Christianity is Declining in the United States
How should we feel about this?
I’ve noticed a tendency of the mainstream news media in the United States to recycle stories. An agency that conducts polls about religion releases a new one. The results aren’t any different from the last one, but the media reports on the poll as if it was newsworthy. They bring on many of the same talking heads who commented on the last poll. They don’t have anything new to say about this one. It is the same story with the same analysis and only some minor repackaging.
The story I have in mind is the one showing that Christianity is in decline in the United States. We have heard about this many times in the last 20 years. What does it mean that Christianity might be in decline? Is this news something we should fear, welcome, or shrug off?
The claims that Christianity is in decline have two related but distinct sources. Both are interesting in their own right. Both may have different implications for how we should understand what is happening.
Religious Identification and the Rise of the Nones
Our news media loves to talk about “the nones” and how there are far more of us today than there were 40 years ago. To understand what this is all about, we need to know what “nones” refers…
