Industrialized Christianity

As I've stated in my book, Writings of a Deliberate Agrarian, and in other places, the Industrial Revolution of the mid 1800's led to the total upheval and near destruction of traditional, Biblically-based, predominantly agrarian, family life. A way of life which, I hasten to point out, had been lived to various, but not widely divergent, degrees by Christians for centuries. My point being— the typical way of life for families in our modern culture is a complete historical abberation.

The Christian church was inexorably reformed by industrial thought and attitude too. Take, for example, the modern-day evangelical alter call. These days, syncretistic and scientific psychological methods are often used to achieve high numbers of "decisions for Christ" within the shortest amount of time. But such decisions are often shallow, short-lived, and, ultimately, counterproductive.

I suspect modern Christianity, as practiced by the masses, is so far divorced (in time and practice) from true Christianity that we who call ourselves Christians, and see the error, have a hard time understanding how it should be and how to get back to where we belong.

In any event, if my words about the modern-day alter call have piqued your interest, I recommend this article by Ray Comfort. Mr. Comfort's article prompted me to write this blog.

P.S. If you check out the article, please take the time to read responses to the article at the site. There are, as you might imagine, strong opinions on both sides of this issue.