Assault on the Imagination
Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil,
as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:
1 Peter 5:8"Christian minister and apologist Josh McDowell recently spoke at the International Christian Retail Show, where he told attendees that the Internet is the greatest threat to Christianity.
"The Internet has given atheists, agnostics, skeptics, the people who like to destroy everything that you and I believe, the almost equal access to your kids as your youth pastor and you have... whether you like it or not."He goes on to cite many statistics showing just how influential the Internet has become. According to McDowell:
- The number of evangelical Christians who don't believe in absolute truth has jumped from 51 percent to 62 percent in 1994, then to 78 percent in 1999 and it now hovers at around 91 percent.
- Back in the good old (pre-Internet) days, if an agnostic or atheist wrote a book nobody would read it. But now the Internet has given atheist authors access to these kids' minds." TheReligionVirus
"Religious groups aren't capturing the hearts of the millennial generation, and the Internet is partly to blame, says the author on a new book on building strong religious communities. A Sociological Overview, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis professor Patricia Wittberg.
The youngest generational cohort of adults studied -- the millennials -- were the least attached to organized religion, said Wittberg,...."Over 33 percent of them claim no affiliation, the highest percentage for well over 100 years," the sociologist said.
"Some of this (lack of affiliation) is due to the individualizing experience of accessing religion and spirituality via the Internet," Wittberg said. "On the Internet, seekers can pick and choose what kinds of doctrines appeal to them -- with little or no consideration of the official teachings of any church -- and they can join and leave religious online 'communities' much more easily." ScienceDaily