Welcome to the shallow society

From our point of view, a little religion is just as good as no religion at all- and much more amusing.
--The demon Screwtape, in C.S. Lewis's The Screwtape Letters

For all those both within the Church and outside it who are in denial about just where our culture is right now when it comes to religion, here's a thoughtful look from a Roman Catholic blogger on the rise of 'nominal' Christianity and Judaism in America.

Now, here's the thing: it's not that biblical faith is outmoded, or irrelevant. And it certainly isn't that organized religion hasn't sold out sufficiently and compromised its substance enough in order to embrace modern Americans and their values. It's that we in our culture have forgotten how to think, and have become shallow, banal individualists who make our decisions on the basis of a combination of selfishness and sentimentality.

Then, too, there's something to be said for G.K. Chesterton's observation that "Christianity hasn't been tried and found wanting. It's been found hard and not tried."

Modern Americans don't do hard. After all, the purpose of the universe is to serve them.

HT: Real Clear Religion