The End Christian America The percentage of self-identified Christians has fallen 10 points in the past two decades. How that statistic explains who we are nowâand what, as a nation, we are about to become. By Jon Meacham Published Apr 4, 2009 From the magazine issue dated Apr 13, 2009 It was a small detail, a point of comparison buried in the fifth paragraph on the 17th page of a 24-page summary of the 2009 American Religious Identification Survey. But as R. Albert Mohler Jr.âpresident of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, one of the largest on earthâread over the document after its release in March, he was struck by a single sentence. For a believer like Mohlerâa starched, unflinchingly conservative Christian, steeped in the theology of his particular province of the faith, devoted to producing ministers who will preach the inerrancy of the Bible and the Gospel of Jesus Christ as the only means to eternal lifeâthe central news of the survey was troubling enough: the number of Americans who claim no religious affiliation has nearly doubled since 1990, rising from 8 to 15 percent. Then came the point he could not get out of his mind: while the unaffiliated have historically been concentrated in the Pacific Northwest, the report said, "this pattern has now changed, and the Northeast emerged in 2008 as the new stronghold of the religiously unidentified." As Mohler saw it, the historic foundation of America's religious culture was cracking. "That really hit me hard," he told me last week. "The Northwest was never as religious, never as congregationalized, as the Northeast, which was the foundation, the home base, of American religion. To lose New England struck me as momentous." Turning the report over in his mind, Mohler posted a despairing online column on the eve of Holy Week lamenting the declineâand, by implication, the imminent fallâof an America shaped and suffused by Christianity. "A remarkable culture-shift has taken place around us," Mohler wrote. "The most basic contours of American culture have been radically altered. The so-called Judeo-Christian consensus of the last millennium has given way to a post-modern, post-Christian, post-Western cultural crisis which threatens the very heart of our culture." When Mohler and I spoke in the days after he wrote this, he had grown even gloomier. "Clearly, there is a new narrative, a post-Christian narrative, that is animating large portions of this society," he said from his office on campus in Louisville, Ky. There it was, an old term with new urgency: post-Christian. This is not to say that the Christian God is dead, but that he is less of a force in American politics and culture than at any other time in recent memory. To the surprise of liberals who fear the advent of an evangelical theocracy and to the dismay of religious conservatives who long to see their faith more fully expressed in public life, Christians are now making up a declining percentage of the American population. Continued here: http://www.newsweek.com/id/192583
the central news of the survey was troubling enough: the number of Americans who claim no religious affiliation has nearly doubled since 1990, rising from 8 to 15 percent. ------------------------ It is politically incorrect to proclaim your faith, it is an impediment to modern day news, politics, whatever American. On the flip side, cast off the Christmas tree and unroll the prayer rug.
If Christian Americans (especially the right wing evangelical type) would actually follow the message and teachings of Jesus Christ, if they would practice instead of preaching, instead of sinning like the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah and chasing materialism...then smugly claiming they are saved and then are seen spending time trying to tell others what to do and how to live their lives, maybe Christianity would be thriving in America... It is the INOC like you (in name only Christians) that have devalued the ideals of Christianity...the Christians are to blame for the decline of Christianity, not the non Christians. The children of Christians look the the lives of their parents, and see the hypocrisy on display and are smart enough to reject that hypocrisy...
False claim... Typical Christian American bearing false witness... Try following your Master for once and turn the other cheek and stop the incessant lies...
I donlt care about religions I care if someone is a believer or not , that now makes the big difference And from what I see, we have the biggest decline
So, when you get to hell you've got a good excuse... no sweat off my balls. You spend all day and night beating our brains free from serotonin with your constant drumbeat of negative shit... you probably are headed for hell... somebody has to go there I guess. Admittedly, the typical Christian goes to church, admires the opposite sex, forgets everything that was said at the closing prayer and goes home to watch semi-pornographic stuff on tv. Anybody that tries to get beyond that paradigm encounters very, very stiff opposition from the devil and few understand what is going on at that point and they fall back but God loves them just the same... You're a leftist, anything on the right can't agree with true Christianity is what you are indicating in your post...... and you have no intent of ever actually examining your thinking likely so like I said, go to hell, no biggie to me.. What are you in actuality? A Jesuit trained to attack our brains until we just curl up in the fetal position? A sick minded guy that if you expressed yourself in real life you would get your face beaten to a pulp? What is it with attack-jerks and the internet anyhow... satan has guys like you throwing spears at us all day and night, some at our heads, some at our hearts, some to our kidneys or livers, etc... at the end of the day we take our rest and tomorrow it's a new day. Your life is futile....
I was raised in the Appalachian mountains of southeatern Kentucky, the buckle of the Bible belt. As a child I was in church every Sunday morning, a Baptist church of course, like it or not. There were no political affiliations on display there. The people in those pews were believers in the diety of Jesus Christ and they genuinely wanted people to repent and accept Jesus, not so that a political party could hold on to power, but to save your eternal soul. I don't believe in the diety of any of the characters in the Holy Bible and haven't since I was a young man. However, when people ask me if I'm a Christian I usually reply that I am, and that I'm a Baptist. I do that for two reasons - First I claim it as a sort-of-ethnicity, because of the prevalence of Christianity where I was raised. And secondly, just to yank their chain because it is very politically incorrect to be Christian now, especially a baptist. The Christians where I am from don't have issues like the Republican party or gay marriage on the front burner. The so called Christians you see on your televsion or read about in your blogs do, and they shape the country's perception of Christianity.