Unitarian Universalists, the vastest growing religious group.
There are always two dynamics in play: The force of division, and the tendency to merge. The blue-state bible-belt which we saw exploited so relentlessly in the last political epoch is now dividing. The old familiars -- Graham, Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, James Dobson, and Richard Land -- are giving way to the fresh charisma of the new guard -- Rick Warren, Richard Cizik, and Ted Haggard. New talking heads of the Church victorious. Even inside the Southern Baptist Convention (the largest Protestant denomination), we see the platform of Frank Page moving the discourse from the cognitive dissonance of anti-abortion pro-death penalty, anti-gay pro-marriage obsessions, to the more topical and urgent and "get real" messages, such as social justice, globalization, and stewardship of natural resources.
In the larger world, forces of Unity are clearly at work in the Church Ascendant. The fastest growing congregations in the world among all religious communities based on "choice" (not merely the number of births in countries with State religions), are the Unitarian Universalist. Maybe most people who have the "choice" of beliefs, who understand who they are as human beings, maybe everyone, is a closet Unitarian.
RELIGION/SCIENCE ONE-WAY EROSION. I can see many examples of religious beliefs being replaced by scientific paradigms. Ecclesiastical authority ascended against pagan beliefs, but it did not supplant Pythagorean Geometry or Archimedean Hydrolics. I cannot find an example of Church Authority replacing a known "science".
ReplyDeleteHowever, we have many examples of science gradually eroding religious authority, even where the Aquinian Church had usurped pagan Aristotle's "science" to itself.
Just as the 2d law of thermdynamics is one way - things get older colder darker slower -- so do all "spiritual beliefs" fall to scientific method.