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It's really sort of a mixed bag for me. On the one hand, any sort of decline in Christianity is inherently a bad thing, but on the other hand, the decline of mainline Protestantism is to be expected (this has been happening for decades). I think that American Christianity has been more American than Christian for quite some time. I mean, the fact that so many people are more concerned with so-called "marriage equality" than religious freedom is telling.

So the main question is, what's the best scenario for the re-evangelization of America? Is it better to let Atheism take over, then swoop in once people have realized they made the wrong choice, or is it more important to let the majority of American Christians think of themselves as Christians despite their beliefs being closer to moral therapeutic Deism? Personally, I think it'd be healthier to start with square one, than to have to re-educate people who already think of themselves as Christian. It boils down to what's easier: converting a Pagan to Christianity, or convincing a heretical Christian that his views are contrary to orthodox Christianity?

Either way, Christianity has survived as a persecuted minority religion before, so it's safe to assume that it'll survive in the future as well.

P.S. I'm not necessarily saying that Christianity is currently being persecuted in the US (it'd be foolish to claim that it isn't happening elsewhere, given how many Christians have died at the hands of ISIS). If I were trying to say that Christians were currently being persecuted, I'd have said something like "Just like in the past, Christianity has survived persecution, thus it will endure this current persecution as well". Though, like many traditionalist religious people, I'm concerned that when it comes to gay rights versus religious rights, the religious are going to lose. You might say that's a good thing, but I clearly disagree. While you're probably going to think I'm wrong to be against gay marriage, I at least think I'm consistent in that I also criticize American Christianity for allowing no-fault divorce and contraception. I think it's silly that many conservatives are claiming to defend traditional marriage by opposing same-sex marriage, but are totally fine with divorce (which also goes against traditional marriage).

Concerning future persecution of Christianity, it only seems natural. As Western society continues to distance itself from its Christian roots, Christian values will become more out of sync with secular values. Eventually, the religious will be forced to suffer quietly, while "enlightened" Progressivists have their say as to the future of the human race. Have you heard of those Atheist folks that want to make passing your religion onto your children illegal? For many Atheists they dream of a future where religion is either non-existent, or neutered. Would they go so far as to ban religion? Probably not. But things like making proselytizing illegal aren't that far-fetched. Am I wrong to feel concerned when society is moving in a direction I think is wrong? Wouldn't you be concerned too if, say, America were instead in another religious revival?

Risottia wrote:

As I said earlier, Jews are over-represented in politics. Some people - not most, but certainly a significant minority - feel that there was some form of intention by the Jews to destabilize and definitively destroy all the nations of Europe as a revenge for the Holocaust. Fortunately, though, people tend to blame their financial misfortunes on the more general 'bankers' without mentioning the extreme over-representation of Jewish individuals (Rothschild, Bernanke, Madoff, Goldman, Sachs and others come to mind) within financial institutions, and their social and cultural problems on the social democrats in their countries.

So the Elders of Zion conspiracy.

Nothing like that. This particular theory holds that there are many Jews who are angry at Europeans for the Holocaust, and have found themselves in positions of power after the war. The theory isn't entirely nonsensical, because there was one Jewish man by the name of Henry Morgenthau who almost succeeded in having the United States pass a plan to destroy all German industry, have tens of millions of Germans starved to death and turn Germany into a pastoral country. It was only when the media heard about it and there was public outrage (Patton said it could not reconcile it with his "Anglo-Saxon conscience" to punish German individuals for the crimes of the collective) that the plan was softened a bit. Even then, countless German families were thrown out of their homes and German factories were forbidden from producing almost anything that could possibly be used by an army for ten tot twenty years.

Anyway, this theory goes on to state that it wasn't just Morgenthau, and that people like Laurent Fabius (foreign minister of France), Jan Fischer (former Prime Minister of the Czech Republic), John Key (Prime Minister of New Zealand), Ed Miliband (leader of the Labour Party in Britain), David Miliband (former Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs in Britain), Michael Howard (former leader of the Conservative Party), Nigel Lawson (former Chancellor of the Exchequer and key proponent of deregulation in Britain), Leon Brittan (former Vice President of the European Commission for Britain), John Bercow (Speaker of the House of Commons in Britain), Henry Kissinger (you know who that is), Daniel Cohn-Bendit (former leader of the Greens in the European Parliament, once admitted to having abused toddlers), Pierre Moscovici (former Minister of Finance in France, oversaw the near-collapse of France's economy under Hollande) and Dominique Strauss-Kahn (former head of the International Monetary Fund) are still working in the best interests of their own ethnic community and personal friends and family members instead of the best interests of the nations they nominally serve.

Personally, I'm an adherent of a different theory, first uttered - I believe - by Winston Churchill in the early 1920s. It holds that there are three main types of Jews. The first type is the 'National Jew', who considers himself a citizen of the nation he lives in first and foremost. He can be a Briton and a Jew, just as someone else can be a Briton and a Christian. The second type is the 'Zionist Jew', who considers himself an ethnic Jew first and foremost and wants a homeland for himself. These Jews mainly live in Israel nowadays. Then there is the third category, and that's where a lot of these conspiracy theories come from. The third category are the, quote, "international and for the most part atheistic Jews". Because they have no national identity and no credible religious identity to speak of either, they latch onto either extreme materialism (bankers) or extreme ideologies (especially Communism throughout the twentieth century) and put the weight of their intellect and networks behind those new goals.
Essential for 'tolerance' is that you do not personally like what you tolerate - otherwise it would be called acceptance. Tolerance is a sign of a weak society - "I do not like what you do, but I feel emasculated and powerless and therefore I will let you do it."
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