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Christians 'Declining Sharply' in America; Unaffiliated Rising, Now Hold Greater Population Share
Christian Post ^ | 05/12/2015 | Stoyan Zaimov

Posted on 05/12/2015 11:57:01 AM PDT by SeekAndFind

An extensive study by the Pew Research Center has revealed that Christians are declining sharply in America in terms of population share, while the religiously unaffiliated are rising, and now make up a larger share than American Catholics. The rise of religious intermarriages was one trend linked to the growth of the unaffiliated.

The report, which was released on Tuesday, stated: "The drop in the Christian share of the population has been driven mainly by declines among mainline Protestants and Catholics. Each of those large religious traditions has shrunk by approximately 3 percentage points since 2007. The evangelical Protestant share of the U.S. population also has dipped, but at a slower rate, falling by about 1 percentage point since 2007."

Christians remain the largest religious group in America, but their share of the population fell from 78.4 to 70 percent between 2007 to 2014, Pew noted.

Among denominational groups, evangelical Protestants fell from 26.3 to 25.4 percent in the same time period, Catholics fell from 23.9 to 20.8 percent, while Mainline Protestant's declined from 18.1 to 14.7 percent.

The only Christian groups to register minimal growth at 0.1 percent were Jehovah's Witness, at 0.8 percent of the population, and those in the "Other Christian" category, at 0.4 percent.

Pew said that the rise in religious intermarriages appears to be linked with the growth of the religiously unaffiliated, and said that nearly four-in-10 or 39 percent of Americans who have gotten married since 2010 have said that they are in religiously mixed marriages — by comparison, that number was only 19 percent before 1960.

"Nearly one-in-five people surveyed who got married since 2010 are either religiously unaffiliated respondents who married a Christian spouse or Christians who married an unaffiliated spouse," the report revealed.

(Excerpt) Read more at christianpost.com ...


TOPICS: Catholic; Evangelical Christian; Mainline Protestant; Religion & Culture
KEYWORDS: christianity; christians; decline; demography; faithandphilosophy; pewpoll; popefrancis; religion; ricksteves; romancatholicism; timkeller; trends; uschristianity

1 posted on 05/12/2015 11:57:01 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind
ORIGINAL TITLE ( too long to include ):

Christians 'Declining Sharply' in America; Unaffiliated Rising, Now Hold Greater Population Share Than Catholics, Pew Study Reveals


2 posted on 05/12/2015 11:57:49 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind

30 years of Media Memes:

“Christians are HATERS!”
“Christians are CRAZY!!”
“Christians are STUPID!”
“Christians are BIGOTS!”
“Christians are HYPOCRITES!”
“Christians are UNCOOL!”

..is it any wonder the numbers are down?


3 posted on 05/12/2015 11:59:29 AM PDT by tcrlaf (They told me it could never happen in America. And then it did....)
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To: tcrlaf

Christians are SAVED (has little appeal to unbelievers until they near their last breath.)


4 posted on 05/12/2015 12:02:07 PM PDT by oldplayer
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To: SeekAndFind

Watered down theology doesn’t help either.

Mainline churches imploded due to liberalism, and the Catholic Church is still dealing with the poison of liberation theology.

Propaganda in public schools and the media doesn’t help either.


5 posted on 05/12/2015 12:02:12 PM PDT by Shadow44
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To: SeekAndFind

Your government and teachers union at work.


6 posted on 05/12/2015 12:03:19 PM PDT by A CA Guy ( God Bless America, God Bless and keep safe our fighting men and women.)
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To: A CA Guy

Bingo!


7 posted on 05/12/2015 12:05:15 PM PDT by ColdOne (I miss my poochie... Tasha 2000~3/14/11)
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To: SeekAndFind
Jesus spoke of this in His Olivet Discourse on the last days:

"And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold." - Matthew 24:12

We are certainly seeing this along with false prophets and hatred for real Christians.

However, the good news is that the Gospel is being preached "in all the world as a witness to all the nations" through electronic media and missions.

8 posted on 05/12/2015 12:06:16 PM PDT by Dr. Thorne (The night is far spent, the day is at hand.- Romans 13:12)
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To: SeekAndFind

I was watching Rick Steves’s Europe the other day. I think he was in Oslo at the Oslo City Hall a very imposing building and a tourist attraction. He mentioned that in the Scandanavian countries in northern Europe, government buildings are big attractions and are very popular. He mentioned the people who live in these countries don’t mind paying high taxes and expect much services from their government. He also pointed out that churches in this region tend to be very modest and that church attendance among the general population is quite low. Seems to me we are exactly on the same path.


9 posted on 05/12/2015 12:20:51 PM PDT by Trapped Behind Enemy Lines
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Video: The Supremacy of Christ in a Postmodern World - Tim Keller


10 posted on 05/12/2015 12:31:20 PM PDT by Heartlander (Prediction: Increasingly, logic will be seen as a covert form of theism. - Denyse OÂ’Leary)
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To: Trapped Behind Enemy Lines
I was watching Rick Steves’s Europe the other day. I think he was in Oslo at the Oslo City Hall a very imposing building and a tourist attraction. He mentioned that in the Scandanavian countries in northern Europe, government buildings are big attractions and are very popular. He mentioned the people who live in these countries don’t mind paying high taxes and expect much services from their government. He also pointed out that churches in this region tend to be very modest and that church attendance among the general population is quite low. Seems to me we are exactly on the same path.

I remember seeing that episode. Can't remember if it was Oslo or Stockholm. The thing I took away from it is that those countries can probably get away with socialism because most of their population probably contributes to the pot which pays for the services. They did not strike me as countries with "47%" of their people on the dole and they did not appear to have illegals pouring over their borders.

11 posted on 05/12/2015 12:33:44 PM PDT by Sans-Culotte (Psalm 14:1 ~ The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.”)
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To: Sans-Culotte

They do have lots of immigrants, I don’t know if legal or not. But as with the rest of Europe, they (Scandinavian countries) have burgeoning Muslim populations.


12 posted on 05/12/2015 12:37:59 PM PDT by Trapped Behind Enemy Lines
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To: Trapped Behind Enemy Lines
They do have lots of immigrants, I don’t know if legal or not. But as with the rest of Europe, they (Scandinavian countries) have burgeoning Muslim populations.

I'm waiting for the episodes in the future in which Rick warns us to "avoid Shariah-only areas".

13 posted on 05/12/2015 12:43:36 PM PDT by Sans-Culotte (Psalm 14:1 ~ The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.”)
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To: Sans-Culotte

Ha ha ha. That’ll be the day.

Rick is a good propagandist for both PBS and Europe.

He always paints the bright smiley face of Europe. Rarely the dark side.

Then again he has interest. He has tour guides, TV programs, DVDs and videos and books he needs to sell.

He likes to trash commercial TV. But he does very well commercially if you ask me. He also learned it’s cheaper to use Public TV than it is on the privately owned channels such as the Travel Channel.


14 posted on 05/12/2015 12:49:43 PM PDT by Trapped Behind Enemy Lines
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To: SeekAndFind

I suspect the numbers are not necessarily dropping, just that more people are being honest that they are not affiliated, nor were they to begin with. My town is so full of churches it has become a running joke. And yet, even if you filled them all to capacity (which they never are), you could only house 25-30% of the city.

This is even more the truth with Islam. From all people who claim to be Muslim, count all who have actually read the Koran and actually follow what the Koran says. I’d be surprised if the real number of true Muslims is more than 10-20%.


15 posted on 05/12/2015 1:01:43 PM PDT by Marko413
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