A polemical initiative for reform of the Catholic Church in Germany is under way, as reported by the Deutsche Welle. The context is all the recent scandals about child abuse and sexual misconduct by priests, as well as a continuing, significant decline in Church attendance. The latter has been going on for decades but is now reaching a point where the very survival of the Church is at stake. Many parishes have already closed. In my country, even the Cathedral of Utrecht, home of the archbishop, has had to close last year. It is fair to say that the situation is coming to a head and the future of religion in the Western world looks bleak.

Source: A suggestion for Church reform ~ Metaphysical Speculations

Last month, I published a Sunday essay that made a number of people extremely angry. It was called “The Seeds of Political Violence Are Being Sown in Church.”  In the piece I noted that Michael Flynn, a man who called for martial law to help overturn the election, was packing churches across America as part of a “ReAwaken America” tour that was so thoroughly Christian that it was sponsored by one of Pentecostal Christianity’s most important publications, Charisma News. The response to my essay can best be described as “volcanic.” But not because I got my facts wrong. The threats I described in the piece are real. The attendance of thousands upon thousands of Christians at those rallies is real. Flynn’s record is well-documented. The recent record of religiously motivated political violence was very real.

Source: Getting ‘More Christians Into Politics’ Is the Wrong Christian Goal

“We don’t really understand why,” Alan Scott said in a recording of a Sunday service obtained by CT. “I wish I really could sit before you today and say, ‘Here are the six reasons,’ ‘Here’s our issues,’ ‘Here are our grievances,’ or whatever. … We don’t always know what’s on the other side of obedience.”

Source: Leading Church Exits Vineyard…… | News & Reporting | Christianity Today

On the religious roots of war and the Christian response.

Source: The Best of Christian Compassion, the Worst of Religious Power

The rise of global oligarchs and the internet, which enables those oligarchs to spread disinformation, has made significant numbers of American voters once again slide away from democracy to embrace the idea that the country would work better with a few leaders making the rules for the rest of us. In nineteen states, Republican-dominated legislatures have passed laws that restrict the vote and entrench minority rule, even up to allowing state legislatures to overturn election results. If that is permitted to stand, that minority can choose our president, and it is increasingly backing one single man, one individual, to rule over the rest of us.

Source: March 12, 2022 – by Heather Cox Richardson