Monday, February 25, 2008

Switching Faiths, Dropping Out

A Pew survey inerviews 35,000 individuals and finds that the religious marketplace is highly fluid, with the biggest gains going to the church of the unaffilatied. From CNN:
The U.S. Religious Landscape Survey estimates the United States is 78 percent Christian and about to lose its status as a majority Protestant nation, at 51 percent and slipping.

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.

One in four adults ages 18 to 29 claim no affiliation with a religious institution.

"In the past, certain religions had a real holding power, where people from one generation to the next would stay," said Penn State University sociologist Roger Finke, who consulted in the survey planning. "Right now, there is a dropping confidence in organized religion, especially in the traditional religious forms."

Lugo said the 44 percent figure is "a very conservative estimate," and more research is planned to determine the causes.

"It does seem in keeping with the high tolerance among Americans for change," Lugo said. "People move a lot, people change jobs a lot. It's a very fluid society."

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.

The majority of the unaffiliated -- 12 percent of the overall population -- describe their religion as "nothing in particular," and about half of those say faith is at least somewhat important to them. Atheists or agnostics account for 4 percent of the total population.

The Roman Catholic Church has lost more members than any faith tradition because of affiliation swapping, the survey found. While nearly one in three Americans were raised Catholic, fewer than one in four say they're Catholic today. That means roughly 10 percent of all Americans are ex-Catholics.

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.

On the Protestant side, changes in affiliation are swelling the ranks of nondenominational churches, while Baptist and Methodist traditions are showing net losses.

Many Americans have vague denominational ties at best. People who call themselves "just a Protestant," in fact, account for nearly 10 percent of all Protestants.

Although evangelical churches strive to win new Christian believers from the "unchurched," the survey found most converts to evangelical churches were raised Protestant.

1 comment:

Loveparent said...

So do these findings mean that non evangelical protestant churches should just give up? And a further question I might ask is how do the researchers define evangelical? Evangelical--as a theological term-- has been given a bad reputation by Protestant denominations with outmoded theology based upon literal interpretation of the Bible and a belief system that insists on the Bible being the inerrant word of God.

For those Protestant faiths that can move their theological underpinnings beyond antiquated dogma the possibilities of a growing religious movement exist I believe.

But first these denominations must be careful to define what they ARE NOT (and this is much different than defining what they ARE). Then they must go about carefully communicating this to the public.

The United Church of Christ is moving down this road and stands to capture the hearts and minds of many if they can develop the infrastructure to support the massive influx of people who will seek shelter from the storm of The New Reformation (or The Great Awakening or whatever you want to call it) under it's wing.