Good morning, Netizens...

Yesterday was Easter Sunday and if you believe David Horsey, there must be a reason why the churches in Spokane were filled to overflowing despite the fact overall church attendance is declining steadily. However, in his analysis of churchgoers, while David Horsey covered the Evangelical, Catholic, Episcopalian and Methodist he left out several of my favorite religious faiths.

For example, he omitted to mention the Mormons who admit to worshiping God but have their own interpretation of the Bible, complete with two books represented to be Holy Scripture. Are they the most-populous American church? Some say yes, some say no. I say it makes a difference on whether you are a practicing Mormon.

Horsey also overlooks the Unitarians who are perceived by some as somewhat of a alternative religion. According to some other churches, they sidestep traditional God-worship because they ordain Gay, Lesbian and Transgendered (BGLT) persons as ministers, which probably drives the Catholics and the Mormons out of their minds. Ah, and then they allow the battle between religion and science to do battle on a regular basis. As far as I know they have not fully accepted Easter as the rising of Christ from the dead, but I could be wrong on that. This may be what is referred to as “intellectualizing Jesus Christ”, but I could be wrong.

Horsey also fails to pay attention to the Unity movement, the Buddhists, Zoroastrians and various other sects who regularly plead for you to join their congregations and contribute to their cause(s). Each have their own set of disciplines, beliefs and long (sometimes tortured) histories, some of which predate the time of Christ.

Horsey's cartoon begs the question quite directly: Is Christianity dead or dying on the carpet of Faith? I submit that if you judge the validity of Christianity by the number of persons in church on Easter Sunday, you might be drawn to conclude it is alive and well in America. However, in mid-July this summer, when everyone flees Spokane for camping trips, vacations and other events, you might draw a different conclusion.

My opinion is if you base your belief in the resiliency of Christianity upon the attendance in church, then you might truly end up scratching your heads, because the resident populations dramatically diminishes then.

Dave

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