Maybe it's just because I don't remember the golden age you look back to, but society never made a "big deal" about Sunday worship. Church was something many people did and most people didn't go to work then. (Though, in my area there were people who worked every day.)
It wasn't so much a golden age but more a social norm that gradually deminished. Sunday was on peoples mind because it was regarded as a day of worship. The fact that society toyed with laws and restrictions around Sunday made it a big deal. That norm gradually changed so that it wasn't such a big deal anymore.
It wasn't about every single person gping along all the time but the fact that the big deal about Sunday influenced our social norms because it was part of the majority belief.
Don't be so sure about that. The recent spate of book banning laws and anti-drag ordinances that have sprung up recently is various places show how easy it is for something beyond the norm to be enacted when the momentary political fever strikes.
Thats completely different. Your projecting how we think today back into a time when the vast majority (80 to 90%) were Christains and so it was a natural progression that Christian values seeped into social norms.
Todays political climate in a Post Modernist society is all over the place and democracy is breaking down. Society is no longer united in their values and ideology so that leaves open a void to be filled with whatever idea ideologues want to push in the name of morals and values. Its relative and based on identity and not reality.
When you reject the truth. leave it open for relative interpretation you also reject reality. The new social norms are self created relativist feelings and senitments about truth and morals and not based on anything higher than the individual and society itself which can unite people.
I'm not sure there is any point to this. These claims are all just vague notions without quantitative measure.
I have given some support for this such as the fact that society back then was predominately Christian. Do you honestly believe that in such a dominant Christian context that the importance of Sunday was not on the social conscience. This is just one aspect that the Christian world view influence the public square. Any idea or belief that predominates thought will be expressed in social norms.
Sunday was always sacred. It is when the NFL played, though that has been diluted by Monday Night, Thursday Night, and even saturday football. Sigh.
Lol yeah thats another religion that can dominate society. Ours is rugby league but soccor is a pretty big world religion. Very similar when two waring teams meet for a local game. The whole town has to lockdown while the opposing teams fans enter and leave the town. They are very passionate and tribal.
Working more to make ends meet has nothing to do with any decline in Christianity.
I was talking about how Sunday went from mostly not working to gradually becoming more a work day or an ordinary day of the week without any religious significance.
But in some ways working more to make ends meet is a part of why people don'y pay much attention to religion. Christianity has become more conformed to the secular idea of modern life, more commercialised. So in that sense working more and all the white noise of modern life and all its stresses and compliances does distract from Christianity, from the spiritual aspect of life in a general sense.
I have no idea what "Salvos" are, but rewriting current tunes to be gospel songs sounds awful. (If you want good gospel songs, they exist. Don't ruin perfectly good pop music. Ugh.)
The Salvo's are the Salvation Army. They are known for rolling their sleeves up, and getting out into society to help the needy. Saved my life anyway. They are probably most known as being in the war trenches during the war helping the soldiers or as a charity during the 19th century that began social welfare by working the slums.
They also used the classic gospel songs but being a young guy I didn't know most of them. But did recognise the tunes of some of their songs because they were contemporary but instead the words related to Jesus and the message of salvation. This was revolutionary back then as it allowed many people to relate rather than the usual boring old repeated hymes.
But now its gone too far where some churches are almost Hollywood productions lol. They have sold their soul to satan like Robert Johnson lol.
Fellowship was irrelevant.
Its interesting you say that. I would imagine if the gathering was something you related to or caught your attention and interest it would be a completely different experience. I guess it comes down to how your see the world, beliefs of course, what your open to believe and invest in.
But the good thing about Christian fellowship if your into it is that it will always be positive, inspiring, life meaning and changing, problem sharing, helping others, hope ect all those positive things which help people in life.
Because its organised its almost a school of life where people are repeatedly reminded to live a good life. The words are repeated to love others as yourself, that your worth a great deal and that tends to rub off. Put it this way its better than people being on the streets and getting into trouble or wanting to end their life because of no hope in this world.