Posted on 08/28/2016 2:41:41 PM PDT by Salvation
The Surprising Reason Why More Americans Are Not Going To Church
The standard narrative of American religious decline goes something like this: A few hundred years ago, European and American intellectuals began doubting the validity of God as an explanatory mechanism for natural life. As science became a more widely accepted method for investigating and understanding the physical world, religion became a less viable way of thinking—not just about medicine and mechanics, but also culture and politics and economics and every other sphere of public life. As the United States became more secular, people slowly began drifting away from faith.
Of course, this tale is not just reductive—it’s arguably inaccurate, in that it seems to capture neither the reasons nor the reality behind contemporary American belief. For one thing, the U.S. is still overwhelmingly religious, despite years of predictions about religion’s demise. A significant number of people who don’t identify with any particular faith group still say they believe in God, and roughly 40 percent pray daily or weekly. While there have been changes in this kind of private belief and practice, the most significant shift has been in the way people publicly practice their faith: Americans, and particularly young Americans, are less likely to attend services or identify with a religious group than they have at any time in recent memory.
If most people haven’t just logicked their way out of believing in God, what’s behind this shift in public religious practice, and what does the shift look like in detail? That’s a big question, one less in search of a straightforward answer than a series of data points and arguments constellated over time. Here’s one: Pew has a new survey out about the way people choose their congregations and attend services. While Americans on the whole are still going to church and other worship services less than they used to, many people are actually going more—and those who are skipping out aren’t necessarily doing it for reasons of belief.
There were at least three fascinating tidbits tucked into the results of the survey. First, people who report going to worship services less frequently now than they used to overwhelmingly say the logistics of getting there are the biggest obstacle.Second, a significant number of people who said they’re not part of any particular religion expressed mistrust of religious institutions, suggesting these organizations’ reputations have something to do with why people are dropping out of public religious participation.
Finally, and perhaps most interestingly, the country seems to be split in half in terms of how often people get to services. Roughly 51 percent of Americans say they go to church or another worship service somewhere between once a month and multiple times per week, while 49 percent said they go rarely or never. But within that 51 percent, more than half of people said they go more often than they used to—in other words, about quarter of Americans have gotten more active in their religious communities in recent years, not less.
On the other hand, fewer than half of the people who rarely or never go to church said this has been a new decline in the last few years; a greater portion of that group said they’ve always stayed home on Sundays. All of this is a way of saying that, comparatively speaking, there’s more activity happening on the devout side of the spectrum than the drop-out side; this study suggests that even in a time of religion’s public decline, some people are experiencing religious revival.
According to the survey, about one-fifth of Americans now go to religious services a few times a year, but say they used to go a lot more. Roughly half of this group stopped going as often because of what the researchers called “practical issues”: They are too busy, have a crazy work schedule, or describe themselves as “too lazy” to go. Others said they just don’t care about attending services as much as doing other things.
While it’s easy to empathize with the hassle of trying to wake up and rally kids to go sit still for several hours every Sunday morning, this explanation is interesting for a slightly different reason: It suggests that many people view religious services as optional in a way they might not have in the past. Fifty or 60 years ago, churches, in particular, were a center of social and cultural life in America. For many people, that’s still the case, but the survey suggests that many people may be creating their social lives outside of a religious context—or perhaps forgoing that kind of social connection altogether.
The experience of those who are losing their religion shouldn’t obscure those who are finding it.
The sidelining of services may connect to another factor indicated in the survey: Among people who were raised religiously and who fell away from religion in adult life, roughly one-fifth said their dislike of organized religion was the reason. Another 50 percent said they stopped believing in the particular tenets of the faith they were raised in. Insofar as the decline in U.S. religious affiliation is an intellectual or philosophical story, it seems to be this: Fewer people are willing to sign on with the rules and reputations of institutions that promote faith. That doesn’t mean people don’t care about religious ideas or questions—many of those who are unaffiliated with a particular group still consider themselves “religious” or “seeking”—but they might not be as sold on the religious institutions themselves.
The experience of those who are losing their religion shouldn’t obscure the experience of those who are finding it, though. Twenty-seven percent of people in the survey say they’re attending services more often than they did in the past, cutting against the country’s overall decline in religious practice. This was most common among evangelical Protestants, three-quarters of whom say they go to church at least once or twice a month. Half of the people who said they’re going to services more often explained the change in terms of their beliefs: They’ve become more religious; they found that they need God in their life; they’ve gotten more mature as they’ve aged. By contrast, relatively few said they started going to church more often for practical reasons. Belief brings people to worship, it seems, while logistics keep people way.
The survey offers evidence that at least some Americans find worship services less relevant than other things they could be doing with their time, or perhaps they’re too hard to make time for. But the biggest takeaway is the variety of religious experience in America. Just as some people are drifting away from religion, others are moving toward it—and no matter what they might do on Sunday mornings, many people seem to find religious thinking still relevant to their lives.
I agree with you. Fellowship is a good thing and some people definitely benefit from it.
Whatever happened to the 3rd Commandment?
“Remember to keep holy the Lord’s Day.”
Have you ever tried the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod or Wisconsin synod?
Believe it or not, there are locations in our country where, if a young professional in a demanding field was openly Christian, that person would quickly lose their position and likely have to start over in another field. It’s a fact. So there are very serious decisions of faith before some young professionals these days which would have been unthinkable, really, ones which most still living older people did not have to face. Of course, elsewhere in the world, the decision to be an openly practicing Christian can be in some instances a more weighty matter of actual life or death. But my guess is that most younger professionals just would rather not wind up a target at their workplace, so they keep quiet, don’t go to church, and slowly their faith slowly fades out over time with other things taking its place to some extent. If our way of life currently is good at anything, it’s good at allowing us to not think about or speak about or to take a stand about serious things.
Sounds like the life we had when the children were young and at home.
Nice life.
Gone now.
For many it’s a sanity check. Given what they have to deal with in the rest of their week.
When the pulpit can not afford to be relevant for fear of changing their tax status they fail to realize they have already become irrelevant.
Did you read that Trump might change that?
About 20 years ago George Barna, probably the #1 pollster of Christians and all things religious, did a book called “Revolution.” In it, his polls showed that people were dropping out of church, not because they were LESS religious, but because they thought the churches didn’t go deep enough into Christianity and Christian messages.
This was, of course, the beginning of the “megachurch” and the “community church.” (I notice even the venerable “Far Hills Baptist Church” in Dayton, OH, changed its name to “Far Hills Community Church.”) As a rock and roller, I’m NOT opposed to good music in church. But over the last 20 years the “show” has become more important than the message. Bands play the very latest from Christian radio, which is fine if you’re at a night club, but murder if you want people to sing and worship. People cannot sing what they don’t know. Most of the singers are scruffy faced guys with whiny voices (and the girls are whiny, but not scruffy faced). In fact, this is a terrific (and very accurate) parody of what goes on: https://search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?p=parody+of+new+megachurches&ei=UTF-8&hspart=mozilla&hsimp=yhs-002.
Even Willow Creek, one of the major “megachurches,” found in an internal survey that its own members were deeply disappointed that they weren’t getting more “God” and that the spiritual discussions were superficial and, well, often meaningless.
Barna found that the “Revolutionaries” actually pray more, read the Bible more, but don’t tithe as much and obviously don’t go to church as much.
I don’t think that’s the case with many, perhaps most. It’s certainly not what Barna’s surveys found. People wanted more God, not less.
I go, and I dress appropriately too. You should see what the people at my (Catholic) church wear. Tight capri pants and five inch heels on one woman, scruffy jeans on another...But at least they're there. Friends of mine, a very devout couple who are involved spiritually and socially, have kids who stop attending as soon as they're old enough to work and offer an excuse for skipping mass. Other friends, nearer my age (20s) don't go because of employment or family demands or just the sense that their faith has little relevance in their lives, beyond Christmas and maybe Easter.
It isn't all on them, though. The Church has gone soft, imo. Heavy on tolerance and outreach and relativism. Primary concern: don't offend anyone. Don't even defend Christ if it means stepping on someone's toes. Never condemn even the murder of infants, someone might be made to feel, um, sinful.
What does the Church actually stand for, anymore, that people should stand with it, and kneel in it? Seems like in some churches, if you still have religious beliefs, you're welcome to stay home and keep it between yourself and the Lord.
I still go...but there's so much ritual and so little communion with God, I don't feel as I should when I leave the building.
Episcopal church has to pay people to serve at church? Really? Are you being sarcastic, I sure hope so.
That is what I live by. I've been thinking about this a lot lately.
Perhaps that parable about the Samaritan struck home.
I believe many people do not go, because they are not saved, truly or they are not believing Gods word regarding getting together with other believers and sincerely worshipping our Creator. Also the excuses given for not attending, are always motivated by pleasing self, putting self ahead of the greater good. We go to church to worship, but also to encourage, pray for and disciple each other. Church is so much more than singing and sermon.
Like you, a few of us are in the odd duck category. My own dilemma is similar. Stuck in my case, in a diocese so watered down by now it’s a flooding, and hours and hours of drive time to the nearest old Traditional Mass.
I want more of God, and to strive for more “madness”, as you said, and not accept decline and pedestrian level faith of convenience and donuts.
Thank you, Rooster! You put it so well.
I’m quite sad about the Lutheran’s big push to queue up to the government teat to import “refugees”
You'd never guess that from the Church I go to. People going in T-Shirts and Shorts, they obviously didn't put too much effort in.
There is no good format to do it. Open threads invite inter-confessional rancor, and Catholic Caucus threads don’t allow even comparisons between confessions. So-called “ecumenical” threads are a rarity.
You are welcome to peruse my old threads (see profile) and ask anything you want. I’ll answer if and when I have time.
Without reading the article:
BECAUSE THEY ARE LAZY. Period.
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