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.
This is true, but it is a good way to meet together in a building, a common meeting place that can also bless the community surrounding it. Even in the poorest countries in the world you find them meeting in “church buildings” they may not have roofs or even walls but they are a common place to worship, I have seen this first hand as well as home churches due to persecution.
Every change to the Catholic mass has been something that makes me less and less want to attend. When I don’t go it is out of laziness or in the way of something else I want to do, bad as that sounds.
But the latest fiasco is to make every prayer a difficult song. It is bad enough I can no longer say the prayers I used to because I hate singing at church, but the songs are so difficult to sing, only the choir is singing them anymore.
What happened to songs like “They will know we are Christians by our Love” which was at least very easy to sing.
I think the Vatican is as filled with traitors as the US government is, and the enemies within are trying to destroy both institutions from within. I honestly do. It is getting harder and harder to believe in mass and want to attend. I want to attend mass but everything they have done the past 25 years puts me off more and more and more.
Oh boo freaking hoo. Many of the families at our Latin Mass parish drive an hour each way...some even an hour and a half. We leave the house at 9, get back in the afternoon depending on how long we stay and chat.
You make it a priority, and then everything else falls into place around it.
The Pastors, Priests, and preachers are now ESPN's taking heads.
The new "God" is the National Football League.
Orthodox Christians generally don’t eat breakfast before church, if you are receiving communion. No dishes to wash! LOL! We have coffee hour afterwards. Our church is small, and we generally enjoy each other’s company. I feel like something is missing in my life if I don’t go to church. It just depends on your priorities. It’s easy to get out of the habit of going to church.
There will always be bad clergy/pastors, as well as hypocrites in churches. The Church should be a hospital for us, not a court of law.
“Merry Christmas and happy Ramadan” from the pulpit did it for me. Churches and the clergy have lost their way.
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>> “ A few hundred years ago, European and American intellectuals began doubting the validity of God as an explanatory mechanism for natural life.” <<
I don’t expect to bump into any “intellectuals” at the Last Trump.
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If you are unwilling to challenge every doctrine that is pushed off on you by testing it against the word, you will be destroyed for real by he who created us.
That was the apostle John's admonition to us.
“Try the spirits, whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world.”
1John 4:1
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Agree 100%
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thanks :)
Sent you a PM.
There is a story of the man whose son was about to be healed. After a doubt and Jesus’s objection, the man said “I believe, help my unbelief” see Mark 9:24.
So pray to God for more faith. He grants it, Php. 1:29
See also Eph. 4:7, 1Jn. 5:13, 1Cor. 10:13
I’m on a tight schedule so may not get back soon.
The Churchs either forgot which day is the Lords Day or they changed it to Sunday. But the Commandment itself is still valid.
If there's a chance previously unanswered questions will reinforce your personal faith in the Lord, there is no greater quest in this life. NOTHING nor anyone should stop you, nor should you fear ridicule with such your sincerity to feel closer to God.
JMHO.
Jesus embraces gays too, although he probably doesn't condone their behaviour.
If the ELCA condones their behaviour, then that is something else.
All mankind is flawed,
Yes, that's why we need a Saviour to "embrace" us.
Why accept someone else’s flawed interpretation?
No need. Go to the source and let Him interpret things for you.
Yeah, and I hope it is true.
The LCMS is corrupted as the rest. The church exists to provide jobs for the clergy, who are otherwise useless.
The brush of ignorance, I see. I left because of the "Merry Christmas and happy Ramadan" from the pulpit.
Which changes? The Vatican II changes? (they were 40+ years ago). Or the more recent ones to the texts of the prayers?
Because if the Vatican II changes put you off, there are more and more places to find the traditional Mass, which kicks the stuffing out of any newfangled liturgy they are doing nowadays.
Mad as a hatter.
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