Reformed Cognitive Dissonance

Cognitive dissonance is the mental anguish that arises when a person holds what they (themselves) consider to be contradictory beliefs. ¹ I have always believed that it must be self-diagnosed, but I do recall being schooled (on-line) by a psychologist who claimed that a trained therapist can diagnose it in a patient. I have no reason to disbelieve that claim.

At any rate, I believe that I would experience cognitive dissonance if I agreed with many of my fellow reformed who hold to these two beliefs:

1) God ordains all things that come to pass (I agree)
2) The church is in decline (I disagree)

I would find those incompatible, unless scripture taught that the church would, in fact, decline. It doesn't.

I don't really claim any particular millennial position anymore, but I remain optimistic, only because scripture is optimistic. Read Psalm 2. Read Psalm 110. These are not prophesies of a King Jesus whose kingdom is permitted to grow only to then slip into precipitous decay. These are prophesies of a church victorious.

Yes I'm optimistic. The losses in church attendance are concentrated in the mainline liberal denominations. I think many are incorrectly assuming that a shrinking of the visible church implies a shrinking of the invisible church. It doesn't. Since the invisible church is, well, invisible, I can't say for sure, but I think the scripture allows us to postulate this diagram with some confidence:

Where now is any time in Christian history later than then.

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¹ Person X often cavalierly declares another person, say person Y, to suffer from cognitive dissonance, because Y holds beliefs that X finds contradictory.  I get accused of it all the time (from both sides) because of my "contradictory" beliefs in scripture and science. But that is not cognitive dissonance. That is disagreement.