{"id":91518,"date":"2015-02-23T00:40:14","date_gmt":"2015-02-23T07:40:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/?p=91518"},"modified":"2015-02-19T00:00:46","modified_gmt":"2015-02-19T07:00:46","slug":"is-the-church-in-better-shape-than-we-thought","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2015\/02\/is-the-church-in-better-shape-than-we-thought.html","title":{"rendered":"Is the Church in Better Shape Than We Thought?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

A reader writes:<\/p>\n

I stumbled across a book that caused me to re-consider whether western Christianity was coming to an end, or was it in better shape (if not size) than ever. The common view is, we are losing\u00a0the culture war and the decline of western Christianity as evidenced by the falling church attendance rates means it has a limited shelf life.<\/p>\n

We want things to be back to the way they were when everyone was a committed Catholic and church attendance was almost universal. The problem is, there never really has been such a period. Yes there have been times when most people in western Europe would have been nominal Catholics but as for their understanding the faith and living it out \u2013 that\u2019s a different matter. In fact when you look at the available evidence (the number of daily mass goers, the fact that anyone who goes to church now has really made a positive (not cultural) decision to go, etc., this could be considered a golden period of western Christianity.<\/p>\n

The book which got me thinking is free and on line\u00a0(see link below):<\/p>\n

http:\/\/genealogyreligion.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/Secularization-RIP-Stark<\/a><\/p>\n

It describes the following scenes from the middle ages:<\/p>\n