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.
Ah, that makes sense.
You shouldn’t put your faith in clergy. Ever. I’m Italian...this we know from long, long experience. :)
Anyway, you should go not because of the clergy but because a) God is God, and He deserves to be adored in the way that He himself ordained at the Last Supper, and because b) you need the grace that comes from receiving the Blessed Sacrament.
Right. The best case scenario is that the Holy Spirit is convicting the congregation, either toward salvation or living a better Christian life.
Amen, Cato! On the dress up issue, it’s great for those who show honor in that way. For the gathering we have started attending in our new home town, we are delighted to see scraggly and flip-flops as they are often being worn by people who have almost nothing and are searching - for spiritual and basic human needs to be met. I absolutely believe you would welcome the same folks into your congregation.
But as I said above, a couple of bad apples does not mean that the entire church has gone bad.
Look around. I bet you will find a LCMS church that is true to the Word of God.
clique, not click.
My brain is fried, probably have early stages of Alzheimer.
We have three separate choirs.
One does chant; one does some of the modern songs and one tends to follow, (but not always) the modern road.
All the choirs are working the chant into certain parts of the Mass 00 so this is good.
PS. And our parish is growing by leaps and bounds.
I think that was the ELCA, not the LCMS of WELS.
I've seen people come into church with a load of issues only to leave because they've felt shut out. I had one man say to me a few years ago that I was the only one from the church who made an effort to say hello to him.
So. Do you need the other members of the Body? Tagline.
For as the body is one, and has many members; and all the members of the body, whereas they are many, yet are one body, so also is Christ.<
For the body also is not one member, but many.
If the foot should say, because I am not the hand, I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the body?
And if the ear should say, because I am not the eye, I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the body?
If the whole body were the eye, where would be the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where would be the smelling?
But now God has set the members every one of them in the body as it hath pleased him.
And if they all were one member, where would be the body?
But now there are many members indeed, yet one body.
And the eye cannot say to the hand: I need not thy help; nor again the head to the feet: I have no need of you.
That there might be no schism in the body; but the members might be mutually careful one for another.
And if one member suffer any thing, all the members suffer with it; or if one member glory, all the members rejoice with it.
Now you are the body of Christ, and members mutually of one another.
Maybe make a day of it travelling to the service you like.
Find a good restaurant around there. Or if you have friends.
I'd love to hear that or even that old time gospel music.
There is only salvation...everything else is headed for hell.
Another 50 percent said they stopped believing in the particular tenets of the faith they were raised in.
Churches are not following their own hard won doctrine
Salvation is right, GinK. Surely there must be some LCMS churches that aren’t corrupted. Listen to our fellow brother in Christ, G.
It doesn’t sound “hard” or harsh. You’re correct. However, if a Christian (someone who has been saved) is backsliding, the Holy Sprit can convict him to change his ways, i.e., “live a better Christian life”.
"We should not stop gathering together with other believers, as some of you are doing. Instead, we must continue to encourage each other even more as we see the day of the Lord coming."
We need you.
Good quote! Thanks so much.
“I’d love to hear that or even that old time gospel music.”
For a few years we “settled” for the more modern church services with Contemporary “Christian” music, airy-fairy sermons, and casual services. We moved in June and are thrilled to have found a traditional church that’s much like the churches of the ‘50s and ‘60s. They use actual hymnals and sing hymns like, “My Sins Are Blotted Out I Know”, “There Is A Fountain”, “Stepping In The Light”, “Amazing Grace” (the way it’s written, not all funky and theatrical), “My Faith Has Found A Resting Place”.
Sermons are great, 100% Bible based, with no tap-dancing around issues, whether religious or political. They’re respectful and dignified. Members dress appropriately for church. The children behave perfectly.
Prior to that, the reason why we considered not going to church at all was because all the Baptist churches we’d found in our area of TN have gone “off the deep end” and modern.
Here's the evidence:
Acts 20:7
"And upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them"
This was because the Lord rose from the dead on the First Day, and that changed everything.
To me it was never the sexual abuse, that drove me off. I expected them to do something about it, and for the most part they have. Now I simply don’t recognize the churches, and what they stand for, besides socialism, and sodomy.
They are sending aid to muslims without making any effort to convert them. The call it humanitarian...I call it crazy. They won’t attack Mad Mo for the degenerate he was, for the disgusting antics of his followers.
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