Is Christianity really declining in America?

A recent study and recent articles have suggested that Christianity in general and Evangelicalism specifically are in decline in America and that America will likely experience significant “secularization” in the next twenty years. First, the American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) released a poll that showed that almost all Christian denominations have lost ground since 1990. For example, among the two largest Christian groups, Catholics went from 26.2% to 25.1% of the population while Baptists went from 19.3% to 15.8% of the population. The number of Americans who listed “none” however, has grown from 8% in 1990 to 15% in 2008. For a more complete breakdown of these numbers see “USA Today’s” article on this at:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2009-03-09-american-religion-ARIS_N.htm

In addition to this report, noted Evangelical blogger Michael Spencer who blogs under the site “Internet Monk” has published an article in “The Christian Science Monitor” called “The Coming Evangelical Collapse.” Spencer predicts that Evangelicalism will decline significantly in the coming decades and that America will become more secularized. He has a host of articles discussing this on his website as well. For more information see the following links:

Michael Spencer “The Coming Evangelical Collapse”

http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0310/p09s01-coop.html

Spencer’s more extensive original blog posts on this issue:

http://www.internetmonk.com/archive/the-original-coming-evangelical-collapse-posts

Michael Bell’s “The Coming Evangelical Collapse: A statistical review, part I and part II”

http://www.internetmonk.com/archive/the-coming-evangelical-collapse-a-statistical-review-by-michael-bell

http://www.internetmonk.com/archive/the-evangelical-collapse-a-statistical-analysis-part-ii-by-michael-bell

So what are we to make of this? Is Christianity in general and Evangelicalism specifically on the decline? First, I believe it is difficult to accurately measure faith. We can, however, make some generalizations on the basis of polls that measure religious affiliation, basic beliefs, and church attendance. If one looks at the findings of George Barna, the vast majority of Americans don’t have, and probably haven’t had in years (if ever), a “biblical worldview” or a belief system that corresponds to basic, orthodox Christianity. Barna’s numbers strike me as a bit too pessimistic at times. Nonetheless, I think his findings are generally correct. The majority of Americans simply aren’t and probably weren’t orthodox Christians. For more information on Barna’s data, see for example:

http://www.barna.org/barna-update/article/21-transformation/252-barna-survey-examines-changes-in-worldview-among-christians-over-the-past-13-years

Another way to examine this situation is to examine the numbers on church attendance. Presumably, most people who are committed to their faith attend church on a weekly or regular basis. The statistics for church attendance in America vary considerably from about 20% to 45% of the population. Those who believe it is around 20% or so tend to look at actually head counts of attendance. Those who see it as higher such as Gallup and Barna use self-reporting, i.e. they simply poll people if they attend church regularly. In my view, the 45% is a bit high, though 20% probably is too low as it doesn’t count people on any given Sunday who are believers and aren’t in church because of an illness, work, travel, vacation, family obligations, weather, transportation problems, etc. One might also add some people who really are believers but have for whatever reasons (hopefully temporary ones) become disenchanted with church and aren’t currently attending a church. The interesting thing is that church attendance in America peaked at near 50% in the 1950s, declined shortly thereafter and has remained fairly stable in the 40s and high 30s in many polls since then. For a full discussion on the various numbers of church attendance, see this blog post:

http://missionalchurchnetwork.blogspot.com/2008/11/weekly-usa-church-attendance.html

So what does that mean? Is Christianity really declining? Is our society become more “secular”? Is it going down the same road that Europe has traveled? I’m not entirely sure this is the case. First, even in the 1950s something like 50% or more of people in America didn't attend church on a regular basis. In all likelihood, most of these people were nominal or cultural Christians who reported they were Christian because it was considered socially acceptable. Yet they rarely if ever darkened the door of the church, probably didn’t have a deep faith in Christ, if any at all, didn’t know much about the central tenants of the Christianity, and certainly didn’t live their lives on the basis of any “biblical worldview.”

The problem with this whole recent "decline of Christianity" and "secularization" narrative is that it assumes that more Americans were Christian in the past that probably were in reality. What we may be seeing today isn't so much "secularization" or "decline" of Christianity, but the erosion of cultural Christianity. I wouldn't be surprised if many if not most of the 15% of Americans who now list "none" under their religious affiliation would have been nominal or cultural Christians from the 1950s until say 2000. Since I haven’t seen any numbers pointing to a serious drop in church attendance, what may well be happening is that people who are nominal or cultural Christians are no longer checking the "Christian" box in surveys and check "none" instead.

Perhaps people today are simply a bit more honest about their faith or lack thereof. I would say that the ARIS’ number of 15% of Americans as “none” is too low itself. Certainly the number of hardcore atheists and even agnostics is fairly low. But the number of people in America who aren’t really Christian and don’t belong to any religion whatsoever is without a doubt higher than 15%

We may well be seeing the beginnings of decline for Christianity in America. Nevertheless, the current data only gives us a snapshot of what is going on. Until I see numbers that show a real drop off in church attendance, my guess is what we are really seeing is a decline of cultural Christianity. This decline could be permanent or it could be temporary. At the moment, I would attribute it to three things. First, the political polarization of the Bush years and the identification of conservative Christianity in general and Evangelicalism specifically with Bush. Second, the sexual abuse scandal in the Roman Catholic Church. Third, the continued and bitter disagreement over issues arising from the sexual revolution (abortion, gay marriage, etc.). For my views on the third issue, see my recent post on this blog entitled “America in 1965: Religion, sex and what the secular left’s ‘theocrat’ charge misses.”

In my view, the first two issues are temporary. Americans have a short memory. I have a hard time believing these, especially the association of Bush with conservative Christians, will have a long-term impact on Christianity in America. Finally, some young people may be turning away from church. Many of them are disgusted with Bush and are infatuated with Obama. But historically young people attend church in lower numbers than the rest of the population. They often come back to church when they get married and have children. And today's young people who hate Bush may hate the Democrats 10 years from now because of crushing taxes, debt, and entitlement (Social Security, Medicare) expenses that will certainly fall on their backs. Remember the baby boomers turning away from church and the whole "Death of God" discussion in the late 1960s? Numerous commentators then believed Christianity was on the verge of a huge collapse and that young people were leaving the church in droves. That in fact did occur for mainline Protestant churches. But things weren’t near as dramatic for Christianity as a whole.

It is possible that we will see a real decline of Christianity in the next twenty years. But it is really too early to say. I do think we can say that cultural Christianity is waning. The gap between the world and the church is certainly growing starker in America. This is especially the case as the gulf between the sexual ethics of non-religious people and orthodox Christians that first opened in a major way in the late 1960s continues to widen. Truly, our country has no common sexual ethics, which is why we have the “culture wars.” Still, I'd be hesitant to draw too many firm conclusions one way or the other about “decline” and “secularization” right now.

Maybe God is busy clearing out some of the deadwood and underbrush of "cultural Christianity" that is in our culture. Come what may we Christians should love others, seek to live humble and holy lives, make the Gospel known to others, and above all cling to our faith in the incarnate and risen Christ. In the end, St. Patrick’s ancient prayer is as relevant today as it was over 1,000 years ago.