Christianity Isn’t Dying
October 19, 2012 16 Comments
Those with only a loose religious affiliation are finally admitting they don’t really have one at all.
FCA:
Story Highlights
- Many in the USA who identify as Christian do so only superficially.
- The recent growth in “nones,” comes primarily from cultural and churchgoing Christians shifting.
- The future of Christianity in America is not extinction but clarification.
6:34PM EDT October 18. 2012 – You’ve heard it suggested that the United States is simply Europe on a 50-year delay. Most churches will be museums before your grandchildren reach adulthood.
Though new numbers from Pew Research released this month point to a decline in American Protestants, no serious scholar believes that Christianity in America is on a trajectory of extinction. And, as a researcher and practicing evangelical Christian, I say to those who’ve read recent reports and come to that conclusion, “Not so fast.”
You see, many in the USA who identify as Christian do so only superficially. These “cultural Christians” use the term “Christian” but do not practice the faith.
Now it seems that many of them are even giving up the label, and those cultural Christians are becoming “nones” (people with no religious label).
Cultural Christians
In our research, we see three broad ways people identify as Christian.
“Cultural Christians” mark “Christian” on a survey rather than another world religion because they know they are not Hindu, Jewish, etc., or because their family always has. “Churchgoing Christians” identify as such because they occasionally attend worship services.
On the other hand, “conversion Christians” claim to have had a faith experience in which they were transformed, resulting in a deeply held belief.
The recent growth in “nones,” I believe, comes primarily from cultural and churchgoing Christians shifting to the category no longer using a religious identification. This shift should cause us to consider three ramifications:
First, Christians continue to lose what some have called a home-field advantage. Christianity is no longer the first choice of many seeking spiritual meaning, and identifying as Christian is not necessary to be an accepted part of society.
Second, the squishy middle is collapsing. It makes less sense to be a cultural Christian today. Better to be spiritual than religious, unless your religion matters to you, as it does to devout Roman Catholics, Protestants and many others.
Vibrant believers
Third, Christianity is not collapsing, but it is being clarified.
If you cut through the recent hype, and look to studies such as the General Social Survey, you’ll find that the United States is filled with vibrant believers.
The survey shows that the evangelical movement has remained generally steady from 1972 to 2010 (and, contrary to what you might have heard, the data include young adults), that church attendance has declined among mainline Protestants, and that the “nones” have increased.
But no collapse.
Other examples of resiliency abound.
Each year, Gallup asks Americans whether they consider themselves a born-again or evangelical Christian. Since 1992, the percentage has fluctuated from a low of 36% in 1992 to a high of 47% in 1998.
The 2011 yearly aggregate is 42%, very similar to the percentages over the past eight years.
Christianity has hardly been replaced by the “nones.”
Spritual, not religious
So, if not extinction, what does the future look like? I don’t think it looks like Europe, shaped by historic religious wars and legally mandated religion. Instead, if trends continue, I believe that the future will look more like the present-day Pacific Northwest. There, we find a majority of the population is spiritual but not religious, yet vibrant churches and devout Christians abound.
For example, in the Foursquare Church (a mid-size Pentecostal denomination), the Northwest District oversees 150 churches. Fifteen years ago, 66 of those churches did not exist. Those 66 churches alone report 40,000 new believers. Similar examples of such vibrant growth, there and elsewhere, demonstrate the point.
The future of Christianity in America is not extinction but clarification that a devout faith is what will last. Christianity in America isn’t dying, cultural Christianity is.
About Fr Stephen Smuts
Great post! Clarification is something to embrace not fear. Cultural Christians have finally begun to realize that adding “Christian” to there social résumé is worth nothing – yet for the devout religious, adding “Christian” to there transformed heart is worth more than this world can offer. His, Chris
Indeed there is no Christianity without “Christ”, and the Living Christ seen redemptively in His People! And THIS is the real visible Church! Btw, for the real Christian, the Cross is a spirituality of redemptive life in suffering! (2 Cor. 4: 10-11)
2 Cor. 4: 10-11 is a lot to unpack unless we see the light shining from Isaiah 53:10-11. Thank you for inspiring me today! Keep posting! Shine on, Chris
Thanks mate! Rare to hear for me, may we Christians keep pressing… Phil. 3: 14!
Clarification will make it easier to evangelise too. Non blelievers won’t be hiding behind the label “Christian”.
Btw, I will just say it, but some of our Catholic and Anglican friends who comment on here, are simply not yet “saved”, or at least possessing the knowledge and understanding (assurance) of their salvation! I am thinking of one guy that has my first name also, “Robert”! And this will always be centred in “Christ Jesus”! I wonder how many understand why St. Paul inverted the name? Christ Jesus is the “glorified” Man, i.e. the God-Man in glory! Risen, Ascended and THE Mediator! And in Hebrews 1:3, HE sits and rests on that Throne of Glory, His mediation (and Sessions above) is for Christians, i.e. the Elect! Yes, sir I am Reformed & Reformational in my Evangelicalism. Lord have mercy!
Only God is my judge, not you, sir, even if you think being the most knowledgeable of Scripture is necessary for salvation and you consider yourself omniscient. Being “saved” is not an event that happens while alive, but it depends on God’s judgement based on what you’ve done on Earth after you’re dead or when Judgement Day comes and you happen to be alive. So if you think you’re “saved” now, what justification have you for refraining from sin for the rest of your earthy life?
You are a sinner, sir, like myself. You are not “saved” and you do not stand in judgement over the rest of us, proclaiming who is and who is not “saved”. Lord have mercy, ON YOU.
What a wide and easy path it is to be “saved”- but it certainly does not sound like Jesus Christ.
The Roman Catholic Church predestines no one to hell but works towards the salvation in men.
“What good is it…
if someone says he has faith but does not have works?
Can that faith save him?
…Indeed someone might say,
“You have faith and I have works.”
Demonstrate your faith to me without works,
…and I will demonstrate my faith to you from my works.”
Once again, “Ioannes” you only show your ignorance of this subject, for the Wesley brothers taught too that the Christian believer should have the assurance of his/her salvation. And this is simply by faith in the Person and Work of Christ, alone. But they were Wesleyan Arminian, and believed that one could loose their salvation, with both neglect and finally apostasy, in the loss of faith. So it would be a good effort for you to perhaps find out just what some Protestant & Evangelical Christians believe here, both Arminians and Calvinists. Though of course there are some differences in both. For example Calvin and Wesley would be almost the same on the doctrine of Justication by Faith, as John Wesley himself wrote in his Journal. Their difference was on the doctrine of election, and for Calvin the true elect believer would persevere to the end in his salvation, which as for Wesley should be an “assurance” in the believers present faith and life.
PS.. Also Ioannes, you might want to check out the doctrine theologically of the so-called “ordo salutis”: the order and way of salvation. Here again the Wesley brothers were really more Lutheran, but certainly Reformational!
And let me say again btw, what Jerome stated, that ‘Ignorance of Scripture was ignorance of Christ!’ It seems you like to speak ad hominem about my love of Holy Scripture, simply very strange?
St. Jerome also wrote: “My words are spoken to the successor of the Fisherman, to the disciple of the Cross. As I follow no leader save Christ, so I communicate with none but Your Blessedness, that is, with the Chair of Peter. For this I know is the rock on which the Church is built. This is the house where alone the Paschal Lamb can be rightly eaten. . . ”
We can safely say that St. Jerome was not saying that only Scripture is necessary to know Christ: Although ignorance is not a virtue, and while Scripture is important in understanding Christ, we are not saved exclusively by what we know from books. We are not Gnostics who believe that Jesus Christ left some “secret” teachings- this is why the Church fathers excluded many “Gospels” from the Canon- many of them, even if not harmful, do not pay attention to the Apostolic Tradition, which is not about individual interpretation of Scripture, but what Jesus taught to the Apostles, who then taught to their successors, as they taught to their communities throughout the ages. Of course, I’m not going to deny how many times people have rejected Tradition.
P.S., I’m not the one calling anyone “ignorant”
So let’s accept that we’re mutually ad homineming each other, if that makes you feel better.
“Although ignorance is not a virtue, and while Scripture is important in understanding Christ, we are not saved exclusively by what we know from books.” Only part of this sentence is even close to being correct, Jesus Christ is both the Incarnation and the “rhema” of God. And the Holy Scripture is itself the Word of God!
WE just don’t dialogue well, and we are certainly in different worlds! So lets save our blog friends, shall we, thank you!
Not before I get the final word: The Scripture is about Jesus. Jesus is Scripture completed and Incarnate. So Scripture alone is incomplete, and so to say that Jesus is limited by the first letter of Genesis to the final period of Revelations is erroneous.
That is all. Yes, we don’t dialogue well. (WE AGREE ON SOMETHING!)
Your wrong again, what is so hard to get and understand that Jesus Christ is THE Incarnate Word and is also the “Rhema” … THE/A Statement (utterance & narration) of God!
But promise, my last word on this!
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