RISE OF THE NONES
By Al Collins
“Canada to lose 9000 churches over the next 10 years (1/3 of all churches in Canada)” – CBC March 10, 2019
“Thousands of churches in Europe are closing” – IMB Feb. 11, 2019
“Americans with “No Religion” Increases By 266% Over Last 3 Decades” – Prophecy News Watch (PNW) April 8, 2019
What’s going on? Is Christianity experiencing a “mass extinction” as one reporter put it?
“People with no religion – known as ‘nones’ among statisticians – account for 23.1 percent of the U.S. population, while Catholics make up 23 percent and Evangelicals account for 22.5 percent, according to the General Social Survey.
In other words, the “nones” are now officially the largest religious group in the United States”. PNW
What’s a “none”?
Nones are people who report no religious affiliation. This title can also encompass descriptive titles such as atheists, humanists, evolutionists and agnostics.
“Today, nearly four in ten (39%) young adults (ages 18-29) are religiously unaffiliated–three times the unaffiliated rate (13%) among seniors (ages 65 and older). While previous generations were also more likely to be religiously unaffiliated in their twenties, young adults today are nearly four times as likely as young adults a generation ago to identify as religiously unaffiliated. In 1986, for example, only 10% of young adults claimed no religious affiliation.
To go from 10 percent during Ronald Reagan’s second term to 39 percent today is an absolutely colossal shift.
And even the young people that are involved in church do not seem very keen on sharing their faith with others. According to one of the most shocking surveys that I have seen in a long time, 47 percent of Millennials that consider themselves to be “practicing Christians” believe that it is “wrong” to share the gospel with others…
A new study from the California-based firm Barna Group, which compiles data on Christian trends in American culture, has revealed a staggering number of American millennials think evangelism is wrong”. PNW
But, is lack of evangelism the reason for the rise of the nones?
I say, no.
Religion is the rotten root that’s planted and tended to by satan.
Let’s examine some of the reasons why people say they left “church” to become a none:
*Church isn’t relevant in today’s world
*Sexual abuse by priests and other leaders
*No sense of connection
*Just a bunch of rules and traditions
*Members are hypocritical
*Controlling leaders
*Political and social issues
*False doctrines
*Boring
*Always after my money
*Spiritually dead
Notice, no one says, they don’t like miracles, signs and wonders anymore.
Notice, no one says, they don’t like visiting with God in Heaven anymore.
Notice, no one says, they don’t like being a saint, ruler, royal priest and joint-heir with Christ anymore.
Religion doesn’t want you knowing about or doing God stuff. Satan doesn’t want you knowing about or doing God stuff.
I can relate to the nones, as I walked away from the religious church for most of these reasons in 1969. I poked my nose in, here and there several times over the decades, with groups that said they were different.
Found too much leaven.
“Then Jesus said to them, “Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees.”” Matthew 16:6 NKJV
“Your glorying is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Therefore, purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened.” 1 Corinthians 5:6-7 NKJV
“A little leaven leavens the whole lump.” Galatians 5:9 NKJV
What is leaven?
Leaven is a little bit of a person’s religious junk, that they mix in with God’s Truth or God’s Standards. People will come up with various laughable reasons for involvement with compromising groups, wrong people, made-up doctrines and phony belief systems in their lives. They’ll even say that God told them that it’s OK to carry on with alternate standards or compromising with Him.
Bologna!
God never contradicts His own Word!
Keeping seemingly harmless religious pets in our lives doesn’t assist in our relationship with God nor our place in Heaven nor our destiny with Him. Religion isn’t God’s will.
Jesus said, “Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Matthew 6:10 NKJV
If you believe what God says, then do it!
Some say I should have more grace (not my job) or not be judgmental (one of my job’s as a ruler and royal priest is to confront heresy – 1 Corinthians 5:12) or I’m too black and white (God is black and white… I just go with His standards, not mine or man’s).
On April 7, 2019, I was at my chateau in Heaven spending time with Father and Jesus. One of the things Jesus said to me is, “Many will reject what we hand to them. Walk away from them and move forward. Do not linger with fools. Their price will be met”.
“Do not answer a fool according to his folly, lest you also be like him.” Proverbs 26:4
“For the foolish person will speak foolishness,
And his heart will work iniquity:
To practice ungodliness,
To utter error against the Lord,
To keep the hungry unsatisfied,
And he will cause the drink of the thirsty to fail.” Isaiah 32:6 NKJV
People (spiritual beings) yearn to operate in supernatural realms! If they don’t get it from Christians, they’ll go to the occult; experiment with other religions or become a frustrated none.
People need to visit Heaven and walk with God now, not walk around with fools in some religious fog! Although, many prefer the religious fog, even when the supernatural is revealed to them.
Waiting for God and Heaven until we die is a false religious doctrine! People can and should walk in their full inheritance now.
“and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus”. Ephesians 2:6 NKJV
The religious church and their leaders keep people from God and Heaven with their religious ways. God says, religious practitioners are hell bound.
Jesus says, “But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men; for you neither go in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in. 14 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you devour widows’ houses, and for a pretense make long prayers. Therefore, you will receive greater condemnation.
15 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel land and sea to win one proselyte, and when he is won, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves.” Matthew 23:13-15
Religious church leaders are commandants of death camps! People are fed artificial doctrines, placebos, compromise and heresies as meals. They’re controlled by entertaining con artists with flesh-driven agendas. They masquerade as representatives of God.
Commandants and death camps can also be found at online churches/groups, home groups, conferences, seminars, webinars, blogs, TV, radio and in books and DVD’s.
Many prisoners choose to stay in death camps, although they are free to leave. Those who leave may walk into a different death camp (i.e. occult, new age, islam, buddhism, hinduism, judaism).
Or… leave to become a none.
Few find the narrow way to God and His Truth.
Those who stay in these religious camps wither away their lives until death, yet, even physical death doesn’t set them free, as Jesus said in the above scripture.
Liberate yourself from all death camps. Liberate others who are imprisoned. Remove the religious garments. Religion isn’t God.
Christianity isn’t becoming extinct. Fake Christianity is.
“somewhere between 6,000 and 10,000 churches in the United States are dying each year.
That means that more than 100 will die this week”. PNW
I say, let ‘em go.
Let religion die off.
Let God take over in each person’s life!
Evangelism will take care of itself when people see God manifest in and around true Christians.
Good Hunting!