Posted on 10/09/2012 3:08:34 AM PDT by markomalley
For the first time in its history, the United States does not have a Protestant majority, according to a new study. One reason: The number of Americans with no religious affiliation is on the rise.
The percentage of Protestant adults in the U.S. has reached a low of 48 percent, the first time that Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life has reported with certainty that the number has fallen below 50 percent. The drop has long been anticipated and comes at a time when no Protestants are on the U.S. Supreme Court and the Republicans have their first presidential ticket with no Protestant nominees.
Among the reasons for the change are the growth in nondenominational Christians who can no longer be categorized as Protestant, and a spike in the number of American adults who say they have no religion. The Pew study, released Tuesday, found that about 20 percent of Americans say they have no religious affiliation, an increase from 15 percent in the last five years.
Scholars have long debated whether people who say they no longer belong to a religious group should be considered secular. While the category as defined by Pew researchers includes atheists, it also encompasses majorities of people who say they believe in God, and a notable minority who pray daily or consider themselves "spiritual" but not "religious." Still, Pew found overall that most of the unaffiliated aren't actively seeking another religious home, indicating that their ties with organized religion are permanently broken.
(Excerpt) Read more at bigstory.ap.org ...
American born Catholics are leaving Catholicism in massive numbers, it is immigration of millions of Catholics that sustains the flat line of little decline.
Importing 10s of millions of Catholics and their offspring would normally have increased the percentage of Catholics, not reduced it.
""Catholics were 22% of the U.S. adult population in 1948, according to Gallup's estimates. That percentage rose over the years and reached its high point in the 1970s and 1980s, when the U.S. population was nearly 30% Catholic. In the last several years, Gallup's estimate of the percentage Catholic has been 22% to 23%.""
I don’t know, the only reason I know about the JWs is because their name is so easily recognized when I look up Mormonism.
Those who follow the heresy of Core go the way of Core taking their worldly wealth and all they built with them.
Prior to 1930 when all Christians agreed with the Catholic Church about contraception and abortion, this was a Christian nation. When the Protestants all put the desires of Self and convenience ahead of Christianity by denying what all Christians knew a month before was sin is exactly when this ceased to be a Christian nation.
The majority of the population, Protestants, agreed to a total surrender to Self and have gradually shed all Christian values. Other than still calling themselves Christian, the majority of the population is now totally dedicated to the pursuit of sex, wealth, and earthly power, just like all pagans throughout history have been. Despite what they claim, they have no interest whatsoever in denying their Self, taking up their cross, and following Christ.
When commenting on Protestants all deciding that infanticide was fine as long as you called it something else, Fulton Sheen said:
"Since a week ago last Saturday, we can no longer expect them to defend the law of God. These sects will work out the logic of their ways and in fifty or a hundred years there will be only the Church and paganism. We'll be left to fight the battle alone and we will."
Here we are eighty years later and overwhelming majority of Protestants along with and a huge number of people who are Protestant but claim to be Catholic, all take part in the pagan sacrifice of their own children to Moloch.
Anyone who pretends that the very Catholics who still defend what has been Christian teaching and understanding of Scripture for almost 2000 years are the ones responsible for turning this nation away from Christ is either delusional or deliberately dishonest.
California fell, next they hope to turn Texas into a liberal state through the Catholic vote.
Really? Do you have a confessional statement to go along with that accusation? Westminster? SBC's Baptist faith and message? Augsburg Confession?
Perhaps you have youtube video's of various church members stating such a belief?
Didnt think so.
Exo 20:16 Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.
Now thats a problem for you, because your charge is so specific that to prove it true, you would have to have either 1) concrete documentation, or 2) the capacity to read minds and see into human souls, which I believe is reserved to the Almighty. I for one reject your claim as spurious and unprovable. It is a lie until proven, and if not proven, it is a violation of the foregoing commandment.
What you are posting is not truth, not even good history, but a self-serving theory, and as we still live in a free country you are entitled to your own theory, but not to your own facts. You are engaged in a causal fallacy. As I pointed out to you before, it is Aquinas and his effort to absorb Aristotle into the Church that played a key role in opening the door to the self-worshipping autonomy of the Enlightenment. Not that he intended such a result, but it is difficult to deny the demonstrated consequences of his elevation of reason above its humble Augustinian station.
I recommend a book to you, by Francis Schaeffer, The God Who Is There. It provides a good outline of this development of autonomy, all the way from the beginning of church history, through Aquinas, and into the modern era. You can understand very little of how we got where we are without taking in a wider universe of facts. It is unhelpful to just keep firing off the same tired old polemic against people who love to know and obey what God has told us in His word.
Protestants are protesters, yes, but against what? The unity of Christian belief? Never! The authority of the Sovereign God? Never! We wage our protest against secular humanism in all its forms, without partiality, whether it appears in Caesars hubris, or Romes hubris, or the hubris of the postmodern spirit that denies all law but itself. By that measure, all true Catholics are necessarily Protestants:
Joh 15:17 These things I command you, that ye love one another. [18] If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. [19] If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.
And who promotes hatred of those who love God and His word? Schismatics. This is why I am careful on these forums never to make a charge which I would not be willing to defend in the court of Heaven. That principle has forced me more than once to back down from my initial impulses and consider whether I could back up my charges with evidence that would survive divine inspection. Because someday I may indeed be challenged by that Higher Court to support my claims against fellow believers, and I would not want to be found standing next to the Accuser of the Brethren on that day.
Just sayin
Peace,
SR
Lambeth Confession
It's not that big a deal to me...I kinda developed a casual interest in it when I was talking to a Baptist and he told me that he wasn't a Protestant (a "Landmark" Baptist, I think).
Apparently only white people are born in America. Thanks for the protip.
I have no idea how what you posted relates to my reply at all. Sorry.
If you think that then I can see how you get confused and befuddled by actual facts.
Importing 10s of millions of Catholics and their offspring would normally have increased the percentage of Catholics, not reduced it.
“”Catholics were 22% of the U.S. adult population in 1948, according to Gallup’s estimates. That percentage rose over the years and reached its high point in the 1970s and 1980s, when the U.S. population was nearly 30% Catholic. In the last several years, Gallup’s estimate of the percentage Catholic has been 22% to 23%.””
“Catholics in America really don’t have to depend on the Vatican to teach them how to be Protestants.”
The Vatican didn’t teach them how to be Protestants; it allowed them to become Protestants, then feigns disbelief as Mass attendance (along with other manifestations of faith) plummets. We’re “saved” now.../s
The divorced Catholics I know don’t attend Protestant churches; they simply re-marry in them then never see the inside of any church again.
I’m not throwing rocks at other Christians who don’t view everything the way I do; I am a Catholic stating the obvious about what has happened to the Catholic Church in America.
The commies successfully infiltrated much of the Catholic Church in North America as well; that is why Gore/Kerry/Obama rely on the “Catholic” states so reliably.
Agreed, Christianity first became wedded to the state under Constantine’s influence. However, Christians in Constantine’s day did not consider the Bishop of Rome, later called the Pope, to hole the primacy over all the other churches. No RCC without the Roman Pope, Leo (AD 440-461( was the first Pope. Only then was the rest of Christianity expected to be in subservience to the Pope.
Catholics and Protestants butchering each other by the bushel? Do you know your history? You make it sound as if it was a fifty-fifty thing. Check it out and see who did all the butchering by the bushels. Hint, it wasn’t Protestants butchering Catholics.
No, the Lambeth Articles are irrelevant to your proof. You have accused those who honor God’s word over Rome’s word of the following:
“Protestants ... teach the doctrine of Self Alone and the worship of your own, Most High and Holy Self.”
It is downright bizarre to offer the Lambeth Articles in support of your claim, because if anything they run in exactly the opposite direction, diminishing human autonomy to absolute zero, at least with respect to salvation. The curious may review them here:
http://www.puritanboard.com/f30/lambeth-articles-10309/
Now, back to your patently false accusation, for it is and remains false until you provide objective evidence that it is true. There is no such teaching as yu have stated in any of the recognized Protestant confessions or bodies, nor would there be, among those who tremble at His word. Are you comfortable with your unproven accusations, or do you intend to offer specific evidence backing your specific claim?
Crickets?
Oh well.
Peace,
SR
Unaffiliated usually means “good works”
and later in NYC and Miami where Catholics and Jews were likely over 75% of the public
and latin America where Catholics and Church of Brasil were almost monolithic
...that I never ever really experienced Catholic Chauvinism till I joined this forum 12 years ago
simply incredible
aside from my kin marrying Catholics on occasion they were off my radar and my pals who attended parochial school were more often ethnic than not but no one scorned them and they were accepting of me and showed no condescension
what I see here is not encouraging...and yes..I don't think the Devil resides in Rome talk helps either
I just wish Catholics voted like Missouri Synod Lutherans or Assemblies of God charismatics
but they don't...their creed is sound at least it seems but too many just seem to go through the rituals without listening like they ought to..as I wish they would
Your right and Satan loves the division too.
And your point? That was 1960 - 50 years ago now. Old enough to have granchildren born in America.
Do they not count as Americans because they aren’t white?
Sure it was - look at what Elizabeth I did in England.
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