XPost: alt.religion.christian.biblestudy, alt.religion.christian   
   roman-catholic, england.religion.misc   
   XPost: free.christians, hk.soc.religion.christianity   
   From: Frank@att.net   
      
   New Harvard Research Says U.S. Christianity Is Not Shrinking, But   
   Growing Stronger   
   Is churchgoing and religious adherence really in ‘widespread decline’   
   so much so that conservative believers should suffer ‘growing   
   anxiety’? Absolutely not.   
    Glenn T. Stanton By Glenn T. Stanton   
   JANUARY 22, 2018   
   “Meanwhile, a widespread decline in churchgoing and religious   
   affiliation had contributed to a growing anxiety among conservative   
   believers.” Statements like this are uttered with such confidence and   
   frequency that most Americans accept them as uncontested truisms. This   
   one emerged just this month in an exceedingly silly article in The   
   Atlantic on Vice President Mike Pence.   
      
   Religious faith in America is going the way of the Yellow Pages and   
   travel maps, we keep hearing. It’s just a matter of time until   
   Christianity’s total and happy extinction, chortle our cultural   
   elites. Is this true? Is churchgoing and religious adherence really in   
   “widespread decline” so much so that conservative believers should   
   suffer “growing anxiety”?   
      
   Two words: Absolutely not.   
      
   New research published late last year by scholars at Harvard   
   University and Indiana University Bloomington is just the latest to   
   reveal the myth. This research questioned the “secularization thesis,”   
   which holds that the United States is following most advanced   
   industrial nations in the death of their once vibrant faith culture.   
   Churches becoming mere landmarks, dance halls, boutique hotels,   
   museums, and all that.   
      
   Not only did their examination find no support for this secularization   
   in terms of actual practice and belief, the researchers proclaim that   
   religion continues to enjoy “persistent and exceptional intensity” in   
   America. These researchers hold our nation “remains an exceptional   
   outlier and potential counter example to the secularization thesis.”   
      
   What Accounts for the Difference in Perceptions?   
   How can their findings appear so contrary to what we have been hearing   
   from so many seemingly informed voices? It comes down primarily to   
   what kind of faith one is talking about. Not the belief system itself,   
   per se, but the intensity and seriousness with which people hold and   
   practice that faith.   
      
   Mainline churches are tanking as if they have super-sized millstones   
   around their necks. Yes, these churches are hemorrhaging members in   
   startling numbers, but many of those folks are not leaving   
   Christianity. They are simply going elsewhere. Because of this   
   shifting, other very different kinds of churches are holding strong in   
   crowds and have been for as long as such data has been collected. In   
   some ways, they are even growing. This is what this new research has   
   found.   
      
   The percentage of Americans who attend church more than once a week,   
   pray daily, and accept the Bible as wholly reliable and deeply   
   instructive to their lives has remained absolutely, steel-bar constant   
   for the last 50 years or more, right up to today. These authors   
   describe this continuity as “patently persistent.”   
      
   The percentage of such people is also not small. One in three   
   Americans prays multiple times a day, while one in 15 do so in other   
   countries on average. Attending services more than once a week   
   continues to be twice as high among Americans compared to the next   
   highest-attending industrial country, and three times higher than the   
   average comparable nation.   
      
   One-third of Americans hold that the Bible is the actual word of God.   
   Fewer than 10 percent believe so in similar countries. The United   
   States “clearly stands out as exceptional,” and this exceptionalism   
   has not been decreasing over time. In fact, these scholars determine   
   that the percentages of Americans who are the most vibrant and serious   
   in their faith is actually increasing a bit, “which is making the   
   United States even more exceptional over time.”   
      
   This also means, of course, that those who take their faith seriously   
   are becoming a markedly larger proportion of all religious people. In   
   1989, 39 percent of those who belonged to a religion held strong   
   beliefs and practices. Today, these are 47 percent of all the   
   religiously affiliated. This all has important implications for   
   politics, indicating that the voting bloc of religious conservatives   
   is not shrinking, but actually growing among the faithful. The   
   declining influence of liberal believers at the polls has been   
   demonstrated in many important elections recently.   
      
   These Are Not Isolated Findings   
   The findings of these scholars are not outliers. There has been a   
   growing gulf between the faithful and the dabblers for quite some   
   time, with the first group growing more numerous. Think about the   
   church you attend, relative to its belief system. It is extremely   
   likely that if your church teaches the Bible with seriousness, calls   
   its people to real discipleship, and encourages daily intimacy with   
   God, it has multiple services to handle the coming crowds.   
      
   Most decent-size American cities have a treasure trove of such   
   churches for believers to choose from. This shows no sign of changing.   
   If, however, your church is theologically liberal or merely lukewarm,   
   it’s likely laying off staff and wondering how to pay this month’s   
   light bill. People are navigating toward substantive Christianity.   
      
   The folks at Pew have been reporting for years that while the mainline   
   churches are in drastic free fall, the group that “shows the most   
   significant growth is the nondenominational family.” Of course, these   
   nondenominational churches are 99.9 percent thorough-blooded   
   evangelical. Pew also notes that “evangelical Protestantism and the   
   historically black Protestant tradition have been more stable” over   
   the years, with even a slight uptick in the last decade because many   
   congregants leaving the mainline churches are migrating to evangelical   
   churches that hold fast to the fundamentals of the Christian faith.   
   http://thefederalist.com/2018/01/22/new-harvard-research-says-u-   
   -christianity-not-shrinking-growing-stronger/   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)