Real Christianity is Growing in the USA
Is Christianity dying in America? In this review essay by historian William De Arteaga, he points out that the statistics about the church shrinking are not what most have made of it.
Glen T. Stanton, “New Harvard Research Says U.S. Christianity Is Not Shrinking, But Growing Stronger,” The Federalist (January 22, 2018)
The above cited article is a summary article, and below is original research that encompasses many studies on the topic. Both are very encouraging, especially in view of the bad news we Christians have been hearing about the eventual demise of the Church in America, or at least its marginalization as has happened in Western Europe. New and careful analysis shows, for instance, that in the US the percentage of persons attending church services once a week has increased every decade since the Nation’s founding. Yes, that‘s right, many a patriot soldier of 1775 was also an agnostic or deist. Thank God there was a leaven of Christians.
The percentage of Christians who go to church often has been steady for decades.
The article below shows, in great detail and with graphs, that the percentage of Christians who go to church often, has been steady for decades. The losses are from nominal believers who no longer feel social pressure to remain in church or be identified as Christian.
Landon Schnabel and Sean Bock, “The Persistent and Exceptional Intensity of American Religion: A Response to Recent Research,” Sociological Science 4 (2017), pages 686-700.
Here is the abstract from that article:
Recent research argues that the United States is secularizing, that this religious change is consistent with the secularization thesis, and that American religion is not exceptional. But we show that rather than religion fading into irrelevance as the secularization thesis would suggest, intense religion—strong affiliation, very frequent practice, literalism, and evangelicalism—is persistent and, in fact, only moderate religion is on the decline in the United States. We also show that in comparable countries, intense religion is on the decline or already at very low levels. Therefore, the intensity of American religion is actually becoming more exceptional over time. We conclude that intense religion in the United States is persistent and exceptional in ways that do not fit the secularization thesis.
God is setting the stage for another Great Awakening in America.
Category: Church History, Spring 2018