[Magdalen] Decline of U.S Christianity

James Oppenheimer-Crawford oppenheimerjw at gmail.com
Wed May 13 22:09:17 UTC 2015


​Here is an article which makes a very striking analysis.

http://tinyurl.com/m9raqgw​

I give a tinyurl because the actual url is about five thousand characters
-- or it shur az shutin luks thet weh...

James W. Oppenheimer-Crawford
*“A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved,
except in memory. LLAP**”  -- *Leonard Nimoy

On Tue, May 12, 2015 at 3:18 PM, Jim Guthrie <jguthrie at pipeline.com> wrote:

> 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
>


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