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Comment by dunnevens | Hacker News Reader

The western nations have been seeing the opposite of an uptick. Churches are generally in decline, while the number of non-affiliated is rising. Even in the US. Some American denominations still have considerable political power because of various factors, but their membership numbers are shrinking.

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Yes, this is precisely what I mean: people are leaving the major denominations because they feel the churches have become too mundane, and choose to affiliate with more radical fundamentalist groups.

The narrative is often that the natural events of recent years and of course COVID are God’s punishment for maintaining support for the mainstream churches after their leaders voiced their acceptance of various oppressed groups of people.

Eh, there’s a lot of “evangelicals” in my social sphere, some that you may even consider radical, and none of them think this.

The whole “hurricanes are God’s wrath on the US for gay rights” kinda thing isn’t really a wide swath even for the more evangelical set.

At least in my experience which is a bit considerable.

In fact the only time I’ve encountered that sort of rhetoric has been from mainline denominations.

Note that you are talking about your social sphere, assumingly in the US, and generalising that to the world. I am taking nationwide trends outside the US and generalising them to the world.

https://europeanacademyofreligionandsociety.com/news/the-ris...

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