Five links to help understand America’s changing religious landscape
At first blush, the news for Christianity in America is not good.
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.
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Christians have declined from 78.4% of U.S. adults in 2007 to 70.6% in 2014: http://t.co/mmVivz5OyH pic.twitter.com/Mzh3LhzmUa
— PewResearch Religion (@PewReligion) May 13, 2015
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But some say the devil is in the details. Here are five links — from a variety of perspectives — to help understand America’s changing religious landscape:
1. From Ed Stetzer, president of Lifeway Research:
The nominals are becoming the nones, and the convictional are remaining committed. Thoughts on new @pewresearch data: http://t.co/aK7V9YwJpg
— Ed Stetzer (@edstetzer) May 12, 2015
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2. From Terry Mattingly, editor of GetReligion.org:
Yes, ‘nones’ thing is still a big story. Now we need another term on the other side http://t.co/JiHwFBjrO8
— GetReligion (@GetReligion) May 13, 2015
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3. From Sarah Pulliam Bailey, religion writer for the Washington Post:
Christianity faces sharp decline as Americans are becoming even less affiliated with religion http://t.co/pQgQALZeaa pic.twitter.com/uly3pQgZpu
— Sarah Pulliam Bailey (@spulliam) May 12, 2015
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4. From Jonathan Merritt, columnist for Religion News Service:
“Evangelicals’ claims of conservative supremacy fall flat–now they are declining too” http://t.co/jNWrTlmiEn My latest @RNS
— Jonathan Merritt (@JonathanMerritt) May 13, 2015
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5. From The Christian Chronicle’s April front page:
Churches of Christ in decline: U.S. culture to blame? My story: http://t.co/bf0RjAi9m3 / graphic via @barnagroup pic.twitter.com/WBypgJIM94
— Bobby Ross Jr. (@bobbyross) April 7, 2015
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Your turn: What’s your reaction to the Pew survey findings? How should Christians respond? Be sure to include your home congregation, city and state in case we decide to quote you.
