I didn't cheer in high school. I was the farthest thing from a cheerleader in high school. We made fun of cheerleaders. Everybody did!
For one, thing, the media are dominated by the irreligious. So are universities.
The success of the West, including the rise of science, rested entirely on religious foundations, and the people who brought it about were devout Christians.
Far too long, historians have accepted the claim that the conversion of the Emperor Constantine (ca. 285-337) caused the triumph of Christianity. To the contrary, he destroyed its most attractive and dynamic aspects, turning a high-intensity, grassroots movement into an arrogant institution controlled by an elite who often managed to be both brutal and lax.
Although it has been fashionable to deny it, anti-slavery doctrines began to appear in Christian theology soon after the decline of Rome and were accompanied by the eventual disappearance of slavery in all but the fringes of Christian Europe. When Europeans subsequently instituted slavery in the New World, they did so over strenuous papal opposition, a fact that was conveniently 'lost' from history until recently. Finally, the abolition of New World slavery was initiated and achieved by Christian activists.
Many people who say they have no religion are simply saying they have no official religious affiliation. They may actually have strong personal beliefs.
. . . All questions concerning the rise of Christianity are one: How was it done? How did a tiny and obscure messianic movement from the edge of the Roman Empire dislodge classical paganism and become the dominant faith of Western civilization? Although this is the only question, it requires many answers - no one thing led to the triumph of Christianity.
My doctor told me that I drastically needed to lose weight. Fear of death and dying motivated meto make many lifestyle changes that led me to eventually shed over 100 pounds.
Anecdotes, personal stories, reminiscences, like biblical parables, are the medium through which faith is restored. Stories are a form of poetry, and give us a saving image to personally relate to.
Britain is an open and tolerant country.
Genius is present in every age, but the men carrying it within them remain benumbed unless extraordinary events occur to heat up and melt the mass so that it flows forth.