#religious decline

By Ed Stetzer, Washington Post, April 28, 2017

Christians recently celebrated Easter, a Sunday where many churches are robust and full. But, if current trends continue, mainline Protestantism has about 23 Easters left.

The news of mainline Protestantism’s decline is hardly new. Yet the trend lines are showing a trajectory toward zero in both those who attend a mainline church regularly and those who identify with a mainline denomination 23 years from now.

While the sky isn’t falling, the floor is dropping out.

The trajectory, which has been a discussion among researchers for years, is partly related to demographics. Mainline Protestants, which has been the tradition of several U.S. presidents, aren’t “multiplying” with children as rapidly as evangelicals or others of differing faiths. And geography matters. Places where Protestants live are now in socio-economic decline, and parts of the country like the Sun Belt are become more evangelical with every passing winter.

And as Episcopal researcher Kirk Hadaway explained in 1998, “nontraditional groups, including once-marginal Protestant churches, smaller sects and non-Western religions, have increased. At the same time, a growing number of people have shed their particular religious affiliations, saying they are just ‘religious, spiritual’ or have no religion at all.”

But I think something deeper is going on.

Recently released data from the General Social Survey, sorted by what is called the RelTrad, shows that mainline Protestants are in the midst of a decades-long decline, and it has intensified in its most recent survey.

The top line shows mainline Protestant identification, and fewer say they go to churches affiliated with mainline denominations. The bottom line shows attendance, and now less than one of 33 people you meet on the street regularly attends a mainline Protestant church.

If the data continues along the same pattern, mainline Protestants have an expiration date when both trend lines cross zero in 2039. If the trend line continues, they have 23 Easters left.

It’s not the whole story, but here’s an argument for at least part of what has happened. Over the past few decades, some mainline Protestants have abandoned central doctrines that were deemed “offensive” to the surrounding culture: Jesus literally died for our sins and rose from the dead, the view of the authority of the Bible, the need for personal conversion and more.

Some of mainline Protestants leaders rejected or minimized these beliefs--beliefs that made the “protest” in Protestantism 500 years ago--as an invitation for more people to join a more culturally relevant and socially acceptable church. But if the mainline Protestant expression isn’t different enough from mainstream culture, people turn to other answers.

I’m an evangelical (which, I assure you, has its own set of problems). However, I became a Christian in the (very mainline) Episcopal Church. I take no delight in mainline Protestantism’s decline and am hoping and praying for a reversal. And I know many in the mainline Protestant tradition seek to follow Jesus and are working to change the trend line of decline.

And, ultimately, mainline Protestants likely do have many more than 23 Easters left. Mainline Protestants won’t cease to exist completely in 23 years because the trend will probably slow, but the data does not give us good hope for their future.

My personal hope is that mainline Protestantism will experience a resurrection of sorts, something Christians tend to have faith in. However, such a move won’t come from following the trajectory it has been following.

The future of mainline Protestantism is connected to Christianity’s essential past, where the resurrection can be proclaimed again unabashedly. Jesus is not just a good person who suffered unjustly. Jesus’s death and resurrection makes our dead souls alive again.

In the 1970s, Dean Kelly wrote an often-cited book on why conservative churches are growing, stating that even amid hostility toward organized religion, conservative churches seemed to grow.

Is part of the answer for mainline Protestantism to grow more conservative?

It depends on how you define “conservative.” For some, they hear a call to become Trump supporters, deny climate change science or support huge tax cuts. That’s not what I’m talking about.

But a recent study published in the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, based upon a Canadian sample, goes into the theology of the mainline. As David Haskell explained in The Washington Post, “[W]e found 93 percent of clergy members and 83 percent of worshipers from growing churches agreed with the statement ‘Jesus rose from the dead with a real flesh-and-blood body leaving behind an empty tomb.’ This compared with 67 percent of worshipers and 56 percent of clergy members from declining churches.”

Of course, you can’t say, “Mainliners all believe this or that,” but the numbers above suggest a theological gap, even on something as basic as what Easter means, and that gap has both theological and statistical implications.

If mainline Protestantism has a future, it will need to engage more deeply with the past--not the past of an idealized 1950s, but one that is 2,000 years old. The early Christians saw a savior risen from the dead, heard a message that said he was the only way and read scriptures that teach truths out of step with culture, both then and now.

I imagine that many mainline Protestants would agree, and perhaps the supernatural message of Easter, believed and shared widely, could bring the resurrection that mainline Protestantism needs.

Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907 - 1972) in the opening to God in Search of Man.  Continues:  Religion declined not because it was refuted, but because it became irrelevant, dull, oppressive, insipid.

In the past decade more than 100 million people have left the Christian Church, but that has not stopped conservative religionist from trying to force their point of view into public schools. Since Texas passed its “prayer bill” in 2006, numerous “Bible Belt” state legislatures want to do the same end run around the constitution.

100 million people is nearly a third of the United State's population. Yet, while Christianity sinks into the abyss, religion fueled legislators fight to send the church even deeper into the tar pits with irrelevant introductions of insidious edicts that would constitutionlize ignorance.

Despite the obvious challenge to the separation of church and state, the immediate damage done to fact-based education by the introduction religion is unknown, but it does not bode well for the United State’s competitive place in the world. Nevertheless, parochial Right Wing religionists continue their push of government support for proselytizing, which is an insult to the vision of the country’s forefathers and puts American youth at a competitive disadvantage for college acceptance.

Evidently, the message sent by the 100 million leaving Christianity is not clear as Georgia, Texas, Tennessee and South Carolina all have “Bible bills,” while Arizona’s lawmakers are set to pass a bill encouraging schools to set up Bible courses. Asides from the coming legal payday for attorneys because of the obvious religious intent of the legislation, religionist will assist in pushing even more away with their unceasing intrusion into public life.

Not content, to watch former church members walk away; several Southern states are leading the charge toward Galileo by allowing schools to change science education in an attempt to undermine the well-established theory of evolution. The legislation is an obvious ploy to promote religious views as science that if implemented will further lower the already pitiful standing of US students with the rest of the world.

Apparently, unaware of those voting with their feet or their standing as one of the least favored groups in the United States, conservative religionists hope to close the barn door well after the horse escaped, by using state legislatures as a sly way to promote religious views as science in public schools. As a whole, the United States already lags behind the rest of the world in science education: if teaching the highly disregarded scientific viewpoint of the Christian Right becomes reality, the Christian Right will succeed in pushing America back to the Dark Ages.

Religionists want to teach evolution as it relates to the Bible; a book lifted from various cultures of that period, pieced together, and then voted into existence more than three centuries after its founder’s death, even then, it was not finished. Taken literally, the Bible is at best a relic, an antique or even an example of early heroic composition, but as a reference for living in 2012, it is hopelessly out of date and nearly useless other than as a worn icon.

Density aside, a possibility exists, that right wing religionists may realize that they’ve won a few battles, but the war is fast slipping away as there is a good reason over 100 million Christians left the church and the Evangelical Right must take a large portion of the blame. The battles won in the South are little more than preaching to the choir or home field advantage. However, it is a clear admission that Christian parents and churches aren’t getting the job done and want the help secular institutions to do what they apparrently can't—make religion relevant again.

The Religious Right might claim that society needs more religion in order to improve, but no matter how it is assessed, religion has done little if anything to improve public morality and in many cases exacerbates problems by inserting intolerance and irrationality into already complex issues. In a dominant Christian populace (76%), the first thought is morality should not present a problem, but as noted evangelical researcher George Barna acknowledged, there is little difference between the behavior of Christians and non-Christians.

As an example, Christians account for 65% of abortions in the United States, a fact that never passes the lips of anti-abortion spokespersons. Born-again Christians are the most divorced group in the United States. Again, this fact seems to avoid the lips of religious speakers. The fact is, Right Wing Christians want a fascist state enforcing their version of belief and providing assistance with brainwashing children and teenagers with their view of religion.

Read more: Atheist Nexus

Irish Central reports:

Europe today is tired of religion and bored by God claims the Irish bishops in a new pastoral letter dated March 29. Throughout the European Union it appears that God is 'silent and unmissed in the lives of many.'

[caption id="attachment_397" align="aligncenter" width="419" caption="Irish people asked to turn back to God Photo by Google Images Read more: http://www.irishcentral.com/news/Irish-bishops-say-God-is-silent-and-umissed-in-Europe-145126125.html#ixzz1rDuFow8a"][/caption]

The bishops' 12-page document, titled 'Repent and Believe the Good News,' advises the Irish not to follow the lead of their neighbors on the continent.

The bishops reiterate Pope Benedict's observation that Europeans seem tired of their faith, including their history and culture, and they no longer seem to wish to know Jesus Christ.

To respond to this, the Irish bishops are promoting a theme of repentance, building on the call for renewal made by Pope Benedict to the Catholics of Ireland in his 2010 pastoral letter.

'None of us remains unaffected by our culture,' the letter claims, adding that it 'takes a real effort in a busy and noisy world to ask the fundamental questions about what our lives mean and where they are leading' and to make the space for reflection.

Read more: Irish Central

WCTV Florida reports:

A methodist pastor in our area says she’s been leading a double life. She’s been hiding the fact she doesn’t believe in God.

Lake Jackson Methodist has been in Tallahassee for a century. In one hundred years they’ve never had a confirmed atheist pastor–until last week.

[caption id="attachment_391" align="aligncenter" width="460" caption="Teresa Macbain speaking at American Atheist Conference"][/caption]

“I think it’s a challenge for the church. It’s a challenge for each one of us but it’s not new. Two thousand years ago even Peter denied christ,” said Antonio Fernandez, the district superintendent for the church.

Teresa Macbain resigned from her position as pastor last Friday. She had been Lake Jackson’s pastor for three years. But, Monday of last week she spoke from a different pulpit. She was a suprise guest speaker at the American Atheist Conference.

In a youtube video recording of her speech, she tells the audience,”You were the ones who were going to burn in hell and I’m happy to say, as I stand before you, I’m going to burn with you.”

She revealed that she was a member of the Clergy Project. It’s an online community that aims to be a safe place for clergy members who are secret non-believers.

Macbain wrote a testimonial for the site under the fake name “Lynn.” At the time she had not yet resigned form her duties.

She writes,”Every week I struggle with the fact that I’m lying when I stand before my congregation. I’m leading a double life.”

Fernandez says Macbain was going through difficult times with her family. He thinks it shook her faith.

The church will appoint a new full-time pastor in June. In the meantime, church members will carry out the Sunday services.

Read more: WCTV

Sun-Sentinel (Florida), August 03, 2011 Crucifixes, Virgin Mary statuettes, ornate Spanish-style churches: so many religious images seem permanently linked with Hispanic Americans. But that's eroding fast, according to pollster George Barna.

In the fourth update on his annual survey of American religion, Barna says this once-reverent group has been attending church and Sunday school less, volunteering less at church, and reading the Bible less over the last 20 years.

And their religious life is fading faster than those of whites and blacks in America, the report adds.

"The ethnic group that reflected the most profound level of religious change over the last 20 years was Hispanics," the report says. It adds that Hispanics have changed more than the other two groups both in the degree of religious belief and behavior and across more categories.

How much? Well, in the 14 types of religious belief and behavior Barna measured this January, Hispanics showed "statistically significant change" in nine. And where whites showed drops in single-digit percentage points, most of the Hispanic declines were in the double digits.

Examples: Church attendance for Hispanics has fallen 21 percent, to 33 percent; Bible reading is down from 55 to 30 percent; belief in the accuracy of the Bible has dropped 30 percent to 33 percent. In other words, all three measures have gone from majorities to minorities in 20 years.

Most Hispanics still believe in God as a wise, all-powerful ruler (62 percent) and that their faith is very important to them (51 percent). But those percentages, too, have fallen since 1991--by 26 percent in the first case, 15 percent in the second.

In only two categories have Hispanics grown percentage wise. Twenty-four percent attend a church of 600 or more members, a quantum leap of 23 percent. But 40 percent don't attend church at all, except for ceremonies like marriages and funerals--twice as many as in 1991.

Non-Hispanic whites have slid in religious belief and behavior, too, but at a slower rate. Sixty-six percent hold an "orthodox" view of God, versus 72 percent in 1991; 39 percent still attend church, 9 percent higher; 37 percent read the Bible weekly, 5 percent down from two decades ago

Blacks are the steadiest of the three ethnic groups, changing in only two of the 14 categories Barna measured. Seventy-seven percent have an orthodox view of God, down 11 percent; 30 percent volunteer in church, down 8 percent. And both those rates are higher than those of fellow white and Hispanic Americans.

The Barna report says blacks are more likely than the other groups to say that their religious beliefs are very important and that they have made a "personal commitment to Jesus." They're the most likely group to agree on traditional views of God, the Bible and the need to share their religious beliefs with others. Blacks are also the most likely to read the Bible and attend "church-centric activities."

In his comments on the findings, Barna doesn't try to explain the fast pace of secularization among Hispanics.

Over the last 20 years, Protestants have accounted for about one of every five Hispanics. However, the percentage of Hispanics in Catholic circles fell 23 points, to its present 45 percent. So most Hispanic ex-Catholics "simply dropped out of organized religion altogether," Barna says.

"If America's Hispanic adults are increasingly shifting away from church attendance--or any kind of organized faith experience--the future does not bode well for the expansion of Christianity in the U.S.," Barna writes.