No better way to get one to love you than shattering their clavicle.
Hey, pounding the crap out of people in church is a step up from handing out assault rifles on Sunday mornings. Perhaps this an opening for the WWE to get back to it’s heyday with caged matches between Jesus and the money changers.
The problem here seems much the same as what the Republican Party suffers – the policies of intolerance, bigotry and ignorance drive young people away no matter how many fists in the face and guns are given away in church.
Back in my day we had Jesus Freaks who were nice people with kind things to say about most everything. They had the idea of bringing guitars and music into churches and it worked bad then when Christianity was Christian rather than Right-wing. Look how well black churches do with all the singing and dancing and having fun.
My guess is the biggest deterrent to religion these days is the internet. For no matter how profoundly parents brainwash their children through their formative years, with a mouse or a thumb kids can find the real answers to real questions out there in the real world.
I read recently that over 90% of those who are BORN AGAIN were brought up as evangelicals, drifted away as they became adults and sometime later when things go poorly the came come back, or were born again. It’s the same people falling in and out of it.
“If it’s real to you, it’s money to us.” The UFO abduction counselor, the Preacher, the Priest, the Rabbi and the Mullah.