The Associated Press posted an article today that presented the results of a survey of 35,000 people in regards to their faith and religious affiliations. I’ve seen reports that showed over 90% of Americans believe in God, yet this recent survey reports that about 78% of Americans are Christian, and of that group, only 51% are Protestant Christians. This figure is on the decline and very soon the number of Protestant American Christians will be in the minority here in the US.
It was reported that while the Protestant church is in decline nationally, the non-denominational church is seeing increase.
One statistic for the younger generations really doesn’t speak well for what is happening in the Protestant Christian church: 1 out of 4 people age 18-29 has no connection with a church (or temple or mosque or place of worship).
For the church at large, the article quotes:
More than one-quarter of American adults have left the faith of their childhood for another religion or no religion at all, the survey found. Factoring in moves from one stream or denomination of Protestantism to another, the number rises to 44 percent.
The religious demographic benefiting the most from this religious churn is those who claim no religious affiliation. People moving into that category outnumber those moving out of it by a three-to-one margin.
On the Protestant side, changes in affiliation are swelling the ranks of nondenominational churches, while Baptist and Methodist traditions are showing net losses.
Although evangelical churches strive to win new Christian believers from the “unchurched,” the survey found most converts to evangelical churches were raised Protestant.
The share of the population that identifies as Catholic, however, has remained fairly stable in recent decades thanks to an influx of immigrant Catholics, mostly from Latin America. Nearly half of all Catholics under 30 are Hispanic, the survey found.
As surprising as they statistics may seem to those of us in the church, I am sure they are expected by those outside of the church. As the non-denominational churches grow and the denominational Baptist and Lutheran churches shrink, and the Catholic church is losing people that are being replaced by immigrant Latin Americans, it is clear to me that there aren’t really any new believers, just old believers changing their affiliations from Lutheran to non-denominational or however it works out for them. In total, the number of people considering themselves Christian is shrinking.
This should serve as a wake up call to those in ministry that the old ways are really connecting with younger generations of people. While we try to keep them sheltered from the world, once they become aware of the world through going to college or entering the workforce, they are falling away from the church and their faith.
Now, more than ever, the church needs to be relevant in the world and to stand boldly in the face of adversity. Young people have tons of options for what to do and what to believe, and if their faith isn’t practical then it may be an easy choice for them to just renounce it.
While I believe that it is entirely up to God as to how things work themselves out in regards to who believes and what happens to the state of the church, I do believe that God works through people and the church and it is our burden to find new ways to share the gospel of Christ to those that have eyes to see and ears to hear. We have no one to blame but ourselves.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/wayoflife/02/25/religion.survey.ap/index.html?eref=rss_us
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