15 May 2015 A.D. Pew Survey—3 Takeaways
15 May 2015 A.D. Pew Survey—3 Takeaways
Stetzer, Ed.
“Nominals to Nones: 3 Key Takeaways From Pew’s Religious Landscape
Survey.” Christianity Today. 12 May
2015. http://www.christianitytoday.com/edstetzer/2015/may/nominals-to-nones-3-key-takeaways-from-pews-religious-lands.html. Accessed 13 May 2015.
One missed takeaway by Ed. Ed doesn’t do much with “Confessional Churchmen”
who’ll continue “confessing” their faith. He's wasn't "catechetized" is all but abundant to those who have been. That’s not in his background and it’s
not in his wheelhouse by background, training or interest. But, probably, a
“majority” of these evangelicals don’t confess very much. Imagine life without
a coherent, developed and warrantable confession? Imagine children without a
good, solid catechism? Like having a 1925 Model-T for fast super-highways. American Episcopalians are probably worse although our
hymnbook and parts of our BCP keep some themes before us.
Here’s Ed.
Stetzer, Ed.
“Nominals to Nones: 3 Key Takeaways From Pew’s Religious Landscape
Survey.” Christianity Today. 12 May
2015. http://www.christianitytoday.com/edstetzer/2015/may/nominals-to-nones-3-key-takeaways-from-pews-religious-lands.html. Accessed 13 May 2015.
Today, Pew Research Center released a report drawing a variety of
headlines—everything from “Christianity faces sharp
decline as Americans are becoming even less affiliated with religion” to “Pew: Evangelicals Stay Strong
as Christianity Crumbles in America.”
So what are we supposed to
think of Christianity in America?
The nominals are becoming the nones, and the convictional
are remaining committed.
The big trends are clear, the
nominals are becoming the nones, yet the convictional are remaining committed.
In other words, Americans
whose Christianity was nominal—in name only—are casting aside the name. They
are now aligning publicly with what they’ve actually not believed all along.
The percentage of convictional
Christians remains rather steady, but because the nominal Christians now are
unaffiliated the overall percentage of self-identified Christians is decline.
This overall decline is what Pew shows—and I expect it to accelerate.
As I have said before, not one serious researcher
thinks Christianity in America is dying. What we see from Pew is not the death-knell of
Christianity, but another indication that Christianity in America is being
refined.
As such, let me share three
takeaways from the data.
Evangelicals are not the only
people who call themselves Christians and a good proportion take it seriously,
but since this is an evangelical publication, let me share some data from there
with one caveat.
You might say that I have a
vested interested in evangelicalism's success. However, as an author, the
opposite is true. If I announced the death of evangelicalism and Christian
faith, I'd sell a lot more books, I assure you.
But, facts are our friends and
math is math, so let's take a look.
First, from 2007 to 2014 the
number of evangelicals in America rose from 59.8 million to 62.2 million.
Evangelicals now make up a
clear majority (55%) of all U.S. Protestants. In 2007, 51% of U.S. Protestants
identified with evangelical churches.
From 2007 to 2014 the number of evangelicals in America
rose from 59.8 million to 62.2 million.
Within Christianity, the only
group retaining more of their population than the evangelical church is the
historically black church.
One of the primary reasons it
appears as though “American Christianity” is experiencing a sharp decline is
because the nominals that once made up (disproportionately) Mainline
Protestantism and Catholicism are now checking “none” on religious affiliation
surveys.
Nominal Christians make up a
higher percentage of Mainline Protestants and Catholics than any other
denomination of Christian, and this is why their numbers continue to sharply
decline.
For those who have only ever
considered themselves “Christian” because they’ve been to church before, or
because they aren’t Muslim or Hindu, it is starting to make more sense to check
“none” on religious identification surveys.
Yet, church attendance rates
(though overreported) are not changing substantially. (I will be writing more
on that soon.)
2.
There have been significant shifts within American Christianity.
One of the most notable shifts
in American Christianity is the evangelicalization of church in America. Fifty
percent of all Christians now self-identify as “evangelical” or “born again,”
up from 44 percent in 2007. In 2007, 44% of American Christians, who made up
78% of the U.S. population identified as evangelical. In 2014, 50% of American
Christians, who make up 70% of the U.S. population identify as evangelical.
Pew notes, “The evangelical
Protestant tradition is the only major Christian group in the survey that has
gained more members than it has lost through religious switching.”
It should be noted that
evangelicals’ share of the overall U.S. population dropped by 0.9% over the
last seven years, but the percentage of U.S. adults who self-identify as
evangelical actually rose from 34% to 35% over the same period of time. The
drop in population share is based on denominational affiliation, whereas the
one percent increase is based on self-identification.
(I will be sharing more on
practice soon, which will actually be a surprise to many.)
The percentage Millennial
evangelicals remained the same (21%) from 2007-2014. The only decline was among
the Greatest Generation (28-25%), who, because of their age, are not a growth
demographic. Every other one stayed the same as well.
Only 45% of those raised in the Mainline Protestant
tradition remain in Mainline churches.
Sixty-five percent of those
raised evangelical remain evangelical (behind only Hindu, Muslim, Jewish and Historically
Black Protestant). Sixteen percent switched to another version of Christianity,
3% switched to another faith, and 15% became unaffiliated.
The only region where
evangelicals decreased—the South (37-34%). It remained the same in the
Northeast and Midwest, and grew in the West (20-22%).
That's not to say that
evangelicalism is doing well—it peaked a couple of decades ago in the United
States—but one of the big shifts INSIDE Christianity is TOWARD Evangelicalism,
oddly enough. Yet, in the culture as a whole, and as a percentage of the
population, Evangelicalism is losing ground.
3.
Mainline Protestantism continues to hemorrhage.
Only 45% of those raised in
the Mainline Protestant tradition remain in Mainline churches. Those whose
parents and grandparents were mainline Protestants aren’t carrying on the
family tradition like those who align with other Protestant denominations.
Since members of these churches are not gaining new members from the culture
at-large, nor growing by birth rates, they continue to decline precipitously.
Mainline Protestantism isn’t
experiencing growth as a portion of Americans generally nor American
Christianity specifically. If Mainline Protestantism continues its trajectory
it is only a couple of generations from virtual extinction.
For more on this issue, read a recent blog post I
wrote on three important church
trends in the next 10 years.
So What?
Christianity isn’t dying and
no research says it is; the statistics about Christians in America are simply
starting to show a clearer picture of what American Christianity is
becoming—less nominal, more defined, and more outside of the mainstream of American
culture.
For example, the cultural cost
of calling yourself “Christian” is starting to outweigh the cultural benefit,
so those who do not identify as a “Christian” according to their convictions
are starting to identify as “nones” because it’s more culturally savvy.
Because of this, the
statistics show (on the surface) that Christianity in America is experiencing a
sharp decline. However, that's the path of those who don't read beyond the
surface. If there remains a relatively stable church-engaged, convictional
minority, and there is a big movement on self-identification, that means that
the middle is going away.
As the Pew Forum's Conrad
Hackett explained (before this release of the data):
To some extent, this seems to
be a phenomenon in which people with low levels of religious commitment are now
more likely to identify as religiously unaffiliated, whereas in earlier decades
such people would have identified as Christian, Jewish or as part of some other
religious group.
In short, and as I put it, the
"nominals" are becoming the "nones" AND convictional
Christian practice is a minority, but generally stable, population. If that is
the case, and that is what the data is showing, than the decline is primarily
(not exclusively) that nominal Christians are becoming honest reporters.
So, Christians, we need not
run around with our hands in the air and say, “The sky is falling! The sky is
falling!”
Christianity is losing, and
will continue to lose, its home field advantage; no one can (or should) deny
this. However, the numerical decline of self-identified American Christianity
is more of a purifying bloodletting than it is an arrow to the heart of the
church.
Yesterday, I wrote about reaching
nominal and secular people.
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