The Rapid Decline of Christianity in the USA

[Skwim]

I'm not posting this to throw it in the faces of Christians, but to establish the fact and ask:

WHY DO YOU THINK THIS IS HAPPENING?

What has, or hasn't, Christianity in America done to send it into such a tail spin?
The following assortment of visuals are posted without comment and meant to give you something to think about.

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[sun rise]

I think organized religion as we've known it is passing from the scene. Historically even in Christianity, there was a time when church as we know it did not exist, then the Catholic church was the sole church followed by the Protestant era. Now we see the growth of general spiritual feelings apart from religion:

For instance, among U.S. Christians, there has been an increase of 7 percentage points between 2007 and 2014 in the share who say they feel a deep sense of wonder about the universe at least weekly (from 38% to 45%). And there has been a similar rise in the share of religious “nones” who say the same (from 39% to 47%) – not to mention a 17-point jump among self-described atheists.

And I think many are turned off by politicized religion. I'd bet that is a part of the decline but I don't know how much of a part that plays.

 

[sun rise]

I just stumbled on this article which I think relates to the OP

The new house of worship’s “design program” (the kind of spaces included) evolved from the students’ ideas about where the sacred might be found. The designs reflect some of the elements of contemporary ideas about spirituality, with a combination of places for the spirit, places to share community, places for outreach, places for creation and performance, places for gathering in worship and ritual, places to share meals and fellowship (like pubs or coffeehouses).
http://religionnews.com/2017/06/14/what-will-future-houses-of-worship-look-like/

 

[Father Heathen]

Traditional, organized religion is dying off because society is becoming better educated and informed.

 

[Skwim]

Traditional, organized religion is dying off because society is becoming better educated and informed.

Interesting thought. From an April 26, 2017 article on the Pew Research Center web site.

"Looking at the U.S. public as a whole, however, the answer to the question of whether more education is correlated with less religion appears to be yes. Among all U.S. adults, college graduates are considerably less likely than those who have less education to say religion is “very important” in their lives: Fewer than half of college graduates (46%) say this, compared with nearly six-in-ten of those with no more than a high school education (58%).

Highly educated Americans also are less inclined than others to say they believe in God with absolute certainty and to pray on a daily basis. And, when asked about their religious identity, college graduates are more likely than others to describe themselves as atheists or agnostics (11% of college grads vs. 4% of U.S. adults with a high school education or less).

At the same time, Americans with college degrees are no less likely than others to report attending religious services on a weekly basis. Roughly a third of U.S. adults with college degrees (36%) say they attend a house of worship at least weekly, about the same as the share of those with some college (34%) and those with a high school diploma or less education (37%) who say they attend services once a week or more.

source

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[Lyndon]

10 or even 15% differences does not constitute a major decline, a lot of non believers used to go to church anyway in the old days, now you see them just not going to church.

 

[JJ50]

Christianity is practised in an extreme way by some in the US, possibly because the general populace seems more gullible about such matters than those of us here in the UK. How come those scam merchants the TV evangelists do so well, lining their pockets with money given them by their acolytes? Scum like that wouldn't do nearly so well in the UK!

 

[LuisDantas]

For centuries Christianity has grown mostly because people chose not to make a fuss over its often unreasonable proselitism and demands. If close family make a point of insisting on dogmatic ways, most people will try to deal with it without directly confronting it.

At some point that strategy would reach its limits. Attempting to use belief in God to "justify" obscurantism, discrimination against LGBT, rejection of science and shameful political ambicions brought us somewhat closer to those limits.

While there are many, many reasonable Christians, Christianity as a doctrine is in very bad shape and cared worse, as evidenced by the insistence on spending valuable attention and resources enabling the likes of Westboro, "Intelligent Design" and pride on faith-over-fact in general.

The decline is actually very moderate, given the circunstances. I expect it to grow considerably in the next few decades until and unless significant renewals of the morale and moral fiber take place inside Christianity.

 

[newone]

I would agree that people are better informed these days.... It doesn't take much research to realize that many religions don't teach the truth. My wife left her religion because she said they never opened the bible. Also the "rules" of the church were not followed by most of the members. The true Christian faith in contrast is growing....

 

[lewisnotmiller]

10 or even 15% differences does not constitute a major decline, a lot of non believers used to go to church anyway in the old days, now you see them just not going to church.

I think there is some validity to this. Societal and cultural expectations have changed and they impact on attendance at church even if belief itself is less effected (in my opinion).

 

[Yerda]

Traditional, organized religion is dying off because society is becoming better educated and informed.

Is it true that society is better educated and informed?

 

[metis]

I think more and more are questioning their faith or looking for something different, and I do tend to believe the internet and its exchange of ideas has helped this along. Also, there's less stigma against those who are atheists or agnostics.

I did read one article a while back that said that religious institutions that more encourage activities are doing better than those that don't.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

I'm not posting this to throw it in the faces of Christians, but to establish the fact and ask:

WHY DO YOU THINK THIS IS HAPPENING?

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There are multiple factors in play:

• The American church has a horrible public face. In recent memory, we have seen countless televangelist scandals, the Catholic priest pedophilia and cover-up scandals, bigots like Tony Perkins, James Dobson, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, Christian cults like those of Jim Jones and David Koresh, Westboro Baptist Church, Chick-fil-A, Hobby Lobby, the duck dynasty guy, the Oregon wedding cake couple, Kim Davis, the Duggar and Palin families and their public hypocrisies, the Target boycott snit, and years of abortion clinic terrorism including physician assassinations, arsons, bombings, and the Planned Parenthood smears culminating in Christian zealot Robert Lewis Dear shooting up a clinic.

• Then you have the persecution complex and the sense of Christian privilege - the idea that all invocations should be Christian prayers and only Christian prayers, or that saying "Happy Holidays" or putting up atheistic billboards at Christmas time contradicting Christian billboards is an affront to Christians or a war on Christmas, and if they don't get this special treatment, they cry that their religious liberties are being trampled upon. Possibly very off-putting to a lot of people.

• The church's mean spiritedness regarding homosexuals in American society is probably also very off-putting to a lot of people. Christian homophobia is pure bigotry, by which I mean an irrational, hateful and destructive attitude toward every member of a law abiding category of people. I suspect that many people were offended by the church's unwillingness to allow loving, committed same sex couple to enjoy the dignity and protections that married heterosexual couples enjoy on the basis of ancient ideas without merit.

• People are also likely pretty unimpressed with the idea of a god that would torture people for eternity for not bowing to it. I'm presuming on that one based on the frequency of Christians now saying that damnation is just separation from God or eternal slumber.

• Then there's the blatant disregard for a cherished American principle: church-state separation.

• And they just keep showing us that they have no answers. Recently, Christian voters overwhelmingly supported a presidential candidate who is morally challenged. We have evidence that he is a fraud (Trump university), a cheat (stiffs employees and contractors), a liar (do I need to give examples?), a bully, vengeful, and a sexual predator. Yet 81% of white evangelicals were willing to overlook that.

Those are all self-inflicted factors. There are also factors that are not of their own doing.

• Science has no doubt had an impact. It's apparent that the Bible is wrong about those things that science speaks to. So why believe that the parts that can't be confirmed or disconfirmed are accurate? And if the Bible is not the thoughts of a divine author, why believe it or base your life on it.

• The advent of the Internet has made it pretty near impossible to keep young people from reading the thoughts of unbelievers. Despite efforts to prevent their exposure to secular culture including home schooling, these young people can get information about evolution and atheism that isn't coming from creationists and the enemies of atheists even if they are forbidden to have a computer at home.

• Also, atheism has become socially acceptable. It's not as hard to be an atheist any more. This will probably cause the rate of decline of Christianity in America to accelerate. There is evidence that it already has (ARIS and Pew surveys). Celebrities like George Carlin and Bill Maher have also helped to make Christianity seem irrelevant and atheistic worldviews like secular humanism more appealing.

 

[The Holy Bottom Burp]

Christianity is practised in an extreme way by some in the US, possibly because the general populace seems more gullible about such matters than those of us here in the UK. How come those scam merchants the TV evangelists do so well, lining their pockets with money given them by their acolytes? Scum like that wouldn't do nearly so well in the UK!

True, it is one of the few things where we are way ahead of America, but there is clearly a (much needed) societal change going on in the U.S. I suspect it will take another few decades before the real decline in religion takes hold, when the older generation of religious adherents die off and the more progressive and liberal minded youth move into positions of power and influence. Who knows, we may see an American politician prepared to say on record that she/he is an atheist in the next decade! Armageddon!

 

[JJ50]

True, it is one of the few things where we are way ahead of America, but there is clearly a (much needed) societal change going on in the U.S. I suspect it will take another few decades before the real decline in religion takes hold, when the older generation of religious adherents die off and the more progressive and liberal minded youth move into positions of power and influence. Who knows, we may see an American politician prepared to say on record that she/he is an atheist in the next decade! Armageddon!

I can think of a good few other things where we are way ahead of the US!

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

Another reason for this is the breakdown of the family structure over the decades, urbanization and the rise of consumerism.

 

[The Holy Bottom Burp]

I can think of a good few other things where we are way ahead of the US!

Of course, we came up with Monty Python! Take that America!

 

[Kilgore Trout]

I expect that if/when things get bad again, religiosity will increase. Decreases in religiosity are one of the clearest signs of an overall prosperous and content populace. We now have the luxury of endlessly debating over who should be able to go to the bathroom - that type of ennui doesn't engender the need for god or religion.

 

[Jose Fly]

Six years ago a Christian polling group looked into this very question. Since much of the declines in US Christianity are among the younger generations, that's what they focused on.

https://www.barna.com/research/six-reasons-young-christians-leave-church/

Reason #1 – Churches seem overprotective.
Reason #2 – Teens’ and twentysomethings’ experience of Christianity is shallow.
Reason #3 – Churches come across as antagonistic to science.
Reason #4 – Young Christians’ church experiences related to sexuality are often simplistic, judgmental.
Reason #5 – They wrestle with the exclusive nature of Christianity.
Reason #6 – The church feels unfriendly to those who doubt.

Also, if you look at the data in the OP, it's the non-conservative areas of Christianity that are declining the most, while conservative evangelicals are roughly staying level. Given the rather "extreme" positions evangelicals take on things like LGBTQ issues, science, and cultural diversity, I wonder if we'll reach a point where American Christianity is mostly composed of right-wing fundamentalists. And then I wonder....given the above survey.....if that will only accelerate the declines we're seeing today.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

When I was being home schooled, the program proposed there is a "social pendulum" that swings back and forth, with one side being when society is generally theist, and the other side being when society is more atheist. It's also interesting when you consider George Washington thought the learnedness of his day made it astounding Christianity was still around, and then roughly a century later Christianity took off again. Now it's dwindling again.
Hopefully if there is any solid merit to this pendulum idea, something that doesn't include "kill those who don't want me to reign over them" replaces Christianity entirely before it swings back the other way.