[Magdalen] Decline of U.S Christianity

[Jim Guthrie]

>From the NY Times:

The Christian share of adults in the United States has declined sharply since 
2007, affecting nearly all major Christian traditions and denominations, and 
crossing age, race and region, according to an extensive survey by the Pew 
Research Center.

Seventy-one percent of American adults were Christian in 2014, the lowest 
estimate from any sizable survey to date, and a decline of 5 million adults and 
8 percentage points since a similar Pew survey in 2007.

The Christian share of the population has been declining for decades, but the 
pace rivals or even exceeds that of the country’s most significant demographic 
trends, like the growing Hispanic population. It is not confined to the coasts, 
the cities, the young or the other liberal and more secular groups where one 
might expect it, either.

The decline has been propelled in part by generational change, as relatively 
non-Christian millennials reach adulthood and gradually replace the oldest and 
most Christian adults. But it is also because many former Christians, of all 
ages, have joined the rapidly growing ranks of the religiously unaffiliated or 
“nones”: a broad category including atheists, agnostics and those who adhere to 
“nothing in particular.”

Read it all at:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/12/upshot/big-drop-in-share-of-americans-calling-themselves-christian.html

As for Young people . . . well"Nothing" seems to be the faith of choice of an 
increasing number. See the sidebar to the above at:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/13/upshot/the-rise-of-young-americans-who-dont-believe-in-god.html

I've been saying this for awhile now. I've come to the conclusion that one of 
the biggest problems is that churches have become an hour of nostalgiac retreat 
for boomers and their parents, rather than continue to move forward (while 
maintaining "We're doing what Christians have done for 2,000 years." of course 
<g>)

Cheers,
Jim

"The enemy isn’t liberalism;
the enemy isn’t conservatism.
The enemy, is baloney." - Lars Erik Nelson