The Roanoke Slant

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Roanoke Times, 10-16-11, Pg 4: Americans’ religious faith is in decline according to Duke University Professor and expert Mark Chaves.
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“Chaves found the strength of religious conservatives in politics has coincided with a growing disillusionment about faith’s role in the public square.”
“As Christians affiliated more through the Republican Party, liberal, marginal churchgoers became offended and left”.
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What an interesting cause-and-effect conclusion, totally contrary to my views, of what has been happening in Christian religion over the past 40 years!
The Conservatives are driving out the Progressive Socialist Democrats? Really?
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The following are some “anecdotal” items that somehow do not show up in Prof. Chaves’ article and are totally inconsistent with his view of who is contributing to the exodus.
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During the 1970’s the left-wing elements of the Christian Church, spearheaded by New York’s Riverside Church, alienated scores of parishioners by the tone, tenor, content and intensity of their anti-war crusade. This clearly alienated very large numbers of veterans of WW2, Korea, Vietnam and their families, friends and associates, including myself who up to that time had been a faithful member, Deacon and Elder.
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During the 1990’s the Christian Church and more specifically the Catholic Church alienated large numbers of parishioners by the revelations of homosexual abuse of young boys. Many laid the base fault for this problem on the prior recruitment of homosexuals into the priesthood due to major recruitment shortfalls. The premise being that “they were harmless” and wouldn’t cause any “external” issues or notoriety. This total malfeasance of church stewardship and management alienated scores of Christians, including myself.
http://roanokeslant.blogspot.com/2005/12/catholic-church-and-homosexual-priests.html
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During the 2000’s the progressive-liberal members of many Christian Churches launched major initiatives to install openly homosexual persons as clergy. This activity is in conflict with 2000 years of Christian beliefs and teachings. This alienated scores of parishioners, including myself.
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For many “old folks” there is a major and profound difference between tolerance verses the acceptance of things we find to be NOT OK!
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My view of the decline in faith has much more to do with the “success” of the progressive-liberal’s in forcing their views upon the Conservatives than the opposite. And, in those cases where there is resistance, the liberals have been very successful in bringing the ACLU with the Liberal Courts to force their views upon all others.
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As for the general public, we are all very fickle. After all, it was the same folks that laid the palm branches down on the muddy trail one day, who several days later were yelling: "give us Barabbas"!
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Or as the old poem goes:
God and the soldier we adore
In times of danger, not before
The danger past, and all wrongs righted
God’s forgotten and the soldier slighted
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The direction and rapid motion toward progressive-socialism in economic, social, political and theological actions is now a done deal. As one who views what is happening in our Country, particularly relative to our youth, it’s not clear to me that all our liberalization has made positive improvements over “The Greatest Generation”!
All change is not positive;  All movement is not forward!
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In Reflection: History has not been kind to those societies and people that lost their moral compass!
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http://roanokeslant.blogspot.com/2011/06/lost-our-moral-compass.html
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