From Pastor Bernice

 A new study came out this week ...

...on religion, specifically Christianity, in America.  And some might say it’s not looking too good for the home team.

The study says:

“The Christian share of the U.S. population is declining, while the number of U.S. adults who do not identify with any organized religion is growing,” according to an extensive new survey by the Pew Research Center, adding, “Moreover, these changes are taking place across the religious landscape, affecting all regions of the country and many demographic groups. While the drop in Christian affiliation is particularly pronounced among young adults, it is occurring among Americans of all ages.”

Key findings of the study include:

-The percentage of adults who describe themselves as Christians has dropped by nearly eight percentage points in just seven years. Over the same period, the percentage of Americans who are religiously unaffiliated – describing themselves as atheist, agnostic or “nothing in particular” – has jumped more than six points. 
- Even as their numbers decline, American Christians – like the U.S. population as a whole – are becoming more racially and ethnically diverse.  Racial and ethnic minorities now make up 41% of Catholics (up from 35% in 2007), 24% of evangelical Protestants (up from 19%) and 14% of mainline Protestants (up from 9%).
- While many U.S. religious groups are aging, the unaffiliated are comparatively young – and getting younger over time. As a rising cohort of highly unaffiliated Millennials reaches adulthood, the median age of unaffiliated adults has dropped to 36, far lower than the general (adult) population’s median age of 46.4 By contrast, the median age of mainline Protestant adults in the new survey is 52, and the median age of Catholic adults is 49.
- There are now approximately 56 million religiously unaffiliated adults in the U.S., and this group – sometimes called religious “nones” – is more numerous than either Catholics or mainline Protestants, according to the new survey. 
- Generational replacement is by no means the only reason that religious “nones” are growing and Christians are declining. People in older generations are increasingly disavowing association with organized religion. About a third of older Millennials (adults currently in their late 20s and early 30s) now say they have no religion.

There’s a lot there, some of it frightening for the American church.  But when we stop to think about it, it’s not shocking.  We all know of churches that have closed for lack of members.  We all know friends and family who were raised in the church but who no longer really consider themselves Christians or who have been so wounded by the Church or so turned off by the Church that they no longer participate in organized religion.  Who among us has not heard the words, “I’m spiritual but not religious”?

But here are the words of Rachel Held Evans, not about the study but about the situation of the American church,  " Maybe a little death and resurrection is what the church needs right now.  Death is something empires worry about.  It's not something gardeners worry about.  It's not something resurrection people worry about." Hmmm...

What might seem to be all bad news to some offers others of us an unique opportunity.  To be the open and affirming, multi-racial/cultural, peace with justice, Earth Charter church in a world that embraces those values.  To be the accessible to all church, the church that participates in an inter-faith and, yes, a no-faith world. More on Sunday ....


In Peace,

Pastor Bernice                                                                  
 
revbpjackson@ucctampabay.org