Hank Hanegraaff, president of the Christian Research Institute and host of the ššŖš£šš¦ ššÆš“šøš¦š³ šš¢šÆ broadcast, comments on an article in USA Today by Deena Yellin, entitled āMillions Giving up Organized ReligionāAmericaās Fast-Growing Movement: The āNonesāā (October 4, 2021). āNonesā have no religious affiliation. Yellin explains that a āsea changeā is taking place in our culture. Something is āreplacing organized religion.ā This āhard-to-defineā something ācan manifest as a devotion to nature, meditation, yoga or political activism, among other things.ā According to polls, Nonesāāas many as 70 million American adultsāāāstill believe in a higher power, or even the biblical Godābut on their own terms.ā The truth, however, is that Church is never optional. What is needed is to find the mystery that can be found nowhere other than in Christās Church, because the Church is the sphere within which union with the one true and living God in Christ is accomplished. It is through the Church that Godās saving power is mediated to the whole of humanity. While the article talks about lone-ranger, individualized spirituality, Christianity knows nothing of the sort. The Church is the reincarnation of Eden. The place in which we may access the Tree of Life replete with its eucharistic bounty. Itās in the Church that we receive the graces that transform us and satisfy our deepest needs, and such cannot be accomplished in isolationābut only within the community of the body of Christ.
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