[Magdalen] Decline of U.S Christianity

[Jay Weigel]

A lot of the "pentecostal" churches in the US at the present time are
(outside of the "recognized" denominations such as the Assemblies of God
and its African-American counterpart, the Church of God in Christ) either
Hispanic or non-denominational white or African-American, often poor
congregations.

A funny thing about the Roman Catholic parish where I used to live...for
years it was a stodgy little congregation, mostly made up of immigrant
Yankees, that didn't grow much. Then the Hispanics moved in, and oh, my! At
first they were mostly migrant farm workers and mostly male, but pretty
soon they started working in the local poultry processing plant, and most
of them were Catholic and needed a place to go to church, and the diocese
sent a priest who was bilingual. The next thing you knew, they brought
their families and there was a booming and vibrant congregation with a mass
at 5 pm on Sundays. Now the Hispanic congregation of San Patricio is bigger
than St. Patrick's Anglo congregation. There are some members of St.
Patrick's who interact with the Hispanic congregation: they teach English,
they teach citizenship classes, they work with the children's CDC and
women's health, but a lot of the other members ignore them. Basically there
are two parallel congregations. One is lively and one is boring as hell. I
used to enjoy going to the Spanish mass, mostly for the music, and I
understood enough Spanish to follow everything but the homily.

On Wednesday, May 13, 2015, Jim Guthrie <jguthrie at pipeline.com> wrote:

> From: Zephonites--- via Magdalen
>
>  How about the Pentecostals? Does this also affect them negatively or are
>> they growing?
>>
>
> It's pretty much across-the-board as I read the report. But keep in mind
> that "Pentacostals" are usually beyond the understanding of most Mainline
> and RC people -- they work entirely differently. They'll start a church in
> a storefront of apartment, and if successful they grow enough to build a
> "real" church -- at which point everyone else notices them as conclude,
> "Gee those Pentecostals are really growing." But far more of these starts
> simply fail, and the person trying to lead/establish a church move on
> elsewhere. As there's no infrastructure for quite awhile after they're
> established, there's nothing to hold them in place.
>
>  I ask this because I believe they are a significant force in South America
>> and I was wondering how they are faring in the USA.
>>
>
> The study doesn’t cover them.
>
>  How are the figures for TEC?
>>
>
> TEC is pretty much the same as everyone else, again as I read the PEW
> report.
>
> Of course there are individual TEC parishes that have grown by leaps and
> bounds, and others that have fallen far more than the PEW averages. But
> those are local situations and depend on many factors, not the least of
> which are larger demographic/regional growth or loss) changes.
>
> It should also be noted that actual participation does not seem to be
> measured in the report. Thus explains the fact that TEC has fewer than
> 2-million members, but take a poll and we find 6-million claim to be
> Episcopalians.
>
> Though the PEW report indicates 70-million Americans claim to be
> Christians, other surveys indicate actual participation in about 30% or the
> claimed numbers overall. The last I heard, Roman Catholic ASA is about 21%
> of those they claim as members.
>
> Cheers,
> Jim
>
>
>