Posted on 02/26/2008 10:44:25 AM PST by Between the Lines
Evangelical Christianity has become the largest religious tradition in this country, supplanting Roman Catholicism, which is slowly bleeding members, according to a survey released yesterday by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.
Evangelical Protestants outnumber Catholics by 26.3 percent (59 million) to 24 percent (54 million) of the population, according to the U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, a massive 45-question poll conducted last summer of more than 35,000 American adults.
"There is no question that the demographic balance has shifted in past few decades toward evangelical churches," said Greg Smith, a research fellow at the Pew Forum. "They are now the mainline of American Protestantism."
The traditional mainline Protestant churches, which in 1957 constituted about 66 percent of the populace, now count just 18 percent as adherents.
Although one in three Americans are raised Roman Catholic, only one in four adults describe themselves as such, despite the huge numbers of immigrants swelling American churches, researchers said.
"Immigration is what is keeping them afloat," said John Green, a Pew senior fellow. "If everyone who was raised Catholic stayed Catholic, it'd be a third of the country."
Those who leave Catholicism mostly either drop out of church entirely or join Pentecostal or evangelical Protestant churches, Pew Forum director Luis Lugo said. One out of every 10 evangelicals is a former Catholic, he said, with Hispanic Catholics leaving at higher rates; 20 percent of them end up in evangelical or Pentecostal churches.
"It's a desire for a closer experience of God," he said. "It's not so much disenchantment with the teachings of the Catholic Church but the pull of what they see in Pentecostalism."
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
To attibute it all to lack of ethnic identity overlooks the very important factor of spiritual change. People don’t change religions because they just don’t feel that Italian any more.
The latest statistics are showing that “mainline Protestants†and Baptists are losing members too and that America is on the brink of losing its Protestant majority in America. The faith is simply in decline. Narcissism of the generations we raised since Dr. Spock is taking its toll. Actually, statictis show that Catholic number remain the same (see MSN.com) mainly due to Latin American immigration. So, it seems everyone has their own statistics to “prove†their agenda, like the various political polls...we have lost all principles when it comes truth.
Not exactly. Any one unaffiliated that professed to be evangelical was included with the evangelicals. Likewise those professing to be Reformed would be included with the mainline churches. It was only those that did not relate to any "tradition" that were put in the unaffiliated section.
Unaffiliated 16.1%
What great news. Also, we are making inroads in South America.
For Catholics, the most important part of the Mass isn’t the sermon, but the Eucharist (or so it SHOULD be).
Too many people go on feelings and if they don’t get anything out of it (most probably because they don’t put anything INTO it), they think it’s a waste of time.
If people weren’t so self-centered and more GOD-centered, Mass would be infinitely more meaningful.
I have to think it would have been a lot of funny hangin with Teddy before he killed someone.
I find this study hard to believe in light of the millions of Mexicans that have joined the Catholic Church in the U.S. in recent years.
Hundreds have taken a long path to [Catholic] church (Converts -- Rite of Election)
BTW, People are converting to the Catholic Church everywhere!
Not the way I read it. I just read it again. I think there must be a lot of non-churchgoing Christians in that group called unaffiliated. They don’t think of themselves as one of those evangelicals. Maybe I’m wrong. You’d have to actually see the questions, I guess.
I see from your reply that there is indeed 5.8 percent religious in that group. You must have gotten your figures from some other source than the New York Times. New York Times wanted to hide that 5.8 percent and make it look like there were more nonreligious than there were.
I seem to get “stuck” teaching RCIC, the one thing I make clear from the beginning and throughout is “Jesus loves you” and we go from there. When you’re working with children from 12 to 15 who have no religious background you get down to the basics. After that I try to teach them how and where they can learn and I ask them to never stop learning.
Cradle Catholics who never got Catholicism at some point stop going to Catholic churches, because the Church asks of them things they are not prepared to give. This is not spiritual change, it is spiritual lazyness.
BS. Spiritual laziness is going through set routines and thinking you are saved because of that.
True. So they leave.
Now THAT is a display of true Christian charity and self-sacrifice!
Another factor is that if one buys into modern "liberal" Christianity, then religion is nothing more than left-wing political "social justice" causes, and there is no real point to making an effort to go to church Sunday mornings, and certainly no incentive for any children to go once they are of age.
Not really, notice I said nothing about Universalists or Muslims or Pagans or Wiccans or Jedis or Cargo Cultists.
But most of the loudest dissidents are not only Catholic In Name Only but Christian In Name Only as well.
Statistically, less than half of Catholics believe in the 'real presensce'...Good preaching (motivational speaking, to you) DOES bring you closer to God...
I thought you guys claim that Mary is your Mother...
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