that is, the recently-released data that shows a substantial drop in the numbers of people identifying as Christians.
What do you think?
Here’s the study itself, from the Pew site. And everyone’s got an opinion on this.
Except me, it seems.
I’ve read claims that the Pew data is bad, that religion is too prescriptive, not prescriptive enough, that the blame is to be laid at the feet of too-easily-divorcing parents, that this is really good news in disguise because the uncommitted Christians are leaving leaving a more solid core, etc. The Wonkblog looked at the birthrate data to say that agnostics and atheists aren’t reproducing themselves (though the data’s a bit suspect when the group with the highest-besides-the-Mormons birthrate, is identified as “Black Protestants.”)
I don’t know. I feel as if I ought to read some of the dozens of pieces I’m coming across and form some opinions. It’s a dramatic drop from 2007 to 2014 — the percent calling themselves Christian dropped from 78% to 71%, and among millenials, the drops were even more dramatic: only 56% called themselves Christian (68% in 2007) and 16% said they were Catholic (was 22% in 2007). These are huge changes — and the growth is in the “unaffiliated” category — from 25% to 35% for this age group.
And this is only a 7 year period! That is a major cultural shift. What do you do with these numbers?
This was something I was wrestling with before, that in our group at church, parents of adult children lament that their kids have abandoned the faith. I had said that I don’t think it’s as simple as the pat answer that “we’re wealthy, so we don’t need religion” — if anything, the last seven years have been more troubled than the prior decade, so that certainly can’t account for this trend.
You got any answers?
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