Posted on 01/15/2023 11:24:54 AM PST by 6thavenue
While religious identity among Americans remained largely stable throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, it accelerated existing trends in declining church attendance, particularly among the young, a new report from the Survey Center on American Life shows.
(Excerpt) Read more at christianpost.com ...
Oops, here’s the proper headline:
Pandemic accelerated fall in church attendance, especially among the young: study
Well, weren’t many churches FORCED either to close or to restrict attendance?
yes. Probably many got out of the habit of going to church, and just never went back.
Someone needs to learn how to post article on FR.
gloom and despair tends to ruin faith
gloom and despair tends to ruin faith.
**********
Then it’s not faith. Lacking faith, watch them turn to drugs, dictators, and con artists.
Maybe Covid, declining Church attendance and liberalizing of the Church is all a program adopted by the NWO. For the NWO to become a reality, it had to take out the Church and destroy its leadership which Francis has done, next is destruction of the Cultures of Europe and America which appears to be slowly working its way through the ranks. Next is the economys of Europe and America which is just down the road with Bitcoin and similar based exercises. Then the NWO will adjust the World Reserve Currency to be unstabilized and be relocated to several countries one of which is China which will have a major control of World Economic decisions. Since America is bankrupt Biden has followed Obozo’s and Soro’s directives to destroy what is left of America’s economic powers, now time is on their side.
Cancer effects and infects everyone. We are moving closer everyday to a flashpoint. A free for all will be ugly until all sides tire themselves out and not many are left.
https://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Faith-After-the-Pandemic.pdf?x91208
The religious composition of the public in the years before the pandemic and after are nearly identical (Figure 1). Before the pandemic, 17 percent of American adults were white mainline Protestant; 14 percent were white evangelical Protestants. White Catholics comprised one in 10 Americans before the pandemic. Nine percent of Americans were black Protestants. Another 6 percent of Americans identi- fied as Hispanic Catholic. Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints made up 2 percent of the public [total ID as Christians = 58%], and 1 percent of Americans were Jewish. One in four Americans (25 percent) claimed no reli- gious affiliation—or were religiously unaffiliated. These remained essentially unchanged in spring 2022, with religious groups nearly identically sized before and after the pandemic.
Before the coronavirus pandemic, 75 percent of Americans reported attending religious services at least once a year (Figure 2), including about one-quarter (26 percent) who attended regularly (at least a few times a month). By spring 2022, roughly two-thirds of the public reported attending religious services at least once a year
Conservatives, older Americans, married adults, and college-educated Americans reported less of a decline in regular worship attendance than other Americans did. In fact, their frequency of attendance at religious services was largely similar before and after the pan- demic.
Yes that was the intention.
We Christians had to see it for what it was and disregard it.
It was a Calvinist revival! The church got purged.
“No group of Americans has undergone more significant change in religious attendance than young adults. More than four in 10 young adults report different levels of religious participation today than they did before the pandemic,” researchers explained.
“Only 58% of young adults report the same level of religious attendance in spring 2022 as they did a couple years earlier. Nearly one in three (30%) of young adults are attending religious services less often today, while 12% are more active,” they continued. “In contrast, three-quarters of seniors are attending just as often today as they were before the pandemic.”
Researchers noted that “rather than completely upending established patterns, the pandemic accelerated ongoing trends in religious change.”
“Young people, those who are single, and self-identified liberals ceased attending religious services at all at much higher rates than other Americans did. Even before the pandemic, these groups were experiencing the most dramatic declines in religious membership, practice, and identity. At least in terms of religious attendance, the pandemic appears to have pushed out those who had maintained the weakest commitments to regular attendance,” the report added.
It further noted that “the decline of religious attendance and the stability of religious identity over the past two years suggest a decoupling of identity and experience.”
“Increasingly, religious affiliation may tell us less about the full range of religious and spiritual experiences Americans have and the extent of their theological commitments,” the researchers said.
In recent years, churches have increasingly grappled with how to attract younger people, but in “Generation Z and the future of faith in America,” Cox explained that the younger generation has a diminished view of religion in part due to their parents doing less to encourage them to participate in formal worship.
“Young adults today have had entirely different religious and social experiences than previous generations.”
Our church seems to be doing okay with the over 40/50 age group since Covid. New members in that age group wanting to help and happy to join.
We are not doing well with the new younger and over 50 something generations.
Pledges have increased and givers of record are meeting their pledges.
Our youth groups are following the same pattern as those before for decades. They are very active until graduation from high school. Then, we might see them at Christmas and Easter, even those staying local.
It is interesting that some new grandparents are coming back into the church and some are very active. An example is a 50 something life long female member, who was basically an C&E member, the last 25 years. A year ago, she became a grandmother, and she is now a Lay reader, taking communion to those not able to get to church and she is calling to see how her communion members are getting along.
I think faith is on a sliding scale that varies with verification.
I've had a LOT of personal events (miracles/miraculous results) in my life that supports my faith in God's love and care for me.
I can only speculate that (because I HAVE experienced "dry times"), had I never or rarely had any positive results (ala, a fleece, etc.), I might not have the faith I have now.
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