The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is making inroads in Europe while Christianity appears to decline.
The Pastafarians, as they like to be known, are rapidly growing, particularly in Germany, The Atlantic reports.
“FSM members have waged and even won legal battles for the privileges enjoyed by other religions. Along the way, something funny has happened to a movement founded in large part to critique organized religion: It’s gotten organized, and has taken on both the trappings and some of the social functions of a real religion,” Kathy Gilsinin reports.
“FSM has its own iconography (the deity features, in addition to spaghetti, two meatballs and a pair of eyes) as well as a Sabbath (Friday, because ‘our god was faster than the other gods, and he finished with the creation of Earth earlier’). The flagship German church, in Brandenburg, features a weekly mass modeled on the Catholic celebration, but with noodles and beer in place of bread and wine. FSM officiants even conduct weddings in several countries; this year, New Zealand became the first to legally recognize these marriages,” she continued.
Meanwhile, those practicing Christianity in Europe steeply dropped over the last three decades. BBC reports self-proclaimed Anglicans dropped from 40 percent to 17 percent in England.
Some reports now expect Christians will be in the minority in Germany in the next 15-20 years.
Yet false religions continue to rise, just like Paul told Timothy of the end of days.
“For the time will come when people will not endure sound doctrine, but they will gather to themselves teachers in accordance with their own desires, having itching ears, and they will turn their ears away from the truth and turn to myths.”
