Post-modern America is being taken over by rampant secularism and spilling over into churches in subtle ways difficult to detect. It operates like a virus, spreading mind to mind, and multiplying itself and mutating to adapt to new Christian reactions to it, the latest of which is evangelical fundamentalism.
The problem is that nothing will work so long as the underlying foundation of the protestant denomination is based on adaptation as well. All denominational and non-denominational churches under the Protestant umbrella mutate, multiply, and adapt the same way the secularist worldview does, thus making both worldviews ripe for osmosis.
Case and point: contraception.
For 2,000 years the Catholic church has been against contraception. Since the Protestant reformation all Protestant denominations were against it up until the 1930's. The Anglican Church was the first to compromise and the rest followed suit.
The Catholic church, however, still speaks out against it as it has for the last 2,000 years, while Protestants see it as a secondary moral issue. To them contraception is permissible since there is no explicit biblical text they can point to that forbids it.
For an unbeliever accustomed to the social norms of our day it is much easier to become a Protestant. And this is where the Trojan horse can be found (no pun intended). It is in these subtle ways that the secular worldview enters Christian religious communities and quietly influences them.
It's a slow process. The frog in the warm to boiling water analogy fits well here. Protestants don't know that in their attempt to become relevant, they are becoming irrelevant. Not because being relevant to the culture isn't important, but because they themselves have no center of balance, no point of reference to see how far they've gone.
How long will it be before the modern music, colorful lights, smoke machines, big screens, and the hip pastor, all become irrelevant?
What then? What if the culture is so backwards that becoming relevant means compromise? The issue of contraception is the precedent for the validity of this problem. Becoming relevant meant compromising what Christians held as true for 2,000 years.
This is what will become of Protestantism in the future. More division, more disagreements, more secularization.
You need a center of balance and a point of reference. This cannot be found anywhere else except in the Catholic church which has been the center of balance for Christianity for 2,000 years, misgivings and all.
Think about it for a second. The Catholic church is an institution (Protestants hate that word) that is despised among secularists and Christians alike! It's too organized, too dogmatic, and so out of touch!
What do you expect for a 2,000 year old institution established by the Son of God himself? Would you not expect that the Church established by Christ Himself would be organized, continue to speak with authority on issues regarding faith and morals, and carry with it a rich tradition?
It is in our Tradition that we will be relevant to the most modern culture. Men and women will walk into our churches with reverence, sensing they are in a holy place, and be taken to heaven with an other worldly experience, unlike anything our modern culture has to offer.
Rather than experiencing a nice hour long talk with concert music and lights, they experience an ancient liturgy with clergy in ancient vestments and prayers as old as the Church itself. The candles, incense chanting, stained glass windows that tell a story, and beautiful statues of saints we wish to remember, will take them back and away from the shallowness of this culture.
The Catholic church is the answer, for she contains the true Gospel of Our Lord, Jesus Christ. She contains the sacraments given to us by Christ Himself. She contains the fullness of truth.
Come home all of you who desire to know God and His only Son, Jesus Christ. The Catholic church welcomes you.
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