THE CHICKEN OR THE EGG

 Have you ever really wrestled with this question, "Which came first, the chicken or the egg?"  My preferred answer is "who cares?"

Here's another but this time I would love to have the answer about which came first -  the decline in the number of people who claim to be Christian or the number of Clergy servicing them; in Catholics or Priests, in Protestants or Ministers, in Jews or Rabbis?  I want to be inclusive because I know that the phenomena is pervasive across all religions.  The same thing is happening everywhere around the world as I perceive it.  Our churches, synagogues and mosques in the U.S., are emptying. 

A group called the Religious News Service (RNS) tracks religious activity of all religions.  In the USA, overall activity peaked in 1957 or there about.  The rise to that point was probably the fallout of Word War II.  People praised God that they were spared and the evil in the world had been eliminated.  The last 60 years or so the graph runs steadily downward.  In the last twenty years the decline is even more pronounced.   

Is religion something that the young feel is unnecessary?  Does everyone feel that their fate is totally in their hands?  Do our young feel we have conquered space, the atom, communications and physical science so we are in control?  Do people feel they are fully in charge of what happens in the world and to the world?  Is there no longer a need for a higher power? 

One of my favorite lines from one of my favorite plays was spoken by a knavish sprite called Puck to Oberon the king of the fairies near the end of William Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream".  Puck observed "Lord, what fools these mortals be."  

It seems only a major catastrophe or calamity will reverse the tide.