The Decline of Religion in America…Or Maybe Not
Posted by Adam Graham in : ChristianityMany liberals and Atheists are dancing up and down at the news that religion is declining in America according to USA Today which shows the number of overall Christians has dropped 10%. However, you have to take a look at the cross-tabs to see the actual decline:
The big loser are mainline Christian denominations. They made up 18.7% of the population in 1990, and today only make up 12.9% of the population. The mainline denominations are Episcopaleans, Methodists, Lutherans, and the United Church of Christ. These denominations tend to be:
- More theologically liberal.
- More focused on social programs and the social gospel rather than the Gospel.
- With less reliance on belief in the scripture. A Jeffrey Hadden poll in 1998 showed 13% of Lutheran Ministers, 30% of Presbyterian Ministers, 35% of Episcopalian Ministers, and 51% of Methodist ministers doubted the truth of the resurrection.
There was a slight decline in the number of Catholics which I think can be partially attributable to the Abuse Scandal (and actually the Catholic Church bounced back from 24.2% in 2001 to 25.1% today. Though part of the Church’s comeback may have more to do with immigration.)
Other places where there was shrinkage: Churches of Christ (another liberal denomination) from 1.0% to 0.8% Also shrinking from 9.8% of the Population to 2.3% of the Population is the Demographic of “Protestant-Unspecified” which to me seems like the type of answer that’s given by somebody whose family was Protestant but they really don’t practice.
Judaism is down to 1.2% from 1.8% eightteen years ago.
What’s up though? The Reports correctly note that the number of people identify as No Religion has gone up substantially (from 8.2% to 15.0%) as well as the Don’t Knows (2.3% to 5.2%). The number of hardcore Atheists/Agnostics has risen to 1.6% from 1.1% in 2001 and 0.7% from 1990.
However, that’s not the full story, the number of Americans identifying as Pentecostal/Charismatic is up from 3.2% to 3.5%. Non-Denominational Christians up from 0.1% back in 1990 to 3.5% today. Christian-unspecificied category has risen from 4.6% to 7.4% and Evangelical/Born Again with no specific denomination has tripled from 0.3% to 0.9%
Other religions have grown but are still relatively small. Islam has doubled from 0.3% to 0.6% of the population making lies of numbers putting the country’s Islam at 5 million, when the adult population is 1.35 million. Buddhist have rise from 0.2% to 0.5% which may be part immigration and part popularity on college campuses. Eastern Religions such as Hinduism have increased 0.4% to 0.9%. Not huge changes over 18 years given U.S. Immigration.
What’s my conclusion?
I think that there’s less of a need today than in years past to claim a religion in order to feel socially acceptable, thus decline in kind of liberal or fuzzy designations that were often used by people who didn’t care much about God or religion in the first place.
I think the mega-church model is probably leading to a decline of Protestant Denominations as huge autonomous McChurches replace denominations of old. I know quite a few Ex-Baptists attending non-denominational churches for example.
This isn’t to say there’s not a problem and at this point, there are probably several U.S. States that need to be treated as a mission fields as Western Europe is for many different denominations including the Assembly of God. However, I don’t think this survey proves near as much as U.S. Today and many bloggers think.
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Comment by The Rambling Taoist
I agree that the various stats aren’t definitive. Still, I am extremely heartened that more and more Americans are making the conscious decision not to believe in invisible beings. We’re making progress…finally!
Comment by Mr. Mister
If I’m understanding your point it is that fewer people identify themselves as religious because all those fake, phony liberals who go to church have finally just accepted their own religious phoniness and no longer identify themselves as belonging to a particular religion in response to polling questions.
Why is it that self identified uber-conservatives feel the need to attack the religious beliefs/motivations, etc., of those they disagree with politically, while at the same time preaching about the centrality of religion in American life and the need to accommodate and encourage religious belief and expression?
The point again and again of said uber-conservatives seems to be that only that the politically conservative of the evangelical persuasion are truly religious, and that the religion of those to the left of center (and the center as well) is less valid (and even not sincerely held). I don’t think anyone has the right to draw those kinds of conclusions about the beliefs of others.
I’d also point out that the melding of religion and politics historically has been toxic, and we need to look no further than our European homeland to prove the point, whether we look at Northern Ireland (Protestants v. Catholics), the Balkans (Orthodox Christian ethnic Serbian Bosnians v. Bosnian Muslims, Catholic Croats v. Orthodox Christian Serbians), or travel back in time to the religious wars of 16th and 17th century Europe.
Religion is a matter of conscience!
Comment by Demandevidence
I really appreciate this article and the trend that it is portraying, if it is indeed accurate. People are leaving the large organized churches in favor of non-denominational churches. That’s great news! It means that people are discovering that the denominations of christianity are not significantly different. Eventually, they will discover that other religions are not significantly different. After that, they will discover that people who are not religiously affiliated are not significantly different than people who are religiously affiliated.
As the melting pot gets larger and the dominoes continue to fall, eventually a trend that started somewhere with sacrificing virgins to volcanoes to appease a powerful menace will have finally faded without so much as a shrug.