. In most western developed / advanced / educated nations Christianity is in decline as a percentage of the population

Christianity is now one of the two most widely practiced religions in Africa. There has been tremendous growth in the number of Christians in Africa - coupled by a relative decline in adherence to traditional African religions. Only nine million Christians were in Africa in 1900, but by the year 2000, there were an estimated 380 million Christians. According to a 2006 Pew Forum on Religion and Public life study, 147 million African Christians were "renewalists" (Pentecostals and Charismatics).[17] According to David Barrett, most of the 552,000 congregations in 11,500 denominations throughout Africa in 1995 are completely unknown in the West. Much of the recent Christian growth in Africa is now due to African evangelism rather than European missionaries. Christianity in Africa shows tremendous variety, from the ancient forms of Oriental Orthodox Christianity in Egypt, Ethiopia, and Eritrea to the newest African-Christian denominations of Nigeria, a country that has experienced large conversion to Christianity in recent times. Several syncretistic and messianic sections have formed throughout much of the continent, including the Nazareth Baptist Church in South Africa and the Aladura churches in Nigeria. There are also fairly widespread populations of Seventh-day Adventists and Jehovah's Witnesses.
Some experts predict the shift of Christianity's center from the European industrialized nations to Africa and Asia in modern times. Yale University historian Lamin Sanneh stated that "African Christianity was not just an exotic, curious phenomenon in an obscure part of the world, but that African Christianity might be the shape of things to come."[19] The statistics from the World Christian Encyclopedia (David Barrett) illustrate the emerging trend of dramatic Christian growth on the continent and supposes, that in 2025 there will be 633 million Christians in Africa.[20]
A 2015 study estimates 2,161,000 Christian believers from a Muslim background in Africa, most of them belonging to some form of Protestantism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_in_Africa

And

The Christian share of the U.S. population is declining, while the number of U.S. adults who do not identify with any organized religion is growing, according to an extensive new survey by the Pew Research Center. Moreover, these changes are taking place across the religious landscape, affecting all regions of the country and many demographic groups. While the drop in Christian affiliation is particularly pronounced among young adults, it is occurring among Americans of all ages. The same trends are seen among whites, blacks and Latinos; among both college graduates and adults with only a high school education; and among women as well as men. (Explore the data with our interactive database tool.)

To be sure, the United States remains home to more Christians than any other country in the world, and a large majority of Americans – roughly seven-in-ten – continue to identify with some branch of the Christian faith.1 But the major new survey of more than 35,000 Americans by the Pew Research Center finds that the percentage of adults (ages 18 and older) who describe themselves as Christians has dropped by nearly eight percentage points in just seven years, from 78.4% in an equally massive Pew Research survey in 2007 to 70.6% in 2014. Over the same period, the percentage of Americans who are religiously unaffiliated – describing themselves as atheist, agnostic or “nothing in particular� – has jumped more than six points, from 16.1% to 22.8%. And the share of Americans who identify with non-Christian faiths also has inched up, rising 1.2 percentage points, from 4.7% in 2007 to 5.9% in 2014. Growth has been especially great among Muslims and Hindus, albeit from a very low base.

Christians Decline as Share of U.S. Population; Other Faiths and the Unaffiliated Are Growing The drop in the Christian share of the population has been driven mainly by declines among mainline Protestants and Catholics. Each of those large religious traditions has shrunk by approximately three percentage points since 2007. The evangelical Protestant share of the U.S. population also has dipped, but at a slower rate, falling by about one percentage point since 2007
http://www.pewforum.org/2015/05/12/amer ... landscape/

Bold added

[OnceConvinced]

[Replying to post 25 by Zzyzx]

It should be obvious to all that Historia's claims are not as impressive as he makes out. Just because someone claims on a census that they are Christian does not make them so and as you rightfully pointed out most Christians seem to be going around accusing each other of being false Christians anyway. So what population of this planet are true Christians? How can we know and how can we possibly know that this number is increasing or decreasing?

Indeed in many developed countries the number of people claiming to be Christians on their census's is dropping. Where I come from (New Zealand and also Australia), since the Internet has become popular numbers of Christians has dropped radically. This may be due to the Internet and the better distribution of information, but also because people are being encouraged not to just put "Christian" on their census paper simply because it was their family religion. They are being encouraged to put it only if they consider themselves practising Christians. When we look at the figures of Christians in the world, how many of them claim to be Christians simply because their parents or their grand parents or their great grand parents were?

The other thing that needs to be considered is percentages. Some groups, like the Jehovah's Witnesses for instance, love to show stats of their total numbers increasing around the world, but it's the percentages we need to see. What are the percentages? Are they increasing or decreasing? That's where real truth of the matter comes in.

Now I have heard... and I unfortunately don't have a link to this info to confirm it, is that in places like Africa many of the Christian denominations there are a mixture of Christian and their own pagan religions (we have a similar one here with the Maori called the Ratana church which takes aspects of Christianity and Maori pagan beliefs and mixes them together https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C4%81tana). I'm guessing many of these unusual denominations that are mentioned in Zzyzx's quotes are these such things. Warped versions of Christianity that include Pagan practises.

Perhaps someone has a link to confirm what I'm saying?

[Zzyzx]

.

. . . most Christians seem to be going around accusing each other of being false Christians anyway. So what population of this planet are true Christians?

If we put aboard a boat all the people who Christians unanimously agreed were REAL or TRUE Christians -- all we'd need is a canoe.

[marco]

If we put aboard a boat all the people who Christians unanimously agreed were REAL or TRUE Christians -- all we'd need is a canoe.

This is amusingly true and quite demonstrable in discussion forums.

The unifying feature of Christian religions is not, as Jesus intended, love, but rabid dislike, one for another.

[Zzyzx]

.

If we put aboard a boat all the people who Christians unanimously agreed were REAL or TRUE Christians -- all we'd need is a canoe.

This is amusingly true and quite demonstrable in discussion forums.

The unifying feature of Christian religions is not, as Jesus intended, love, but rabid dislike, one for another.

Excellent observation (though perhaps not amusingly true -- but more like disgustingly true).

Those who consider themselves members of the Christian Club often exhibit elitist attitudes and delusions of superiority -- regarding non-members as people to be pitied, dismissed, disliked, suspected, inferior, uninformed, etc, etc. Exactly the opposite of teachings attributed to the icon they claim to follow.

That divisiveness seems characteristic of religions in general -- and is probably attributable to competitive posturing by clerics.

[historia]

I wouldn't either. But the question you posed was not about Christianity, but rather Jesus. The two religions in the world that believe in Jesus are Christianity and Islam, both of which are growing.

Well that's getting Jesus in by the back door.

I'm not sure what that means. Don't Muslims believe in Jesus? Why should only Christian views on Jesus be considered relevant for this discussion?

Or maybe the more pertinent question here is: Why did you pose a question about Jesus when clearly what you really wanted to discuss is the relative growth or decline of Christianity?

The spread of Islam says more about the decline of Christianity than the popularity of Jesus.

Islam is growing in large part because of high birth rates among its adherents (although those are dropping), which has little to nothing to do with Christianity.

I contend that Christianity - where it matters - is falling away. Packed churches are a thing of the past, except in the developing world maybe where bread rolls and prayers are religious companions.

You're entitled to your opinion. But, if you want to convince the rest of us, you'll need to cite something more authoritative than your own impressions. Moreover, let us refrain from implying that Africans are not serious about their religious convictions or merely convert for material aid. This un-evidenced claim, which gets brought up with disappointing frequency on this board, appears to be based on little more than bad stereotypes.