Theos-Talk Archives (January 2002 Message tt00467)

Paul & Steve

First let me say that I am glad my humble contributions merit response.
Thank you all.

Very interesting Steve. I'm aware of HPB's 75th year prediction but never
concidered it in light of what we have been discussing. All you say sure
sounds reasonable.

As to Paul's observations, one element we have not yet discussed in light
of Liberal Christian decline is the disparity of belief between clergy
and laity. For some years now (forty or so) polls taken of mainline
Protestant clergy show an increasing lack of faith for the dogmatic
tenents their churches once held true. Many doubt the divinity of Christ.
Many hold the Bible to be little more than a book of fables. Most are
more involved with political correctness and social injustice than the
preaching of the old gospel.

On the other hand, many more parishiners percent wise still believe in
the old ways. But the clergy are destroying their own churches while
membership leaks elsewhere. 

The Unitarians are totally different. No one ever became a Unitarian
thinking they were joining a conservative organization! That's the
difference. Methodists were the conservatives of the 19th century and
have only slowly crept towards liberalism in this last. Unitarians were
founded on the rock of liberalism. The Puritans were as conservative as
they come. They became somewhat lax as all do. When their "revival" of
the 1720's came around (the Great Awakening) it split the puritans
assunder. The liberals who could not fathom a return to the old ways
formed the Unitarian Church while the conservatives remained as the
Congregationalists. The Unitarians became even more liberal when they
merged with the Universalists some years ago. They draw from the
intelligencia of society.
I dated a Unitarian girl for two years in college and even attended an
Easter service. Boy, was that an eye opener!

As for the Southern Baptists, I think there was some political
factionalism at the last conventions and rumors that some congregations
may withdraw to do their own thing. Maybe some of that is showing.

I guess we can fine tune this til the cows come home (oops, my country
background is slipping through) I think we've got the overall picture.

Larry 

Steve: One of the ideas I found in Blavatsky and followed up
> was the notion that there is a 100 year cycle in the
> consciousness of the masses regarding matters
> transcendental. Specifically, she says her
> organization sends out a messenger in the seventy
> fifth year of every century. Following up on that, I
> found the whole story to be considerably more
> interesting.
> 
> For several centuries now the first half of the
> century seems to be dominated by the conservative
> religious groups. Christianity was founded during the
> first half of the first century and Mormonism and the
> Ba'hai "faith" during the first half of the
> nineteenth. It was between 1618 and 1648 that the
> Thirty Years War was fought.
> 
> Then in the forty eighth year something of great
> significance seems to happen to mark the shift. In
> 1648 the Treaty of Westphalia marked the formal end of
> the Thirty Years War. It was then and thereafter that
> the Rosicrucians began to rise to prominence, the
> writings of Boehme were published in English, etc. It
> was in 1647 that the Rosicrucian lodge at Nuremberg
> was reconstituted with Leibniz as secretary. In 1748
> there was once again a resurgence in European
> Rosicrucianism, followed by a plethora of copycat
> groups. In 1848 the Rochester Manifestations marked
> the beginning of the spiritualist movement, etc.
> 
> The second half of the century also marks some
> increase in materialsm and anti spirituality. This
> was quite marked in the nineteenth century, but can
> also be seen in the sighteenth, with the Rosicrucians
> setting up an absurd council to consider and censor
> books, including Kant's RELIGION WITHIN THE LIMITS OF
> REASON ALONE.
> 
> At the end of the century, liberalism and esotericism
> starts to decline and we see a resurgence of
> conservatism, fanaticism, intolerance, etc., such as
> we are seeing today. Blavatsky predicted that her WB
> would withdraw from the TS in 1897. That is probably
> true, and there rs no reason to believe that they came
> back after withdrawing.
> 
> Whether Blavatsky's prophecy of the new messenger in
> 1975 was ever fulfilled or not I cannot say, but
> NEWSWEEK ran a special issue reporting on the fact
> that it was in that year that esoteric stuff peaked,
> with the Maharishi, some Brazilian group whose name I
> do not remember, and so on. The entire issue was
> dedicated to that.
> 
> Those may all just be coincidences, but they seem
> consistent enough to be at least interesting
> historically.
> 
> The decline of "liberal Christianity" (which frankly
> sounds like an oxymoron to me) is therefore in line
> with what has happened in the past, and will probably
> be accompanied by a decline in esoteric groups as
> well. That will continue until about 2048, and then
> the cycle will begin anew.
> 
> Steve
> 
> --- kpauljohnson <kpauljohnson@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > Larry,
> > 
> > Your presence adds something to the list and I
> > welcome the kind of 
> > contributions you make below:
> > > 
> > > This liberal/fundimentalist trend is not unique.
> > In Protestant
> > > Christianity, all the old mainline churches which
> > now view 
> > themselves as liberal, are in decline. Methodists,
> > Lutherans, 
> > Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Reformed, all these
> > have lost 
> > significant membership in the last thirty to forty
> > years. 
> > 
> > Disciples of Christ also. But one non-mainstream
> > church that is 
> > liberal is definitely not declining: the Unitarian
> > Universalists are 
> > growing at a rapid rate last I read. Another
> > liberal success story 
> > is the Unity School of Christianity, pretty
> > expansionary if I recall 
> > correctly. Note that these two consist of converts,
> > whereas the 
> > mainline losses are to people born into the faith.
> > 
> > > On the other side, the Southern Baptists,
> > 
> > Actually, I just read recently that the SBC had its
> > first year of 
> > declining numbers. THANK YOU, JESUS.
> > 
> > > Pentacostals, Holiness and other more conservative
> > sects are still 
> > on the rise.
> > 
> > Some conservative sects are in steep decline too. 
> > But by and large 
> > the fastest growing groups are conservative, e.g.
> > the Seventh-day 
> > Adventists.
> > 
> > Once, the Methodists were in that position. I guess
> > that's cycles
> > > in action.
> > > 
> > 
> > The ARE is one of the most intriguing examples of
> > membership booming 
> > and busting; 17k when I first joined in 1977; up to
> > almost 100k in 
> > 1989, back down around 20k now. Lots of discussion
> > about why that 
> > happened.
> > 
> > As for Theosophy, I don't know about numbers but the
> > impression of 
> > vitality was generally strong in the late 70s and
> > 80s, across the 
> > board-- Adyar, Pasadena, ULT. I don't get the same
> > impression now.
> > 
> > Cheers,
> > 
> > Paul
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to
> > http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ 
> > 
> > 
> 
> 
> __________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> Great stuff seeking new owners in Yahoo! Auctions! 
> http://auctions.yahoo.com
> 
> 
> 
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to 
> http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ 
> 
> 

________________________________________________________________
GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO!
Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less!
Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit:
http://dl.www.juno.com/get/web/.