{"id":92702,"date":"2024-08-21T11:50:52","date_gmt":"2024-08-21T15:50:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/?p=92702"},"modified":"2024-08-21T12:07:44","modified_gmt":"2024-08-21T16:07:44","slug":"what-happens-when-we-dont-love-or-even-care-about-our-neighbor-christian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/2024\/08\/21\/what-happens-when-we-dont-love-or-even-care-about-our-neighbor-christian\/","title":{"rendered":"What happens when we don&#8217;t love &#8212; or even *care* about &#8212; our neighbor? [Christian]"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><span style=\"color: #800000;\">From DSC:<\/span><\/em><br \/>\n<strong><span style=\"color: #800000;\">On a macro scale&#8230;this is on my heart these days.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"color: #800000;\">I ran across some troubling but informative items re: religion in America from item #5 at Rex Woodbury&#8217;s<\/span> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.digitalnative.tech\/p\/10-charts-that-capture-how-the-world-8f7\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">10 Charts That Capture How the World Is Changing:<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/news.gallup.com\/poll\/358364\/religious-americans.aspx\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>How Religious Are Americans?<\/strong><\/a> &#8212; from news.gallup.com\n<ul>\n<li><strong>The long-term\u00a0decline in church attendance<\/strong>\u00a0is linked to a drop in religious identification in general &#8212; particularly for Protestant religions &#8212; but also to decreasing weekly attendance among U.S. Catholics.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Steep Decline in U.S. Church Membership<\/strong><br \/>\nAdditionally, less than half of Americans, 45%, belong to a formal house of worship. Church membership has been below the majority level each of the past four years. When Gallup first asked the question in 1937, 73% were members of a church, and as recently as 1999, 70% were. The\u00a0decline\u00a0in formal church membership has largely been driven by younger generations of Americans. Slightly more than one-third of U.S. young adults have no religious affiliation. Further, many young adults who do identify with a religion do not belong to a church. But even older adults who have a religious preference are less likely to belong to a church today than in the past.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/news.gallup.com\/poll\/358364\/religious-americans.aspx\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-92707 size-full\" src=\"http:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/ImportanceReligionAmerica-2024.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"100%\" height=\"100%\" srcset=\"https:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/ImportanceReligionAmerica-2024.jpg 845w, https:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/ImportanceReligionAmerica-2024-150x82.jpg 150w, https:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/ImportanceReligionAmerica-2024-768x420.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 845px) 100vw, 845px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.aei.org\/articles\/perspective-why-even-secular-people-should-worry-about-gen-zs-lack-of-faith\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>Perspective: Why Even Secular People Should Worry About Gen Z\u2019s Lack of Faith<\/strong><\/a> &#8212; from aei.org by Samuel J. Abrams\n<ul>\n<li><strong>What is powerfully revealing \u2014 and deeply concerning \u2014 is that when younger Americans are asked about\u00a0the\u00a0<em>importance<\/em>\u00a0of community service and volunteer work (not if they have\u00a0<em>done<\/em>\u00a0the work), real differences between those with and without faith emerge.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ffffff;\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #800000;\">I&#8217;ve known about this decline for years now, but Rex&#8217; posting and graphs were disheartening nonetheless. And Samuel Abrams&#8217; article contains many reflections that I&#8217;ve had as well.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #800000;\">The Christian journey is about <em>transformation<\/em> &#8212; our hearts and minds are changed so that we become more like Jesus Christ (the pioneer and perfecter of [our] faith, per <a href=\"https:\/\/www.biblegateway.com\/passage\/?search=hebrews%2012%3A2&amp;version=NIV\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Hebrews 12:2<\/a>). This transformation involves how we see and experience the world as well as how we are supposed to treat others. We receive new &#8220;glasses&#8221; if you will &#8212; new lenses on the world. In fact, <\/span><span style=\"color: #800000;\">Jesus said in<\/span> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.biblegateway.com\/passage\/?search=Matthew%2022%3A37-40&amp;version=NIV\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Matthew 22:37-40<\/a>:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">37 Jesus replied: \u201c\u2018Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.\u2019 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: \u2018Love your neighbor as yourself.\u2019 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"color: #800000;\">So Christians are taught to love our neighbors. I\/we mess up on this constantly, but many of us are trying to get better at it. <\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #800000;\"><strong>But what happens when we don&#8217;t love &#8212; or even <em>care<\/em> for\/about &#8212; our neighbor? Do you know that if you are living in the United States right now, you are <em>already<\/em> feeling and experiencing the impact of this in an <em>enormous<\/em> way?<\/strong> <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #800000;\">Here are a few ways that you can see this playing out &#8212; even from a secular\/business standpoint:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #800000;\">Numerous businesses don&#8217;t care at all if their products harm you, your family, or your future. For example, food companies don&#8217;t care if their products aren&#8217;t good for you &#8212; they just want your repeat business. They are concerned FAR more about Wall Street and their shareholders than about your health. With knowing that I am a chief sinner, I could also point to those businesses pushing marijuana\/cannabis (especially right next to universities and colleges), cigarettes, gambling, and others. There are some dubious folks within the healthcare and pharmaceutical industries as well.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #800000;\">Many businesses lie to you when you call into their 800 #&#8217;s and they tell you that they care about you and your business. Again we see that they greatly appreciate your money, but they really don&#8217;t care about you or your time. They often put you in a long queue.\u00a0 The worst voice response units are programmed to make it extremely difficult &#8212; if not impossible &#8212; to let you talk to a live person.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #800000;\">Many businesses have embarked on the shrinkification of their products: offering smaller amounts but charging the same.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #800000;\">Many businesses don&#8217;t care if our youth are being negatively impacted (social media companies may come to some peoples&#8217; minds. Disclaimer: I use Twitter\/X and LinkedIn frequently).<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #800000;\">Many businesses don&#8217;t care if their technologies are beneficial to society. They don&#8217;t stop to think about whether they <em>should<\/em> design and produce their products&#8230;just whether or not they <em>can<\/em>. Little to no wisdom is being displayed here.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #800000;\">&#8230;and I &#8212; and you &#8212; could list many more here.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"color: #800000;\"><strong>So you and I are already being impacted when we push God out of our lives and out of our institutions. When we Americans look around these days..how&#8217;s that going for us? In my own life, the further I get away from God, the worse things get. <\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #800000;\"><strong>Also, we could talk about mental health*, shootings in our schools and on our streets, and several other things.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"color: #800000;\">Do we care? I do. I think about this kind of thing more and more these days. LORD, forgive us. We need your help.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<h6 style=\"text-align: right;\"><span style=\"color: #800000;\"><strong>* I realize that Christians can struggle with mental health too<\/strong><\/span><\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From DSC: On a macro scale&#8230;this is on my heart these days. I ran across some troubling but informative items re: religion in America from item #5 at Rex Woodbury&#8217;s 10 Charts That Capture How the World Is Changing: How Religious Are Americans? &#8212; from news.gallup.com The long-term\u00a0decline in church attendance\u00a0is linked to a drop [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[113,387,112,159,72,848,425,178,500,419,436,248,377,480,293,66,206,321,367,445],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-92702","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-21st-century","category-business","category-corporate-business-world","category-dangers-of-the-status-quo","category-daniel-s-christian","category-emotion","category-faith","category-generational-differences","category-hearts-matters-of-the-heart","category-ideas-teaching","category-reinvent","category-relationships","category-religion","category-society","category-sociology","category-student-related","category-trends","category-united-states","category-vendors","category-youth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92702","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92702"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92702\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":92716,"href":"https:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92702\/revisions\/92716"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}