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In the next set of posts I will opine on the state of the Christian Church in America in 2020. Of necessity, I must write with a broad brush and talk in generalities, in the hope that these general trends reveal more truth than they obscure.
Are American Christians in Decline? One measure of the health of the church is sheer numbers. How many people consider themselves Christian? According to the Pew research Center, there has been a persistent decline in the number of Americans who identify themselves as Christians. The chart below shows that in the last decade, self-identified Christians have declined from 78% of the population to 65%, while those who are religiously unaffiliated have increased from 16% to 26% over the same period. Protestants have declined from 51% to 43% while Catholics have declined from 24% to 20%. More ominously is the generation gap –while 84% of the silent generation (born 1928-1945) identify as Christian, only 49% of millennials (born 1981-1996) do so.
Christian values. Another measure of the strength of the church is its impact on behavior. Christianity teaches love and holiness, as defined in the two great commandments: “You shall love the Lord with all your heart and with all your soul and with all you mind…and you shalt love your neighbor as yourself.” (Mark 12:30-31). Christianity also confirms the Ten Commandments of Moses, which defines more explicitly what love of God and love of neighbor looks like.
So how are we doing? It is difficult to generalize about what is happening to the Church overall, but there are a few data points we can look at.
Volunteering. According to Melissa Steffan, research shows that Protestant high school graduates are more likely to volunteer as adults (83 percent) than any of their peers–including graduates of Catholic (55 percent), public (48 percent), homeschool (23 percent), and secular private (10 percent) high schools. The study did not examine the effects of college on graduates. According to the data, students at Catholic schools are most likely to volunteer while still in school (87%), while homeschoolers are least likely (63%). But as adults, the percentage of graduates who report no volunteering increases across all categories, except one: private, Protestant high school graduates, whose rate of non-volunteerism actually decreased by 6 percent.
Giving. Giving to religious organizations fell in 2018 after six years of slow growth.The following data characterize giving to religious institutions (local congregations, denominations, missionary societies and religious media):
- Only 5% tithe, and 80% of Americans only give 2% of their income.
- Christians are giving at 2.5% of income; during the Great Depression it was 3.3%.
- Only 3-5% of Americans who give to their local church do so through regular tithing.
- For families making $75k+, 1% of them gave at least 10% in tithing.
- 3 out of 4 people who don’t go to church make donations to nonprofit organizations.
- The average giving by adults who attend US Protestant churches is about $17 a week.
- 37% of regular church attendees and Evangelicals don’t give any money to church.
- 17% of American families have reduced the amount that they give to their local church.
- 7% of church goers have dropped regular giving by 20% or more.
- About 10 million tithers in the US donate $50 billion yearly to church & non-profits.
- 77% of those who tithe give 11%–20% or more of their income, far more than the baseline of 10%.
- 7 out of 10 tithers do so based on their gross and not their net income.
The following chart presents data on changes in charitable giving in the U.S. for all purposes. While the religious sector seems the least dynamic of all giving sectors, it remains the largest, representing 29% of all charitable giving.
Social Behavior. Divorce. W. Bradford Wilcox, a leading sociologist at the University of Virginia and director of the National Marriage Project, finds that “active conservative Protestants” who regularly attend church have are 35 percent less likely to divorce compared to those who have no affiliation. Nominally attending conservative Protestants are 20 percent more likely to divorce, compared to secular Americans. Two other studies are reflected in the next two charts.
Black protestants have the highest rate of divorce followed by those with no religious affiliations (nones) followed by evangelicals, who have higher divorce rates than mainline protestants. These rankings seem relatively constant over time (between 1975 and 2015), but for all groups divorce rates rose rapidly between 1975 and 1995 and have leveled off or are growing much more slowly since then.
Social Behavior. Homosexuality. According to the A Pew Research Center study in 2015, Christians of virtually every denomination have become more accepting of homosexuality over the period 2007-2014. These findings are presented in the chart below. Thirty-six percent of white evangelicals said in 2015 that homosexuality should be accepted by society, compared to twenty-six percent who agreed only seven years earlier (in 2007). Given the increasing acceptance of homosexuality in America, it is likely that this percentage has increased in the past five years.
What the data tell us.
- American churches are losing members, and an increasing percentage of Americans consider themselves non-religious. Perhaps more important, younger Americans are less likely to be religiously observant than their elders.
- On the whole, the church’s finances remain relatively strong, although, the great majority of Christians do not come close to tithing.
- In the great battle between the traditional Christian faith and the modern culture, faith is losing, especially in areas of sexual morals. Church beliefs and practice are moving closer to secular society rather than the other way round.
Part 2 will delve more deeply into some of the fundamental challenges facing the church today.