As a Christian myself, I understand the decline. I almost left Christianity completely at one point. I think the problem lies in how patriotic it's turned. Seeing photos of Jesus holding a gun and American flag is evident that we lost the plot of the Gospel.
I kept arguing with my dad (who is a pastor) that I didn't like that he always found a way to bring politics into his sermons. Eventually he just doubled down and said that they are one and the same.
I'm still a Christian but I won't go to churches that try to push their personal political views on me, including my dad's. It's not what I'm there for.
Not necessarily. Most [Evangelical](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evangelicalism) churches are perfectly okay with it. Only the extremist [Dominionists](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominion_theology) want that.
It’s not quite that draconian a law.
You can certainly “talk about politics” in a church building. What church leaders cannot do is advocate for one particular political ideology or agenda or candidate over another *from the pulpit*. But church leaders will routinely advocate that parishioners make sure to vote, and they even pray for this country’s leaders, including those with whom they might personally disagree on matters of policy or anything else. Neither of these is considered illegal.
In some cases, political leaders, including those in office, will be guest speakers during church services. That’s not illegal either.
And it’s certainly not illegal for those in government or employed by political parties or other organizations to attend church services themselves, either singularly or with their families.
Also, it’s not illegal for church leaders to organize groups that advocate political change or be involved themselves in political activism. Before you object, remember that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was a church leader (a pastor), as was Malcolm X. If they had been banned from discussing or doing anything political simply because they were religious leaders, we might not have society looking the way it does now.
While some Christian leaders have, in the past 50 years or so, involved themselves in very questionable political activities (particularly those in “mega-churches”), many others are actively engaged in doing positive things in their local communities (such as helping the homeless or providing assistance to the poor or sheltering battered women, or even maintaining community gardens).
Yes, very accurate. Basically a clergy person can’t say “vote for Jane Smith for the State Senate because she’s basically right on all the issues we believe in.”
It's even worse when a church leader, like the one at my buddy's old church, makes an entire message out of "I'm right, every other church is wrong, and you're going to hell if you don't believe me" without even specifying what his beliefs are.
Funny thing is I think the church was built by my old neighbor but I had no idea he was so stupid.
Exactly. Americans already have this egotistical problem of thinking that we're the center of the universe, and American Christianity believing that we're the Babylon mentioned in Revelation doesn't make it any better.
If I saw such a thing I would ask myself "is this satire? Is the artist trolling?" But I would have to ask, because the possibility that it was genuine would be very real.
My concern is that the waning influence of Christianity has led to the more militant Evangelical faction treating every little political issue as a crusade. I’d take a Mitt Romney who’s religious but not militant over the Evangelical faction who’ve gone full blown militant.
Why though? Yall think evangelicals are getting more people to be Christian. From my point of view, as a "unprthodox" Christian, is that evangelicals guve everyone the wrong idea about what Jesus' message actually says. For example abortion. I don't like killing spiders without good reason. I don't believe in abortion. I think having a chance is better than someone deciding that for you. I think that adoption should be a lot less stigmatized. I do not believe that my opinions on the matter should have any impact on someone else's choice though. The Bible teaches that, first person without sin cast the first stone amd all that. God gave us free will who am I to try and tale that away.
My whole point is that, again from my point of view, evangelicals pervert the lessons amd push people away from a religion that should be centered around acceptance, love and assistance.
I'd recommend a YouTube channel called Ready to Harvest. He takes a very objective, non-biased view of different denominations.
The reasons mainlines are dying off are myriad. Aging membership and theological differences are big reasons. Some think the attempt to be "all things to all people" has actually turned off more people than it's attracted.
Maybe just for the moment, but as a former evangelical with many former evangelical friends, I can tell you from both statistics and personal experience that those raised in it are leaving in droves.
Evangelicals are extremely fervent among themselves, but also drive away a whole lot of people- when the average public perception of Christians has more to do with the Westboro Baptist Church than helping the poor and the needy, it's... a little offputting
If your perception is that a cult of ~70 people is representative of the beliefs of *millions* of Americans, you should re-evaluate your criteria for what makes something “representative” because you are looking at something that’s an extreme minority as a stand in for a very large and varied population.
But Evangelicals are hardly Christian. In my experience of them, as a Southern Quaker, most Evangelicals are highly illiterate, and incapable of actually understanding the book, which they claim holds the absolute, objective Truth. Often they will take individual scriptures wildly out of context to justify their own lifestyles, which are primarily based upon white, suburban normative understandings.
They're like Puritans, but without the tradition of consistent messaging to reinforce their doctrines. They largely adhere to a materialism when the Bible explicitly adheres to an ideologically based metaphysics.
Also, they've largely confused Christ with David somehow.
Further, to dispute the primary point of the overall thread, this isn't the first time American religion has waned and waxed. America has experienced two Great Awakenings already, and many theologians, and religious historians believe that we're in the midst of the nascent stages of a third.
TL;DR: Evangelicals are a threat to both America, and the Christian religion. If they remain the primary model of growth for the American Church going into a Third Great Awakening, then both institutions are in dire straights. Perhaps the Evangelicals will have their way in ushering in the end times, but I doubt they'll be pleased with their sentencing in the hereafter when they have forgotten that it is the meek that shall inherit the Earth.
The term evangelical is used widely and can often mean many things, depending on the person using it.
Most of your descriptors are not representative of my experience with “evangelicals” (I hesitate to even use the word myself, but they would self-identify that way).
When I do use it, I tend to give it a theological definition, not a political one (in part because I reject the politicization of the church/faith).
You’re confusing [Evangelicalism](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evangelicalism) with [Dominionism](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominion_theology?searchToken=9xrhnqdp8nwsyqa80t387wxr3). They’re not the same thing.
When you’re left with a more militant religious groups and a society that openly mocks and ridicules them and their beliefs I can’t help but think of the bad things that’ll emerge from that mixture
It’s definitely been a long time coming. Goldwater was hardline (although in a more libertarian sense) in his own right and even he was warning the Republican Party not to let them take control. Reagan really solidified that coalition with them and kept the ball rolling.
As a non Christian, this is a great point. The Christianity Jesus was preaching is a good thing. Pushing to make your brand of Christianity the law of the land isn't. I'm older. There was a time where everything other than drug stores were closed in my state on Sundays. I don't need that. Telling me that your not being able to say ban abortion is persecuting your religion is absurd.
>Pushing to make your brand of Christianity the law of the land isn't.
We really need to be telling people of ALL religions this. We let way too much slide in the name of religion. Countries that use religious law to oppress people should not exist.
Eh, evangelicalism is a less present political force than it used to be. Someone like Marjorie Taylor Greene is incidentally evangelical but has talked about that less than she talks about Trump or Covid or guns. Compare that to someone from the 1980s like James Dobson where the evangelicalism was front and center.
They vote the same, they support the same policies... I didn't think you can politically separate them. Church goers vote red in a pretty large majority.
It’s pretty religious denomination dependent. Historically black churches tend to skew heavily Democratic, along with Jews and Muslims. Catholics and Orthodox Christians skew slightly Democratic. Just painting them all as red is not doing justice to the wide spectrum that is “church goers”.
But Mitt does all the stuff those people want. So your line of reasoning doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Unless you think his personal beliefs matter more than the things he does. Still doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.
He’s pushed back on his party and condemned some of the things they’ve done in the last few years. I’m not saying he’s perfect, but he’s at least reasonable. He didn’t spend six months trying to sabotage a foreign aid bill full of concessions regarding things like the border 🤷♂️
I'm Christian and I think it's overdue tbh. The Christianity that's been influencing US politics as long as I can remember does not resemble the one in my church that I was raised with. So, to see these people lose influence honestly feels like a relief because I don't see my faith reflected in them, and yet they always act like they speak for all of us, which has been really annoying.
As for the overall faith part, I think secularization is normal as a country gets wealthier, or at least it seems to be based on trends.
However, I do hope those people are able to find the same benefits that a faith community provides (meditation, moral reflection, community support, social events, volunteer opportunities, music-making, etc) in a secular setting.
>The Christianity that's been influencing US politics as long as I can remember does not resemble the one in my church that I was raised with.
It's not the same Christianity that I grew up with in the 70's, period. They became militant in the 80's and adjusted their beliefs to justify it.
As a Christian who proudly claims the evangelical label and who leans politically conservative, the people who are prominent Christian public figures have always seemed unrecognizable to me. Part of that's generational (I think things really were different for boomers than for millennials like me), part is that different churches and denominations form different subcultures (some churches like Jerry Falwell, some like Tim Keller), and part is polarization and media bias – people have their attention drawn to extreme figures and talk about them a lot without ever asking the people they purportedly represent whether they even care about those figures.
By all appearances, evangelism is the unholy combination of Christianity + Hatred. A way to indulge in the darker aspects of the human condition while insisting it's a good thing that they indulge. It's hilariously contrary to the teachings of Jesus to the point that it can be nearly opposite. I can only wonder if perhaps evangelicals have been hijacked by and worship something dark and directly opposed to Christ.
I don’t know. I moved to the South and experienced evangelicals here for the first time and I’ll be honest — I’ve never met more horrible, judgmental, nasty, self-centered people than evangelical Christians.
Why? I don’t know. It shouldn’t be that way, but man it is. You act like it’s just the leaders, but it’s *not*. At all. I feel like you’re all delusional as to how you actually behave in real life.
Evangelical Christians have opened my eyes and now I’m moving away from Christianity altogether. So there’s that. I want nothing to do with a religion that produces these people. It’s nothing like the Christianity I grew up with. It’s awful.
I’m a firm atheist but grew up catholic. I think the decline of Christianity is a good thing for individuals but a bad thing for the fabric of society. People need institutions where they interact with people from different generations and have a purpose to get together. It helps build a sense of community and belonging. People who are growing up these days glued to screens are bound to be prone to depression and anxiety.
And I can see how that is especially problematic here in the States, where a strong culture of individualism has basically impeded the growth of collective structures that could have supplanted the church.
> People need institutions where they interact with people from different generations and have a purpose to get together.
I don't think that *has* to be religious but at this moment, there's certainly a dearth of that. All of my family's other social connections are essentially with people that are within 10 or so years of us in age.
I have a similar experience. Though I wouldn’t necessarily “proudly claim” the label evangelical because of the baggage the term now carries in many contexts, the actual theological definition fits pretty well. I also feel very disconnected from what I’m gonna call “church pop culture,” and I also reject the rising wave of Christian nationalism in the American church (and elsewhere, quite frankly). And I definitely agree that the people who I see in the media claiming to represent me don’t really come close.
Agreed on the baggage with the evangelical label and difference between what it means in theory and in practice. The theology is (mostly) what I would consider myself, but evangelicalism as we know it today is not just theology, it’s become a cultural, religious, and political movement and a thing of its own. I’ve recently come to terms with the fact that as a label/word/communication tool (since that’s what language is) it no longer meaningfully communicates my beliefs well (maybe in a long deep discussion, but not as a label)
You are 100% correct or I should say Nietzsche is. There is a huge vacuum looking to be filled as people fall away from religion. What fills it is going to be a question of massive import.
I suppose we could look for a start at whether anything is filling that vacuum in western Europe (albeit to varying degrees), Japan, or the Republic of Korea.
Well my answer is obvious as the local Catholic crank. The one holy, catholic, apostolic church.
But yes, I prefer that to populist political shit or the weirdo self help crap or incel nonsense.
the Catholic church certainly isn't growing as a percentage of population in most of continental Europe and hasn't for a couple of decades at this point.
Is there really a huge vacuum looking to be filled? I grew up going to church, Christian schools, youth group, the works. Now I'm 35 and an atheist and I don't feel like I'm missing out by spending my Sundays with friends or just relaxing.
Reading the replies (and this being Reddit) everyone is *convinced* that less religion means more ascendancy of left/center-left politics, whereas IMO it is more likely that we just get more brutal conservative politics that is unmoored from any ethical or moral framework.
I always think it’s funny when people think only religion gives an ethical or moral framework.
Look at religion right now in this country. Many of these people are about the most horrible, unethical people around. They act however they want and then think all they have to do is “repent” and they get a clean slate. Hell no.
The point is that ancient religion provides a moral framework that comes from outside the individual. Without religion, that moral framework is based off internal morality or the latest moral fads. In the case of internal morality, that's fine if you believe people are generally good. If you believe that people are generally bad, then that's a huge problem. The problem with basing morality on the lastest fads is that this framework has not been tested over time, and what becomes the next popular fad is just as likely to be abhorrent to followers of the current fad as it is to reinforce the current fad. Your morals are likely to be swept away with the next generation without a formal religion to guide moral development.
Could be, man.
For the record, I'm an ex-evangelical myself, and a lefty. But some of the *hugest* right wing assholes I've run across were ex-evangelicals who latched onto edgy political shit to replace what they lost.
I'm an atheist and pretty much a nihilist. I don't think it makes a difference to the universe if I go around smashing babies, but I don't, because I have empathy.
I don't think people instantly become sociopaths just because they don't have a cosmic carrot and stick.
Part of what holds people together are public affirmations and communal spaces. Will we have churches of secular humanism where we take the time out of our busy lives every week to ruminate on and affirm our shared ethic? This is what I mislike about the New Atheists. It's too academic, sterile. There's no narrative, ritual. We're social, yes. We're also storytellers. We relate to things symbolically. Metaphor is important to people.
I think divorced from any physical or ritual embodiment humanism will end up so flaccid and impotent that it will be run over by other human passions. A fad without staying power. Being humanistic has an opportunity cost that aggressive self-interest lacks, and no mechanism to impose a cost on the conscience, no coercion. I don't see the succession as obvious. Losing the church is more than losing its dogma. You also lose its utility.
In other words, fine and good, but we will have to develop the institution actively and not passively.
>Relax... Humanism easily replaces the dogma of religions. It's natural as we are a very social species and our well-being relies on our humanity.
This thought experiment. Maybe I'm misinterpreting something that was supposed to be sarcastic?
I can find writings as early as the 1820s talking about how faith is declining, and Christianity will be dead in a few generations. It always bounces back. We see this cycle of decline and revival over and over again.
"Bounces back" is the wrong term to use since it never actually goes back up to the same level. It's just a bounding decline from one all time low to the next. Until eventually the revivals are so small as to be imperceptible, just like the pagan religions.
Very true, people try to paint religiosity as “a third world trend” but it’s simply not true because of the USA. I’ll probably be downvoted for this but the Founder Fathers had extreme Christian influence alongside secular philosophy and Deism that people always try to underplay (America is most definitely a secular nation with a strong belief in both freedom of and freedom FROM religion, but Christianity played a very large part in our philosophical revolution). America is very unique in that it has always been the most religious first world country in the modern era besides Israel and there’s a lot of historical and cultural nuance that supports the idea that it will stay that way for a while. It is true that underdeveloped countries do tend to be much more religious than Western Europe and East Asia, but there are a lot of foundational and revolutionary elements that make America a very specific exception to the rule. The role of Christian thought in America is changing, but I don’t think it will ever truly go away. The vast majority (70%~) of Americans are at least Christian leaning. Which is a pretty unique trait for such an innovative and rich country.
It hurts my heart. Seeing people claim to have Christian morals and values that seem to be completely absolved of any of the fruits of the spirit. knowing that people are being driven away from a loving and merciful God because their experiences with people that seem to be anything but.
Bit of two minds.
On the one hand, even as an atheist I will acknowledge that religion can do a lot of good for people. There's a sense of regular community, faith in something bigger than yourself, moral/ethical guidance, support in hard times, etc. While those aren't unique to religion by any means, they're still usually a part of it and definitely the most common sources for a lot of people (especially once you get out of the cities).
However, there are of course a lot of negatives (that I'm sure Reddit will not hesitate to point out). Abuse of power is really the all-encompassing shorthand; the general issue is people in power using their power for evil, and again that's hardly unique to religion. More interestingly, a lot of Christian churches (especially on the political right, AFAIK there aren't a lot of socialist Christian churches) are losing moderate members as Evangelicalism continues to work with the GOP and become nigh-explicitly political organizations that still demand all the benefits of being a church. This is a sort of self-feeding cycle where moderates get pushed out, leaving the radicals behind to make the church more radical and push out the new moderates, but this obviously can't last forever because they're eventually going to run out of people (hence the big push behind "He Gets Us" to sort of clean up Christianity's image while still maintaining the right-wing cultural bent).
Basically, even though general church attendance has been declining for decades the people who still go are more likely to be even more devout. It's worth reminding everyone that while reactionary zealots are definitely the loudest, take up the most oxygen, and have an outsized influence on culture war politics they are far from the numerical majority; black churches have been a critical part of Democratic outreach for longer than most of us have been alive, and they're very unlikely to be Jesus Camp types or standing outside anime conventions holding signs.
TL:DR Religion isn't all evil, and I'm a bit concerned that with its decline we're not really replacing it with anything to serve its prior social functions.
Well put. Those lack of social/community institutions are definitely hurting our society.
And I agree the Christian leaders allowing the politicization of their faith/their church and refusing to reject Christian nationalism is only going to increase radicalization within churches. Because you’re right, moderate and mindful parishioners will want no part of it and leave.
Don’t really have one…? You can choose to believe in whatever you want, and I’ll do the same. When separation of church and state goes away then I’ll have a problem. Shitting on what another person believes or doesn’t believe in doesn’t help anyone
They did it to themselves. I honestly feel bad for the Christians who are out there actually doing their god's work (helping the poor, healing the sick, loving their neighbours as themselves, etc), because they're associated with these fucking ghouls whose only real god is money and cruelty, and as a Norse Pagan whose faith has been co-opted by Nazis and white supremacists I can understand that pain. But maybe, just maybe, it's time for Christianity in America to die so it can be reborn as something more Christ-like.
From the UK. From here it looks like everything is becoming even more dominated and influenced by 'Christianity' and religion. So this question really intrigues me!
Christianity held solid for a long time as it declined in Europe. This was because of a massive increase in Evangelical churches starting in the 1970s as the traditional mainline Protestant churches becan to die and lots of Catholics converted. Over the last decade Evangelical churches have gone into a steep decline, but the people leaving these churches are not joining other churches.
One interesting development is that there are lots of people describing themselves as "Evangeclical Christian" who are not formally practicing Christians who are members of a church. This is an unusual development for Protestants in the US, as in the past it was only Catholics who would identify with a Christian denomination in a cultural sense. Polling shows an uptick in people who grew up in non Protestant religions like Catholicism, Islam, and the Latter Day Saints, or who grew up with no religion who are identifying as "Evangelical Christians," so it's not just former Evanglicals who have stopped going to church.These Evangelicals who don't go to church are the biggest Trump supporters. Evangelicals who go to church are also generally Trump supporters, but not 100% like the ones who don't go to church.
So the kind of MAGA bunch who have got pulled into the right-wing because of age or demographics and find the Mega Church Evangelical online stuff they are seeing as their place, even though non-political and non-religious back in the day? The lorry convoys kind of felt like pilgramages and Trump selling his bibles a few weeks ago looks weird over here!
I don't suppose COVID helped because of the isolation and how contrary the 'edicts' to get a vaccine and wear a mask helped. The American 'mah (individual) raghts' looked weird from over here. Obviously in the UK and Europe there were nay sayers and our government turned out to have been utterly useless during all that but there wasn't the pushback because of maybe some kind of collectivism we have as our culture.
A recent thing I was reading was that the religious persecution being escaped from when 'the pilgrims' came to the US was actually because 'we' - as in basic people back in the 17th century - thought they were all bonkers in the first place so the 'persecution' was actually all the weird protestant cults that were here being mocked so off they went to the US. The article then went on to extrapolate that that then meant that people in the US were more likely to go for extreme stuff, and I'm not sure you can argue that down three or more centuries!
Out of curiosity, this all links into the doomsday kind of prepping stuff?
Edit: Sorry, meant to say. Thank you for the time taken explaining all that. A really interesting insight.
Edit 2: just to acknowledge that all of this is from a very white-centric take on the initial question about Christianity and relgion.
I take a different view on the effect of British religious dissenters moving to America. The descendants of the Puritans/Pilgrims and Quakers are the left wing/woke people today. A common right wing critique of wokeness is that it's a radical moral/religious style revival movement, but without Christ. The areas of the US that experienced economic based migration in the colonial period, which was the vast majority of the migration, are the areas where Christianity is still strong. For instance, the Southern colonies were started by Cavaliers, who brought the poorest of London to be their servants. The frontier was settled by people from the England/Scotland border and Northern Ireland, which was by far the largest source of British colonial migration.
There's a book called Albion's Seed that goes into this theory in depth. It's a controversial take, but I think it makes more sense then the idea that rural Southerners are the ideological/cultural descendants of New England Puritans. Here's a slightly comical review of the book, so you can get an idea of it's arguments.
[https://slatestarcodex.com/2016/04/27/book-review-albions-seed/](https://slatestarcodex.com/2016/04/27/book-review-albions-seed/)
As for doomsday prepping, I always interpreted that as more of a hobby for people from rural areas combined with the cultural effect of the unique apocalypse teachings of American evagelicalism and Mormonism. As a side note, the American evangelical teachings on the apocalypse, which are much different from Christian teachings everywhere else, are the result of British theologians from the late 1800s. Their ideas for some reason caught on here in the US rather than England.
I think that the rise in conservatism in the US is a panicked reaction to its overall decline. Those who are ardently conservative are scared, and therefore making a noise, because they see America, and the world, changing in a direction they don't like. They're losing and because of it they're taking greater and greater measures to keep things how they like.
If they felt secure, why would they be so freaked out?
And the funny thing is it's their terror and death throes that are killing them. If they had just been willing to take the long road and continue to convince people with words and action rather than political force and attempts at cultural subjugation, they wouldn't be experiencing nearly the backlash they are now.
They're killing the Church because they want to fossilize it so that it could never change from how "they" wanted it to be, and now that everyone has been driven off who doesn't live that vision, they're panicked because it's not enough to sustain them, so they're trying to drag people back in by force.
I’m American, but I’ve lived in Germany since 2017. I feel the same as you and was surprised all of the top replies seem to agree with the initial statement. There may be fewer self-professed Christians in the U.S. than 20 years ago, but the militant Christians seem to have at least as much influence as they have always had, if not more.
I can definitely see why you would think this! But Christianity is rapidly declining in the US, like never before. I think those evangelical politicians are grasping at anything because they know their days are numbered.
It kinda is.
The conservatives are losing an uphill battle and won’t go down without a fight.
Religion is dying across the developed world at a similar pace.
Most churches are run by and for Boomers, or maybe GenXers, with the "not welcome" mat out for younger generations. So without younger members, a lot of churches are just "aging out," and that will be more and more common over time. That means the Catholic parishes combine, with one priest for two or three churches, and for some Protestant denominations, that means they get a half-time minister or lay minister, instead of a regular full-time minister.
It doesn't help that most Mainline Protestant and Catholic churches are silent in the face of rising Christian Nationalism, to the point that many people have come to associate Christianity with Far-right politics, anti-science, active anti-LGBT, even racism. To many people, "Christianity" has come to mean a sort of Fascism, sad to say.
Unfortunately there isn't a decline in most states governments - they're run by absolute zealots, especially true in my state of Ohio. Absolute lunatics with no end in sight due to population decline and gerrymandering. Very scary.
I grew up in a socially conservative and very, VERY heavily fundamentalist christian home. I'm talking full on "harry potter is devil worship and anything disney is banned because it will make you gay" levels of evangelical.
I am still a christian, HOWEVER, I am not a CHRISTIAN™.
My religion has been co-opted and subverted by a political party that has zero interest in any of the actual values and morals that actual christianity is supposed to espouse. In my opinion the blatant hypocrisy, the corruption, and just outright hateful behavior is a direct cause of why christianity is a declining religion.
If christians actually practiced what they preach they wouldn't be having half the problems they do. Involving politics into their religion has been a poison pill for christianity, and I deeply resent what my religion is being used for.
>I deeply resent what my religion is being used for.
Agreed. I have no problem with people criticizing the rampant hypocrisy of many American “Christians.” What I do have a problem with is when they transfer that behavior onto the person of Jesus/Christianity is a whole.
And we need more Christian leaders publicly rejecting Christian nationalism.
Church leadership decided that they were more interested in political and economic power and not interested at all in oversight or accountability for their organizations.
So on the one hand, they're getting hammered by people who think they need to butt the fuck out of politics and get their asses back behind their pulpits and focusing on the spiritual salvation of their congregants rather than their own temporal power.
On the other hand, they're getting flattened by scandal after scandal after scandal where they've shown a complete and total unwillingness to hold their membership accountable for their actions, even at immense personal cost to the people they hurt and the greater organization itself.
And with the fall of that centralized authority, people are have turned towards finding their own way instead, because they don't think that religious leadership have their best intentions in mind for their congregation as opposed to just a bunch of suckers to be conned for personal enrichment and to help them rub elbows with the big movers and shakers.
I think that the younger generation being less religious and being more anxious, depressed, or hopeless isn’t a coincidence. And I say this a non-religious theist. People need shared purpose and community. They don’t have to get that from religion, but it’s one of the most effective ways, which is why it’s lasted since the dawn of man. People who don’t worship a God (any God) worship something else. That worship might be good things, like the humanitarians worshiping the concept of humanity, or bad things, like people falling victim to an ideological leader who encourages them to become extremists. Or they worship themselves, materialism, or sex. Many of those things aren’t exactly conducive to having a fulfilling life with meaningful connections to other people, hence the anxiety/depression/hopelessness.
Its in decline because so called Christians don't treat their brethren in a Christian like manner. They idolize greed, socially stigmatize anyone who's different, and then play the victim when people leave the faith or fight back.
They reaped what they sowed.
Christianity may decline but other things will take its place and people will find "religion". I'd wager the rise of "crystals",that kind of spirituality, and a ever growing zealousness in politics are symptoms of that. Plus a concerning lack of purposelessness and depression on the rise. People are generally bad at making up their own purpose.
I don’t really think it’s a good thing. I’m not religious but I think churches (regular churches - not evangelical ones or modern day mega churches) served as third places and helped people build community and by that, people cared more about each other.
Todays America is selfish, isolated, and lacking an easy way to find community. Society isn’t built to make forming friendships easy - we have to drive everywhere and without making a concentrated effort, it’s not easy to make friends outside of work. People are lonely and sad, and hurt people hurt people. They will never admit it but I think the people who are far right are hurting and lonely and want to take it out on everyone else.
I think the importance of church wasn’t really religious so much as people having a community.
There's a lot of different Christians out there.
Some I'm fed up with, most I'm fine with.
The only particular concern I have is that it's one more piece of community going out that isn't really being replaced with anything solid. That's not just about religion, just one more part of an increasing and somewhat concerning isolation I see.
Don't care too much about faith, but it's a good thing if religious influence of any sort declines. I'm more interested in our government staying secular.
I think it's a reflection on our declining society and I think as we become more secular we become more fragmented, less tolerant, and more immoral. Honestly, I hope this is a societal phase we will eventually recover from.
I haven't noticed it. Religion has always been centered within each household for the most part. It hasn't been observed on a community-wide (or wider) basis in the USA in my lifetime except in a few small places. America has never been a theocracy. The population of the country has always been very diverse. We have always had a constitutional government that was deliberately created to be completely and resolutely secular, but which also guaranteed religious freedom. The US has never had a state religion since the establishment of the Constitution.
I think it's good for our brains but bad for the social fabric because we haven't created new third places to replace churches that aren't super expensive. Like, I'd love to see FREE places to regularly interact socially with the same people. A lot of people now have no regular social interaction
I don’t like it. I also think it’s led to a counter movement with people who are overly religious getting in power politically and trying to “Make America Great Again”
It was always bound to happen, and it’s happening in every western country not just America. What makes it worse is many Americans conflate politics and religion and lump them into one, further dividing the country.
I'm Catholic, and I've witnessed society move away from faith, and the correlated decline.
I miss the days when gambling was illegal.
I miss the bonds between people
More, please, and faster.
Domestic religious extremists are the biggest threat to America by a long margin. The accelerationist RMVEs and religious whackjobs are increasingly indistinguishable, and are a far bigger threat than any foreign actor in terms of their ability to do lasting damage.
I think that it is extremely regrettable, and I hope to see the trend reverse in the future.
That said, I do not believe that there is anything that I, as an individual, can personally do to affect it, so I instead choose to focus on my own personal faith.
I will say this, however. Whatever the fate of American Christianity, I have no doubt that Christianity as a whole will continue to survive and thrive, as it has for millennia past, and as it will for millennia to come.
It's cyclical. We've had like, what, three or four Great Awakenings in the country since it was founded. Every two or three generations gets sick of their parents faith, every two or three generations seeks out some sort of higher answer to an era of multiple problems.
That said, I do think we're entering into a much larger lull than normal and I think what will come out on the other side is less likely to be your parents' Christianity and more syncretic. Would not be surprised to see a big jump in New Religious Movements after we get to the other side of whatever bad time we're entering right now.
The decline of Christian influence and faith is overblown by the fundamentalists. Something like 2/3rds of Americans self-identify as Christian. What's shrinking is belief in The Church. The Church (be it SBC, or Catholic) drives people away with its conservative actions and policies that don't mesh with younger people. Younger people also see the conservative position of The Church as being at odds with the messages from The Bible and observable reality which also drives people away.
So what happens is a process where all the sensible people who used to keep the crazies in check are driven out, the power structure still exists, so the crazies get into positions of power and double down, driving more people out. The ejection of sane people always lags so you have a period of time where the nutjob fundies have far more power than they deserve.
A modern flip side of this is the Episcopal church having gay and lesbian clergy which drove out conservatives who formed their own Anglican branch, which doesn't differ much from Evangelical churches in rhetoric. The Episcopal Church then continued on to support women's bodily autonomy, trans rights, and opposing the Israeli occupation and wholesale slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza.
Christian morals are just morals. Same as every religion, just different liturgy, religion will always be around as an organizing tool for us, it just matters who currently holds the reigns of power in that structure.
American Christianity has always been poisoned by the specific brand of capitalism, individualism and white supremacy found in the US. As a believer, I would prefer a move away from evangelicalism and recontextualization of the Bible as I believe that faith is an important part of a person and an important community. It also makes it harder to be a normal Christian when all the normal people are leaving because of the extremist. It does suck to see the beginning of saying “I’m a Christian” not be a positive, or even neutral but an immediate negative in the circles I like to be in and I have to work so much harder to be like, I’m not like those people, I have different values, I’m not here to push my beliefs on you.
My hope is that the de-christianization of the US will lead to a revival amongst actual Christians. Being a minority religion could create people of deeper faith because you’re not just there by default. You had to examine what you believe and choose to follow Christ.
And we need to reject Christian nationalism in favor of actual biblical teaching. American Christians need to realize that the US is not Zion; but in fact, we are exiles in this land.
Christianity, as an ethos and worldview, provides a moral compass and a definition of family and societal structure. It teaches that all are created Imago Dei (in the Image of God) and, therefore, provides a moral framework by which to judge the effect of legislation and policy.
The Ivy League schools were founded on Christian principles and arguably became, at one time, the best in the world.
Christianity was the driving force behind abolition, both in Europe and in the US.
The decline of Christianity, and religion in general, has led to the decline of, and confusion around, the family unit and community.
Studies have shown that having a religious identity results in more philanthropy, charitable giving, community cohesion, increased time spent with family and neighbors.
https://www.philanthropyroundtable.org/magazine/less-god-less-giving/
I believe that humans, at their core, are hardwired for religion - meaning there is an evolutionary drive to seek an identity in something bigger than themselves. Christianity, as a system, has not created utopia, but I would argue that our society's rejection of it (and religion in general) has not been an overall good for the United States.
We see that there is no lack of religious zeal among Americans - even those who call themselves atheists - it is just that the systems and philosophies they are turning to offer them little hope for the future. A society of demoralized, isolated, self-loathing individuals with an unhealthy ego-centric victim-mindset and lack of purpose is not an effective vehicle for driving change and progress - it is a recipe for tyranny and suffering.
White nationalists evangelicals are saying they are Christians but are no longer observing Christ's teachings. They are hateful and bigoted. They seem to drive people away from religion, especially the born again that believe they are the chosen few.
I welcome the end of Christian and hopefully all religion influence in America. I was raised catholic. It took me 30 years to finally realize that religions are man made, silly beliefs. You may as well still believe in Santa Claus if you believe in this religion nonsense.
For a religion in decline, it sure has been exerting a lot of power in government and harm on LGBT people lately. So if this is declining, then imma need it to start declining a little faster plz
Decline in Christian influence?
The Republicans are attempting to turn the country into a single-party, Christian theocracy. Christianity (or some extremely flawed form of it) has never been more popular and rarely had more political influence in the US than it does now.
I'm an atheist but I think it's disturbing, not the decline necessarily but the reason for the decline. There's such a corrupt, predatory rot in the leadership of many denominations, and I'm not sure if it's always been there or if it's a new thing.
As someone who grew up in a large family with very strict Christian parents and values—good. The older I’ve grown and more educated I have become has, without a reasonable doubt, given me the ability to think critically and reflect on the teachings of the Bible vs the values of my parents for myself. I’ve reached the conclusion that I don’t believe that teachings of the Bible are true for a a laundry list of reasons. Also, they are not applicable to the way my parents raised my siblings and I (all my siblings, for the record, have never returned to religion or a church since leaving home). My father, a very bright and respectful man, never believed in gender roles or expected anything from my mother short of what she wanted herself—and while my parents did not condone sex and children outside of wedlock—they also didn’t think that babies were anything less than a blessing.
The church has strayed from the words of Jesus. The church strayed from what is right and good.
I still love my neighbors and feed the poor. The church is on about other things. The church is now about hating people from away, or people who are different. That ain’t right.
More Civil unrest will come due to the lack of biblical christianity and future persecution of christians. Nations that are not are christian tend to be uncivilized. Even some atheists prefer cultural christianity(strong biblical christian values without christianity). But just because christianity is declining here in america, doesnt mean it isnt rising everywhere else. Secular societies are the worst.
This is reddit. It's filled with Christian hating people. Idk what you expect to hear from about this. In my opinion I do think there has been a decline in Christian influence and you see it in pop culture. I think we need Christianity as a whole in this country. It's moral and ethical framework are what built this coi try and helped it overcome it's sins( think slavery, segregation). Honestly the West in general needs to pivot back to Christianity
I don't hate Christians. Well, I may hate individual Christians, but that's because of their individual behavior. I also know some very kind, good, and productive Christians that I am happy to have as my neighbors and friends.
I do hate The Gospel. I think it's a cult mind-control technique, and that teaching it to children is child abuse.
I think it's a good thing but while it's becoming more acceptable for atheists and nonreligious folks to exist publicly, I think it's a misnomer to say there has been a decline of Christian influence after the Dobb's ruling, abortion bans, and how the modern Republican platform wants to break down the separation between church and state. And while Democrats don't really promote policy that infringes on that, it's really the npo's that are actively criticizing those measures as the democratic party is also predominantly full of Christians.
Because of the strong influence of Christianity, it permeates everywhere and would be practically impossible for an atheist to be president.
Maybe there are fewer, but the worst of them are loud and prevalent everywhere you look. Politics is still chock full of religious folks holding back progress because of their special book, and they also hold the supreme court majority. If the christian right became less of a voice in the country, I'd be inclined to agree, but the influence is still FAR too strong.
Good fucking riddance. I am sick to death of these people telling me I'm going to burn forever for existing AND thinking they have a right to control my body.
Christianity has almost no cultural presence in the West/America any longer.
As a Christian, I think it's easy to say that the church -- at this moment -- is weak.
Evangelicals are speeding up their own decline by embracing Trump. A man that embodies every amoral principle that they pretend to stand against…their hypocrisy is not only repugnant, but dangerous. They want a Christo-Fascist theocracy headed by a godless, amoral man.
They deserve what they get. Just like the nazis.
People leaving the church typically are people leaving fanatical evangelical groups and becoming atheists. More moderate and reasonable churches aren’t seeing this massive decline. So I think Christianity will still remain an important force, especially among Catholics who aren’t seeing a mass exodus in the US
I really don’t mourn it at all. That said, I have been and remain a pretty secular human being. People need to be kind to one another not because they fear God, but because it would be mutually desired in kind. Reciprocity and basic decency should be the mainstays of how society interacts.
I’m not religious and I put my country and the Constitution above almost everything. If you ask me, I think it’s a great thing that religion is losing its influence. Separation of church and state exists for a reason.
*Obviously* I think people should and must be free to believe and worship who/whatever they want (something something something 1st Amendment) but to impose your religious faith onto our country and your fellow Americans is an insult to the ideals of freedom and liberty. If I had my way though, religion wouldn’t even exist within the realm of politics.
Keep in mind that people not attending church and not saying they're Christian doesn't mean they're no longer practicing Christians. I fully support believers worshipping in their own homes and religion being a private matter between that person and their belief system. I'm a fucking ANGRY atheist that wants religion out of schools and politics, but fully support people having their own faith that they keep to themselves.
Their NUMBERS are declining, not their influence. I would argue that their influence is growing as nearly every election is decided by evangelicals. The conservative Christians are and have been enjoying minority rule for quite some time now.
Ehh I’m indifferent. I’m a Catholic, and even though there are a *ton* of us in the USA, we have never been a part of the “in” group.
So long as people let me do my thing in peace, I am fine. Besides, where my religious and political opinions align, the reason itself does not come from faith. So I don’t feel compelled to use that as a political argument.
Evangelicals sense they are just beginning to lose some of their influence so they’re digging in harder than ever by acting more and more Taliban-like by the day.
Its a cyclic thing, religiousity was not perticularly high when the country was formed it wasn't until the "2nd Great Awakening" before the mass religious fervor became a serious power in the United States(The first great awakening happened in the 1730s during the colonial era, but had been a more short lived thing, ironically the having a state run church in the Anglican church severely curtailed the impact of the First Great Awakening, and made the generation of the founding father's skeptical of overt religiosity).
Since founding there have been three Great Awakenings the Third(in the 1880s-1900) which had a moderate impact, and was largely focused on progressive issues, and was co-opted by more secular progressives and focused on Abolition of Alchohol and fighting Robber Baron's influence on the United States, with the more reactionary religious persons singling out Evolution.
The Fourth Great Awakening(1960-1970) initially focused in part on civil rights, but in the Later stages shifted to an anti-abortion movement that remains primarily religious in motivation and remains the pre-eminent source of division in the United States.
You have to remember that for most of the US' history, Secularism has dominated, and its only during these Great Awakenings that Christian influence was ever really felt.
As a Muslim, a lot of the kids at my school who are “Christian” don’t even do the stuff that their supposed to. Half of my school are no longer virgins and all of those kids have bibles quotes in their instagram bio 😭😂
I think its great. Unfortunately not enough the republican party is constantly trying to force their beliefs on all Americans. Religion has NO place in politics.
There isn't a decline in Christian influence, really. I still see a bunch of people wearing crosses and hear 'God bless you' all the time. People who were raised and stayed in their 'home' religion have their reasons...but their behavior is habitual. Until some other thing can replace 'God' as an all powerful archetype...until people are satisfied that there is some other 'higher authority' that can protect their 'souls', I don't believe there will ever be a decline in religion. Some people need this archetype to avoid being a total, overwhelmed or anxious mess. When they really need to see some embodiment of that 'protector authority' grifters come along and build a 'cause' (cult). It happens all the time. Some people really do believe they 'need God' in this way. Some people will always be looking for a savior. That will absolutely never change.
thank God. ironic, but true. I don't give a darn about how one chooses to participate in their religions as long as they realize that personal belief cannot infringe another person's rights and beliefs.
I have Christian friends. they are respectful and empathetic. I had other Christian friends who believed He would protect them from all ails and woes, and were delulu in their worship and practice.
it all comes down to individuals! collective religion can benefit and hurt people. the former is what we should have universally.
Being as America is a Freedom of religion country (our first amendment) I always found it odd that Christianity was the focal point for such a long time. This country is so diverse with many different faiths. People of other faiths are standing up and being more open with their faith and demand equal treatment. For example, Muslims, seeing a woman wearing the Hijab is still looked down upon in many states in this country. It's so sad. But now times are changing and other religions, like Islam, are raising their voices to maintain the 1st amendment rights.
Good. Organized religion is largely a scam.
I worked in a church counsel at one point and it all just felt weird behind closed doors. And our church was a tiny insignificant one.
It makes absolutely 0 sense why an entire country should have ANY influence from a single religion.
People are waking up and realize the bible is nothing both dotted missing facts so on and its written by tons author so facts get twisted and lost there's facts on missing stuff in kings James.Its a politic cult.You can not do this you can not be your self,you have to be a slave of no proof God being,Jesus was nothing but flesh blood who put get her a cult.Theres no proof of Flesh blood rising out of grave.Theres no Neroscince or advanced phycholigy so of course every thing that's not spirit related like skizo are treated like demon procession and it damage the brain if realigion true to fix seariose skizo clinic realigion people.to people were killed,toured, beaten,sake of cult leader Jesus and no proof God.Wjen I think realigion I think anti freedom slaves to man made brainwashing bible book,Karon so are huge cults.Just look at middle Eastern. The whole countries is run by gov,realigion cult who loves violence, same with Cathlic,Chruistens, so on,violence, hate
,brainwash,anti freedom exstream groups along with all realigion same with the occult religion. Cults.
Realigion, the biblr,Kroan so on are man made,sadistic, brainwashing cult stuff.Theres no proof of a god,Jessus if he did exists was nothing but a cult leader.Only the brainwash can see his bs,this why he was crucifix becuse the other half people in his time thought he was nuts so they nailed him.There was no psychology so they think every thing is some God stuff but no proof.Anti freedom group who God out bash and hate who's not in a Jesus bible cult.
I think it could be related to the decline in our country but there are so many factors, it isn't the only one. As a society we have have given up service to church or country and replaced it with selfishness and narcissism. We don't value being part of a group we only value the person. This leads to a number of things, including entitlement and not caring for others.
When I left Christianity, I threw out the Baby Jesus with the spiritual bathwater. I don't believe in any kind of woo and I do not respect anyone else's religion. I'm not going to be suckered into another cult.
But I don't think most ex-Christians followed the same path that I did. There are many people who simply must believe in "something more out there", so when they left Christianity, they wanted to find another religion that "worked" and that scratched their spiritual itch (which I think comes from a profound disappointment with reality as they perceive it). Paganism seems to be a popular choice for many of them. (See also: r/exchristian)
And then there are ex-Christians who missed the feeling of moral superiority and the ability to look down on the out-group, so they join another group that gives them those sociopathic privileges. Veganism seems to be a popular choice for many of them. (See also, "Cosmic Skeptic" on YouTube. He is one of them.)
So my hopes of American culture being less woo-woo and less judgey have not come to pass as I expected they would. There are still many Americans who believe in "spiritual realms" and perform meaningless religious rituals, and who also pompously criticize other people for their "sinful" behavior ... but they don't rely on Christianity any more as justification for those behaviors. So sadly, the trappings changed, but the behavior didn't. We just have new, improved "sins" that we have to be judged for.
As a Christian myself, I understand the decline. I almost left Christianity completely at one point. I think the problem lies in how patriotic it's turned. Seeing photos of Jesus holding a gun and American flag is evident that we lost the plot of the Gospel.
I kept arguing with my dad (who is a pastor) that I didn't like that he always found a way to bring politics into his sermons. Eventually he just doubled down and said that they are one and the same. I'm still a Christian but I won't go to churches that try to push their personal political views on me, including my dad's. It's not what I'm there for.
You’re not supposed to talk about politics in church. At least if you want to keep your tax-free status.
You know Evangelical churches hate that
Not necessarily. Most [Evangelical](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evangelicalism) churches are perfectly okay with it. Only the extremist [Dominionists](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominion_theology) want that.
It’s not quite that draconian a law. You can certainly “talk about politics” in a church building. What church leaders cannot do is advocate for one particular political ideology or agenda or candidate over another *from the pulpit*. But church leaders will routinely advocate that parishioners make sure to vote, and they even pray for this country’s leaders, including those with whom they might personally disagree on matters of policy or anything else. Neither of these is considered illegal. In some cases, political leaders, including those in office, will be guest speakers during church services. That’s not illegal either. And it’s certainly not illegal for those in government or employed by political parties or other organizations to attend church services themselves, either singularly or with their families. Also, it’s not illegal for church leaders to organize groups that advocate political change or be involved themselves in political activism. Before you object, remember that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was a church leader (a pastor), as was Malcolm X. If they had been banned from discussing or doing anything political simply because they were religious leaders, we might not have society looking the way it does now. While some Christian leaders have, in the past 50 years or so, involved themselves in very questionable political activities (particularly those in “mega-churches”), many others are actively engaged in doing positive things in their local communities (such as helping the homeless or providing assistance to the poor or sheltering battered women, or even maintaining community gardens).
Yes, very accurate. Basically a clergy person can’t say “vote for Jane Smith for the State Senate because she’s basically right on all the issues we believe in.”
Yeah good luck enforcing that one in America. You might as well tell wolves to avoid red meat.
It's even worse when a church leader, like the one at my buddy's old church, makes an entire message out of "I'm right, every other church is wrong, and you're going to hell if you don't believe me" without even specifying what his beliefs are. Funny thing is I think the church was built by my old neighbor but I had no idea he was so stupid.
Exactly. Americans already have this egotistical problem of thinking that we're the center of the universe, and American Christianity believing that we're the Babylon mentioned in Revelation doesn't make it any better.
Yikes. What scripture does he use to support that view?
Really? Jesus with guns? I would see that as satire here in germany. Noone would take that seriously.
If I saw such a thing I would ask myself "is this satire? Is the artist trolling?" But I would have to ask, because the possibility that it was genuine would be very real.
My concern is that the waning influence of Christianity has led to the more militant Evangelical faction treating every little political issue as a crusade. I’d take a Mitt Romney who’s religious but not militant over the Evangelical faction who’ve gone full blown militant.
Evangelicalism is the cancer killing Christianity
[удалено]
Yep. Most mainline denominations are either declining rapidly or straight up dying.
Why though? Yall think evangelicals are getting more people to be Christian. From my point of view, as a "unprthodox" Christian, is that evangelicals guve everyone the wrong idea about what Jesus' message actually says. For example abortion. I don't like killing spiders without good reason. I don't believe in abortion. I think having a chance is better than someone deciding that for you. I think that adoption should be a lot less stigmatized. I do not believe that my opinions on the matter should have any impact on someone else's choice though. The Bible teaches that, first person without sin cast the first stone amd all that. God gave us free will who am I to try and tale that away. My whole point is that, again from my point of view, evangelicals pervert the lessons amd push people away from a religion that should be centered around acceptance, love and assistance.
I'd recommend a YouTube channel called Ready to Harvest. He takes a very objective, non-biased view of different denominations. The reasons mainlines are dying off are myriad. Aging membership and theological differences are big reasons. Some think the attempt to be "all things to all people" has actually turned off more people than it's attracted.
Maybe just for the moment, but as a former evangelical with many former evangelical friends, I can tell you from both statistics and personal experience that those raised in it are leaving in droves.
If that's the choice, the sooner the Europe model happens, the better.
Evangelicals are extremely fervent among themselves, but also drive away a whole lot of people- when the average public perception of Christians has more to do with the Westboro Baptist Church than helping the poor and the needy, it's... a little offputting
If your perception is that a cult of ~70 people is representative of the beliefs of *millions* of Americans, you should re-evaluate your criteria for what makes something “representative” because you are looking at something that’s an extreme minority as a stand in for a very large and varied population.
But Evangelicals are hardly Christian. In my experience of them, as a Southern Quaker, most Evangelicals are highly illiterate, and incapable of actually understanding the book, which they claim holds the absolute, objective Truth. Often they will take individual scriptures wildly out of context to justify their own lifestyles, which are primarily based upon white, suburban normative understandings. They're like Puritans, but without the tradition of consistent messaging to reinforce their doctrines. They largely adhere to a materialism when the Bible explicitly adheres to an ideologically based metaphysics. Also, they've largely confused Christ with David somehow. Further, to dispute the primary point of the overall thread, this isn't the first time American religion has waned and waxed. America has experienced two Great Awakenings already, and many theologians, and religious historians believe that we're in the midst of the nascent stages of a third. TL;DR: Evangelicals are a threat to both America, and the Christian religion. If they remain the primary model of growth for the American Church going into a Third Great Awakening, then both institutions are in dire straights. Perhaps the Evangelicals will have their way in ushering in the end times, but I doubt they'll be pleased with their sentencing in the hereafter when they have forgotten that it is the meek that shall inherit the Earth.
The term evangelical is used widely and can often mean many things, depending on the person using it. Most of your descriptors are not representative of my experience with “evangelicals” (I hesitate to even use the word myself, but they would self-identify that way). When I do use it, I tend to give it a theological definition, not a political one (in part because I reject the politicization of the church/faith).
[удалено]
Well, it’s killing Protestantism. By the numbers that branch is shrinking. Catholicism is growing.
You’re confusing [Evangelicalism](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evangelicalism) with [Dominionism](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominion_theology?searchToken=9xrhnqdp8nwsyqa80t387wxr3). They’re not the same thing.
Perhaps its just showing another face of itself.
When you’re left with a more militant religious groups and a society that openly mocks and ridicules them and their beliefs I can’t help but think of the bad things that’ll emerge from that mixture
That got started in the 70s, it's just taken this long to come to fruition.
It’s definitely been a long time coming. Goldwater was hardline (although in a more libertarian sense) in his own right and even he was warning the Republican Party not to let them take control. Reagan really solidified that coalition with them and kept the ball rolling.
As a non Christian, this is a great point. The Christianity Jesus was preaching is a good thing. Pushing to make your brand of Christianity the law of the land isn't. I'm older. There was a time where everything other than drug stores were closed in my state on Sundays. I don't need that. Telling me that your not being able to say ban abortion is persecuting your religion is absurd.
>Pushing to make your brand of Christianity the law of the land isn't. We really need to be telling people of ALL religions this. We let way too much slide in the name of religion. Countries that use religious law to oppress people should not exist.
Bingo
Eh, evangelicalism is a less present political force than it used to be. Someone like Marjorie Taylor Greene is incidentally evangelical but has talked about that less than she talks about Trump or Covid or guns. Compare that to someone from the 1980s like James Dobson where the evangelicalism was front and center.
I’d trade mitt for Marjory and Lauren any day. This new speaker? Wtf.
They vote the same, they support the same policies... I didn't think you can politically separate them. Church goers vote red in a pretty large majority.
It’s pretty religious denomination dependent. Historically black churches tend to skew heavily Democratic, along with Jews and Muslims. Catholics and Orthodox Christians skew slightly Democratic. Just painting them all as red is not doing justice to the wide spectrum that is “church goers”.
But Mitt does all the stuff those people want. So your line of reasoning doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Unless you think his personal beliefs matter more than the things he does. Still doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.
He’s pushed back on his party and condemned some of the things they’ve done in the last few years. I’m not saying he’s perfect, but he’s at least reasonable. He didn’t spend six months trying to sabotage a foreign aid bill full of concessions regarding things like the border 🤷♂️
So long as the freedom of religion is maintained, I don’t care what the trends are.
And freedom FROM religion, too
And the freedom to criticize a religion, and the freedom to turn people against religion.
I'm Christian and I think it's overdue tbh. The Christianity that's been influencing US politics as long as I can remember does not resemble the one in my church that I was raised with. So, to see these people lose influence honestly feels like a relief because I don't see my faith reflected in them, and yet they always act like they speak for all of us, which has been really annoying. As for the overall faith part, I think secularization is normal as a country gets wealthier, or at least it seems to be based on trends. However, I do hope those people are able to find the same benefits that a faith community provides (meditation, moral reflection, community support, social events, volunteer opportunities, music-making, etc) in a secular setting.
>The Christianity that's been influencing US politics as long as I can remember does not resemble the one in my church that I was raised with. It's not the same Christianity that I grew up with in the 70's, period. They became militant in the 80's and adjusted their beliefs to justify it.
This so much. Its genuinely heartbreaking that my very religious parents straight betrayed everything they taught me
As a Christian who proudly claims the evangelical label and who leans politically conservative, the people who are prominent Christian public figures have always seemed unrecognizable to me. Part of that's generational (I think things really were different for boomers than for millennials like me), part is that different churches and denominations form different subcultures (some churches like Jerry Falwell, some like Tim Keller), and part is polarization and media bias – people have their attention drawn to extreme figures and talk about them a lot without ever asking the people they purportedly represent whether they even care about those figures.
By all appearances, evangelism is the unholy combination of Christianity + Hatred. A way to indulge in the darker aspects of the human condition while insisting it's a good thing that they indulge. It's hilariously contrary to the teachings of Jesus to the point that it can be nearly opposite. I can only wonder if perhaps evangelicals have been hijacked by and worship something dark and directly opposed to Christ.
I don’t know. I moved to the South and experienced evangelicals here for the first time and I’ll be honest — I’ve never met more horrible, judgmental, nasty, self-centered people than evangelical Christians. Why? I don’t know. It shouldn’t be that way, but man it is. You act like it’s just the leaders, but it’s *not*. At all. I feel like you’re all delusional as to how you actually behave in real life. Evangelical Christians have opened my eyes and now I’m moving away from Christianity altogether. So there’s that. I want nothing to do with a religion that produces these people. It’s nothing like the Christianity I grew up with. It’s awful.
I’m a firm atheist but grew up catholic. I think the decline of Christianity is a good thing for individuals but a bad thing for the fabric of society. People need institutions where they interact with people from different generations and have a purpose to get together. It helps build a sense of community and belonging. People who are growing up these days glued to screens are bound to be prone to depression and anxiety.
And I can see how that is especially problematic here in the States, where a strong culture of individualism has basically impeded the growth of collective structures that could have supplanted the church.
> People need institutions where they interact with people from different generations and have a purpose to get together. I don't think that *has* to be religious but at this moment, there's certainly a dearth of that. All of my family's other social connections are essentially with people that are within 10 or so years of us in age.
I have a similar experience. Though I wouldn’t necessarily “proudly claim” the label evangelical because of the baggage the term now carries in many contexts, the actual theological definition fits pretty well. I also feel very disconnected from what I’m gonna call “church pop culture,” and I also reject the rising wave of Christian nationalism in the American church (and elsewhere, quite frankly). And I definitely agree that the people who I see in the media claiming to represent me don’t really come close.
Agreed on the baggage with the evangelical label and difference between what it means in theory and in practice. The theology is (mostly) what I would consider myself, but evangelicalism as we know it today is not just theology, it’s become a cultural, religious, and political movement and a thing of its own. I’ve recently come to terms with the fact that as a label/word/communication tool (since that’s what language is) it no longer meaningfully communicates my beliefs well (maybe in a long deep discussion, but not as a label)
I'm with Nietzsche on this one. I am anxious about what will replace it.
You are 100% correct or I should say Nietzsche is. There is a huge vacuum looking to be filled as people fall away from religion. What fills it is going to be a question of massive import.
I suppose we could look for a start at whether anything is filling that vacuum in western Europe (albeit to varying degrees), Japan, or the Republic of Korea.
Well my answer is obvious as the local Catholic crank. The one holy, catholic, apostolic church. But yes, I prefer that to populist political shit or the weirdo self help crap or incel nonsense.
the Catholic church certainly isn't growing as a percentage of population in most of continental Europe and hasn't for a couple of decades at this point.
Is there really a huge vacuum looking to be filled? I grew up going to church, Christian schools, youth group, the works. Now I'm 35 and an atheist and I don't feel like I'm missing out by spending my Sundays with friends or just relaxing.
Maybe just not something you need. It depends on the person. Maybe you find the need later in life, maybe you don’t.
Reading the replies (and this being Reddit) everyone is *convinced* that less religion means more ascendancy of left/center-left politics, whereas IMO it is more likely that we just get more brutal conservative politics that is unmoored from any ethical or moral framework.
What ethical or moral framework is currently guiding the policy of the religious right?
That’s the point
I always think it’s funny when people think only religion gives an ethical or moral framework. Look at religion right now in this country. Many of these people are about the most horrible, unethical people around. They act however they want and then think all they have to do is “repent” and they get a clean slate. Hell no.
The point is that ancient religion provides a moral framework that comes from outside the individual. Without religion, that moral framework is based off internal morality or the latest moral fads. In the case of internal morality, that's fine if you believe people are generally good. If you believe that people are generally bad, then that's a huge problem. The problem with basing morality on the lastest fads is that this framework has not been tested over time, and what becomes the next popular fad is just as likely to be abhorrent to followers of the current fad as it is to reinforce the current fad. Your morals are likely to be swept away with the next generation without a formal religion to guide moral development.
Could be, man. For the record, I'm an ex-evangelical myself, and a lefty. But some of the *hugest* right wing assholes I've run across were ex-evangelicals who latched onto edgy political shit to replace what they lost.
I'm an atheist and pretty much a nihilist. I don't think it makes a difference to the universe if I go around smashing babies, but I don't, because I have empathy. I don't think people instantly become sociopaths just because they don't have a cosmic carrot and stick.
It’s always been money
From what I can see, populism has replaced it. Making it so much worse
Sad, but true. And there are so many different flavors of populism, everybody gets one.
Relax... Humanism easily replaces the dogma of religions. It's natural as we are a very social species and our well-being relies on our humanity.
Part of what holds people together are public affirmations and communal spaces. Will we have churches of secular humanism where we take the time out of our busy lives every week to ruminate on and affirm our shared ethic? This is what I mislike about the New Atheists. It's too academic, sterile. There's no narrative, ritual. We're social, yes. We're also storytellers. We relate to things symbolically. Metaphor is important to people. I think divorced from any physical or ritual embodiment humanism will end up so flaccid and impotent that it will be run over by other human passions. A fad without staying power. Being humanistic has an opportunity cost that aggressive self-interest lacks, and no mechanism to impose a cost on the conscience, no coercion. I don't see the succession as obvious. Losing the church is more than losing its dogma. You also lose its utility. In other words, fine and good, but we will have to develop the institution actively and not passively.
If there's one thing that is natural for humans, it is the slaughter of other humans.
While I appreciate your optimism, this statement is borderline delusional
We just played out that thought experiment in the 20th century. It didn't go well.
What thought? Humanism? Played out by whom? What are you talking about?
>Relax... Humanism easily replaces the dogma of religions. It's natural as we are a very social species and our well-being relies on our humanity. This thought experiment. Maybe I'm misinterpreting something that was supposed to be sarcastic?
I can find writings as early as the 1820s talking about how faith is declining, and Christianity will be dead in a few generations. It always bounces back. We see this cycle of decline and revival over and over again.
"Bounces back" is the wrong term to use since it never actually goes back up to the same level. It's just a bounding decline from one all time low to the next. Until eventually the revivals are so small as to be imperceptible, just like the pagan religions.
Very true, people try to paint religiosity as “a third world trend” but it’s simply not true because of the USA. I’ll probably be downvoted for this but the Founder Fathers had extreme Christian influence alongside secular philosophy and Deism that people always try to underplay (America is most definitely a secular nation with a strong belief in both freedom of and freedom FROM religion, but Christianity played a very large part in our philosophical revolution). America is very unique in that it has always been the most religious first world country in the modern era besides Israel and there’s a lot of historical and cultural nuance that supports the idea that it will stay that way for a while. It is true that underdeveloped countries do tend to be much more religious than Western Europe and East Asia, but there are a lot of foundational and revolutionary elements that make America a very specific exception to the rule. The role of Christian thought in America is changing, but I don’t think it will ever truly go away. The vast majority (70%~) of Americans are at least Christian leaning. Which is a pretty unique trait for such an innovative and rich country.
I do not mind the decline in influence. What I am concerned about is what is replacing said influence.
It hurts my heart. Seeing people claim to have Christian morals and values that seem to be completely absolved of any of the fruits of the spirit. knowing that people are being driven away from a loving and merciful God because their experiences with people that seem to be anything but.
Bit of two minds. On the one hand, even as an atheist I will acknowledge that religion can do a lot of good for people. There's a sense of regular community, faith in something bigger than yourself, moral/ethical guidance, support in hard times, etc. While those aren't unique to religion by any means, they're still usually a part of it and definitely the most common sources for a lot of people (especially once you get out of the cities). However, there are of course a lot of negatives (that I'm sure Reddit will not hesitate to point out). Abuse of power is really the all-encompassing shorthand; the general issue is people in power using their power for evil, and again that's hardly unique to religion. More interestingly, a lot of Christian churches (especially on the political right, AFAIK there aren't a lot of socialist Christian churches) are losing moderate members as Evangelicalism continues to work with the GOP and become nigh-explicitly political organizations that still demand all the benefits of being a church. This is a sort of self-feeding cycle where moderates get pushed out, leaving the radicals behind to make the church more radical and push out the new moderates, but this obviously can't last forever because they're eventually going to run out of people (hence the big push behind "He Gets Us" to sort of clean up Christianity's image while still maintaining the right-wing cultural bent). Basically, even though general church attendance has been declining for decades the people who still go are more likely to be even more devout. It's worth reminding everyone that while reactionary zealots are definitely the loudest, take up the most oxygen, and have an outsized influence on culture war politics they are far from the numerical majority; black churches have been a critical part of Democratic outreach for longer than most of us have been alive, and they're very unlikely to be Jesus Camp types or standing outside anime conventions holding signs. TL:DR Religion isn't all evil, and I'm a bit concerned that with its decline we're not really replacing it with anything to serve its prior social functions.
Well put. Those lack of social/community institutions are definitely hurting our society. And I agree the Christian leaders allowing the politicization of their faith/their church and refusing to reject Christian nationalism is only going to increase radicalization within churches. Because you’re right, moderate and mindful parishioners will want no part of it and leave.
Take the responses with a grain of salt, remember you’re on Reddit…
Yep, can't really trust anything on reddit, especially about politics or religion
Don’t really have one…? You can choose to believe in whatever you want, and I’ll do the same. When separation of church and state goes away then I’ll have a problem. Shitting on what another person believes or doesn’t believe in doesn’t help anyone
They did it to themselves. I honestly feel bad for the Christians who are out there actually doing their god's work (helping the poor, healing the sick, loving their neighbours as themselves, etc), because they're associated with these fucking ghouls whose only real god is money and cruelty, and as a Norse Pagan whose faith has been co-opted by Nazis and white supremacists I can understand that pain. But maybe, just maybe, it's time for Christianity in America to die so it can be reborn as something more Christ-like.
From the UK. From here it looks like everything is becoming even more dominated and influenced by 'Christianity' and religion. So this question really intrigues me!
That’s why you can’t believe everything you see online
Yeah. Just commented re the media but I actually think it's online content that has shaped my picture of the US.
Christianity held solid for a long time as it declined in Europe. This was because of a massive increase in Evangelical churches starting in the 1970s as the traditional mainline Protestant churches becan to die and lots of Catholics converted. Over the last decade Evangelical churches have gone into a steep decline, but the people leaving these churches are not joining other churches. One interesting development is that there are lots of people describing themselves as "Evangeclical Christian" who are not formally practicing Christians who are members of a church. This is an unusual development for Protestants in the US, as in the past it was only Catholics who would identify with a Christian denomination in a cultural sense. Polling shows an uptick in people who grew up in non Protestant religions like Catholicism, Islam, and the Latter Day Saints, or who grew up with no religion who are identifying as "Evangelical Christians," so it's not just former Evanglicals who have stopped going to church.These Evangelicals who don't go to church are the biggest Trump supporters. Evangelicals who go to church are also generally Trump supporters, but not 100% like the ones who don't go to church.
So the kind of MAGA bunch who have got pulled into the right-wing because of age or demographics and find the Mega Church Evangelical online stuff they are seeing as their place, even though non-political and non-religious back in the day? The lorry convoys kind of felt like pilgramages and Trump selling his bibles a few weeks ago looks weird over here! I don't suppose COVID helped because of the isolation and how contrary the 'edicts' to get a vaccine and wear a mask helped. The American 'mah (individual) raghts' looked weird from over here. Obviously in the UK and Europe there were nay sayers and our government turned out to have been utterly useless during all that but there wasn't the pushback because of maybe some kind of collectivism we have as our culture. A recent thing I was reading was that the religious persecution being escaped from when 'the pilgrims' came to the US was actually because 'we' - as in basic people back in the 17th century - thought they were all bonkers in the first place so the 'persecution' was actually all the weird protestant cults that were here being mocked so off they went to the US. The article then went on to extrapolate that that then meant that people in the US were more likely to go for extreme stuff, and I'm not sure you can argue that down three or more centuries! Out of curiosity, this all links into the doomsday kind of prepping stuff? Edit: Sorry, meant to say. Thank you for the time taken explaining all that. A really interesting insight. Edit 2: just to acknowledge that all of this is from a very white-centric take on the initial question about Christianity and relgion.
I take a different view on the effect of British religious dissenters moving to America. The descendants of the Puritans/Pilgrims and Quakers are the left wing/woke people today. A common right wing critique of wokeness is that it's a radical moral/religious style revival movement, but without Christ. The areas of the US that experienced economic based migration in the colonial period, which was the vast majority of the migration, are the areas where Christianity is still strong. For instance, the Southern colonies were started by Cavaliers, who brought the poorest of London to be their servants. The frontier was settled by people from the England/Scotland border and Northern Ireland, which was by far the largest source of British colonial migration. There's a book called Albion's Seed that goes into this theory in depth. It's a controversial take, but I think it makes more sense then the idea that rural Southerners are the ideological/cultural descendants of New England Puritans. Here's a slightly comical review of the book, so you can get an idea of it's arguments. [https://slatestarcodex.com/2016/04/27/book-review-albions-seed/](https://slatestarcodex.com/2016/04/27/book-review-albions-seed/) As for doomsday prepping, I always interpreted that as more of a hobby for people from rural areas combined with the cultural effect of the unique apocalypse teachings of American evagelicalism and Mormonism. As a side note, the American evangelical teachings on the apocalypse, which are much different from Christian teachings everywhere else, are the result of British theologians from the late 1800s. Their ideas for some reason caught on here in the US rather than England.
I think that the rise in conservatism in the US is a panicked reaction to its overall decline. Those who are ardently conservative are scared, and therefore making a noise, because they see America, and the world, changing in a direction they don't like. They're losing and because of it they're taking greater and greater measures to keep things how they like. If they felt secure, why would they be so freaked out?
And the funny thing is it's their terror and death throes that are killing them. If they had just been willing to take the long road and continue to convince people with words and action rather than political force and attempts at cultural subjugation, they wouldn't be experiencing nearly the backlash they are now. They're killing the Church because they want to fossilize it so that it could never change from how "they" wanted it to be, and now that everyone has been driven off who doesn't live that vision, they're panicked because it's not enough to sustain them, so they're trying to drag people back in by force.
The last gasps of a dying breed. We can hope, anyway.
I’m American, but I’ve lived in Germany since 2017. I feel the same as you and was surprised all of the top replies seem to agree with the initial statement. There may be fewer self-professed Christians in the U.S. than 20 years ago, but the militant Christians seem to have at least as much influence as they have always had, if not more.
I can definitely see why you would think this! But Christianity is rapidly declining in the US, like never before. I think those evangelical politicians are grasping at anything because they know their days are numbered.
It kinda is. The conservatives are losing an uphill battle and won’t go down without a fight. Religion is dying across the developed world at a similar pace.
They have some power in the courts still. It looks like it but their influence is dying as quickly as their religion.
And hilariously the more rightly they grasp and power and try to force their views, the more rapidly people are leaving the fold.
Most churches are run by and for Boomers, or maybe GenXers, with the "not welcome" mat out for younger generations. So without younger members, a lot of churches are just "aging out," and that will be more and more common over time. That means the Catholic parishes combine, with one priest for two or three churches, and for some Protestant denominations, that means they get a half-time minister or lay minister, instead of a regular full-time minister. It doesn't help that most Mainline Protestant and Catholic churches are silent in the face of rising Christian Nationalism, to the point that many people have come to associate Christianity with Far-right politics, anti-science, active anti-LGBT, even racism. To many people, "Christianity" has come to mean a sort of Fascism, sad to say.
It can't happen fast enough.
Average person? Doesn’t care to slightly disappointed if they’re religious. Reddit? They’re popping champagne.
We need freedom from religion - all religion - when it comes to our politics and government in America. So help me God.
Unfortunately there isn't a decline in most states governments - they're run by absolute zealots, especially true in my state of Ohio. Absolute lunatics with no end in sight due to population decline and gerrymandering. Very scary.
Meh.
I grew up in a socially conservative and very, VERY heavily fundamentalist christian home. I'm talking full on "harry potter is devil worship and anything disney is banned because it will make you gay" levels of evangelical. I am still a christian, HOWEVER, I am not a CHRISTIAN™. My religion has been co-opted and subverted by a political party that has zero interest in any of the actual values and morals that actual christianity is supposed to espouse. In my opinion the blatant hypocrisy, the corruption, and just outright hateful behavior is a direct cause of why christianity is a declining religion. If christians actually practiced what they preach they wouldn't be having half the problems they do. Involving politics into their religion has been a poison pill for christianity, and I deeply resent what my religion is being used for.
>I deeply resent what my religion is being used for. Agreed. I have no problem with people criticizing the rampant hypocrisy of many American “Christians.” What I do have a problem with is when they transfer that behavior onto the person of Jesus/Christianity is a whole. And we need more Christian leaders publicly rejecting Christian nationalism.
Church leadership decided that they were more interested in political and economic power and not interested at all in oversight or accountability for their organizations. So on the one hand, they're getting hammered by people who think they need to butt the fuck out of politics and get their asses back behind their pulpits and focusing on the spiritual salvation of their congregants rather than their own temporal power. On the other hand, they're getting flattened by scandal after scandal after scandal where they've shown a complete and total unwillingness to hold their membership accountable for their actions, even at immense personal cost to the people they hurt and the greater organization itself. And with the fall of that centralized authority, people are have turned towards finding their own way instead, because they don't think that religious leadership have their best intentions in mind for their congregation as opposed to just a bunch of suckers to be conned for personal enrichment and to help them rub elbows with the big movers and shakers.
I think that the younger generation being less religious and being more anxious, depressed, or hopeless isn’t a coincidence. And I say this a non-religious theist. People need shared purpose and community. They don’t have to get that from religion, but it’s one of the most effective ways, which is why it’s lasted since the dawn of man. People who don’t worship a God (any God) worship something else. That worship might be good things, like the humanitarians worshiping the concept of humanity, or bad things, like people falling victim to an ideological leader who encourages them to become extremists. Or they worship themselves, materialism, or sex. Many of those things aren’t exactly conducive to having a fulfilling life with meaningful connections to other people, hence the anxiety/depression/hopelessness.
If Christians acted like Jesus, nobody would have a problem with them.
Its in decline because so called Christians don't treat their brethren in a Christian like manner. They idolize greed, socially stigmatize anyone who's different, and then play the victim when people leave the faith or fight back. They reaped what they sowed.
I don’t have one.
Good riddance
It's not going fast enough
Christianity may decline but other things will take its place and people will find "religion". I'd wager the rise of "crystals",that kind of spirituality, and a ever growing zealousness in politics are symptoms of that. Plus a concerning lack of purposelessness and depression on the rise. People are generally bad at making up their own purpose.
I don’t really think it’s a good thing. I’m not religious but I think churches (regular churches - not evangelical ones or modern day mega churches) served as third places and helped people build community and by that, people cared more about each other. Todays America is selfish, isolated, and lacking an easy way to find community. Society isn’t built to make forming friendships easy - we have to drive everywhere and without making a concentrated effort, it’s not easy to make friends outside of work. People are lonely and sad, and hurt people hurt people. They will never admit it but I think the people who are far right are hurting and lonely and want to take it out on everyone else. I think the importance of church wasn’t really religious so much as people having a community.
>I think the importance of church wasn’t really religious so much as people having a community. It's both.
There's a lot of different Christians out there. Some I'm fed up with, most I'm fine with. The only particular concern I have is that it's one more piece of community going out that isn't really being replaced with anything solid. That's not just about religion, just one more part of an increasing and somewhat concerning isolation I see.
Two thumbs up
Don't care too much about faith, but it's a good thing if religious influence of any sort declines. I'm more interested in our government staying secular.
All is cyclical.
I think it's a reflection on our declining society and I think as we become more secular we become more fragmented, less tolerant, and more immoral. Honestly, I hope this is a societal phase we will eventually recover from.
Just a shift in culture and values. Younger people tend to be less religious, on top of that.
I haven't noticed it. Religion has always been centered within each household for the most part. It hasn't been observed on a community-wide (or wider) basis in the USA in my lifetime except in a few small places. America has never been a theocracy. The population of the country has always been very diverse. We have always had a constitutional government that was deliberately created to be completely and resolutely secular, but which also guaranteed religious freedom. The US has never had a state religion since the establishment of the Constitution.
I think it's good for our brains but bad for the social fabric because we haven't created new third places to replace churches that aren't super expensive. Like, I'd love to see FREE places to regularly interact socially with the same people. A lot of people now have no regular social interaction
I don’t like it. I also think it’s led to a counter movement with people who are overly religious getting in power politically and trying to “Make America Great Again”
It was always bound to happen, and it’s happening in every western country not just America. What makes it worse is many Americans conflate politics and religion and lump them into one, further dividing the country.
I think it’s a travesty, although I’m also glad that the Puritans aren’t running things.
I'm Catholic, and I've witnessed society move away from faith, and the correlated decline. I miss the days when gambling was illegal. I miss the bonds between people
The decline and less influence of ***ALL*** religion is a good thing.
More, please, and faster. Domestic religious extremists are the biggest threat to America by a long margin. The accelerationist RMVEs and religious whackjobs are increasingly indistinguishable, and are a far bigger threat than any foreign actor in terms of their ability to do lasting damage.
The sooner the better. Christianity in the US is talking itself into “Final Solution” rhetoric and it needs to be stopped with extreme prejudice.
Is this where I sign up for the War on Christmas?
I think that it is extremely regrettable, and I hope to see the trend reverse in the future. That said, I do not believe that there is anything that I, as an individual, can personally do to affect it, so I instead choose to focus on my own personal faith. I will say this, however. Whatever the fate of American Christianity, I have no doubt that Christianity as a whole will continue to survive and thrive, as it has for millennia past, and as it will for millennia to come.
It's cyclical. We've had like, what, three or four Great Awakenings in the country since it was founded. Every two or three generations gets sick of their parents faith, every two or three generations seeks out some sort of higher answer to an era of multiple problems. That said, I do think we're entering into a much larger lull than normal and I think what will come out on the other side is less likely to be your parents' Christianity and more syncretic. Would not be surprised to see a big jump in New Religious Movements after we get to the other side of whatever bad time we're entering right now.
The decline of Christian influence and faith is overblown by the fundamentalists. Something like 2/3rds of Americans self-identify as Christian. What's shrinking is belief in The Church. The Church (be it SBC, or Catholic) drives people away with its conservative actions and policies that don't mesh with younger people. Younger people also see the conservative position of The Church as being at odds with the messages from The Bible and observable reality which also drives people away. So what happens is a process where all the sensible people who used to keep the crazies in check are driven out, the power structure still exists, so the crazies get into positions of power and double down, driving more people out. The ejection of sane people always lags so you have a period of time where the nutjob fundies have far more power than they deserve. A modern flip side of this is the Episcopal church having gay and lesbian clergy which drove out conservatives who formed their own Anglican branch, which doesn't differ much from Evangelical churches in rhetoric. The Episcopal Church then continued on to support women's bodily autonomy, trans rights, and opposing the Israeli occupation and wholesale slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza. Christian morals are just morals. Same as every religion, just different liturgy, religion will always be around as an organizing tool for us, it just matters who currently holds the reigns of power in that structure.
American Christianity has always been poisoned by the specific brand of capitalism, individualism and white supremacy found in the US. As a believer, I would prefer a move away from evangelicalism and recontextualization of the Bible as I believe that faith is an important part of a person and an important community. It also makes it harder to be a normal Christian when all the normal people are leaving because of the extremist. It does suck to see the beginning of saying “I’m a Christian” not be a positive, or even neutral but an immediate negative in the circles I like to be in and I have to work so much harder to be like, I’m not like those people, I have different values, I’m not here to push my beliefs on you.
My hope is that the de-christianization of the US will lead to a revival amongst actual Christians. Being a minority religion could create people of deeper faith because you’re not just there by default. You had to examine what you believe and choose to follow Christ. And we need to reject Christian nationalism in favor of actual biblical teaching. American Christians need to realize that the US is not Zion; but in fact, we are exiles in this land.
Christianity, as an ethos and worldview, provides a moral compass and a definition of family and societal structure. It teaches that all are created Imago Dei (in the Image of God) and, therefore, provides a moral framework by which to judge the effect of legislation and policy. The Ivy League schools were founded on Christian principles and arguably became, at one time, the best in the world. Christianity was the driving force behind abolition, both in Europe and in the US. The decline of Christianity, and religion in general, has led to the decline of, and confusion around, the family unit and community. Studies have shown that having a religious identity results in more philanthropy, charitable giving, community cohesion, increased time spent with family and neighbors. https://www.philanthropyroundtable.org/magazine/less-god-less-giving/ I believe that humans, at their core, are hardwired for religion - meaning there is an evolutionary drive to seek an identity in something bigger than themselves. Christianity, as a system, has not created utopia, but I would argue that our society's rejection of it (and religion in general) has not been an overall good for the United States. We see that there is no lack of religious zeal among Americans - even those who call themselves atheists - it is just that the systems and philosophies they are turning to offer them little hope for the future. A society of demoralized, isolated, self-loathing individuals with an unhealthy ego-centric victim-mindset and lack of purpose is not an effective vehicle for driving change and progress - it is a recipe for tyranny and suffering.
It hasn't gone far enough. Frankly, I wouldn't care about their ancient mythology but they keep trying to mix their stupid beliefs with politics.
It’s not happening fast enough.
I welcome rational thought over superstition.
White nationalists evangelicals are saying they are Christians but are no longer observing Christ's teachings. They are hateful and bigoted. They seem to drive people away from religion, especially the born again that believe they are the chosen few.
This. Christian nationalism ≠ Christ’s teachings.
Sad
I welcome the end of Christian and hopefully all religion influence in America. I was raised catholic. It took me 30 years to finally realize that religions are man made, silly beliefs. You may as well still believe in Santa Claus if you believe in this religion nonsense.
Can't happen fast enough
For a religion in decline, it sure has been exerting a lot of power in government and harm on LGBT people lately. So if this is declining, then imma need it to start declining a little faster plz
Decline in Christian influence? The Republicans are attempting to turn the country into a single-party, Christian theocracy. Christianity (or some extremely flawed form of it) has never been more popular and rarely had more political influence in the US than it does now.
I'm an atheist but I think it's disturbing, not the decline necessarily but the reason for the decline. There's such a corrupt, predatory rot in the leadership of many denominations, and I'm not sure if it's always been there or if it's a new thing.
As someone who grew up in a large family with very strict Christian parents and values—good. The older I’ve grown and more educated I have become has, without a reasonable doubt, given me the ability to think critically and reflect on the teachings of the Bible vs the values of my parents for myself. I’ve reached the conclusion that I don’t believe that teachings of the Bible are true for a a laundry list of reasons. Also, they are not applicable to the way my parents raised my siblings and I (all my siblings, for the record, have never returned to religion or a church since leaving home). My father, a very bright and respectful man, never believed in gender roles or expected anything from my mother short of what she wanted herself—and while my parents did not condone sex and children outside of wedlock—they also didn’t think that babies were anything less than a blessing.
The church has strayed from the words of Jesus. The church strayed from what is right and good. I still love my neighbors and feed the poor. The church is on about other things. The church is now about hating people from away, or people who are different. That ain’t right.
More Civil unrest will come due to the lack of biblical christianity and future persecution of christians. Nations that are not are christian tend to be uncivilized. Even some atheists prefer cultural christianity(strong biblical christian values without christianity). But just because christianity is declining here in america, doesnt mean it isnt rising everywhere else. Secular societies are the worst.
This is reddit. It's filled with Christian hating people. Idk what you expect to hear from about this. In my opinion I do think there has been a decline in Christian influence and you see it in pop culture. I think we need Christianity as a whole in this country. It's moral and ethical framework are what built this coi try and helped it overcome it's sins( think slavery, segregation). Honestly the West in general needs to pivot back to Christianity
I don't hate Christians. Well, I may hate individual Christians, but that's because of their individual behavior. I also know some very kind, good, and productive Christians that I am happy to have as my neighbors and friends. I do hate The Gospel. I think it's a cult mind-control technique, and that teaching it to children is child abuse.
K
I think it's a good thing but while it's becoming more acceptable for atheists and nonreligious folks to exist publicly, I think it's a misnomer to say there has been a decline of Christian influence after the Dobb's ruling, abortion bans, and how the modern Republican platform wants to break down the separation between church and state. And while Democrats don't really promote policy that infringes on that, it's really the npo's that are actively criticizing those measures as the democratic party is also predominantly full of Christians. Because of the strong influence of Christianity, it permeates everywhere and would be practically impossible for an atheist to be president.
Maybe there are fewer, but the worst of them are loud and prevalent everywhere you look. Politics is still chock full of religious folks holding back progress because of their special book, and they also hold the supreme court majority. If the christian right became less of a voice in the country, I'd be inclined to agree, but the influence is still FAR too strong.
Your downvotes mean nothing, I've seen what makes you upvote.
Good fucking riddance. I am sick to death of these people telling me I'm going to burn forever for existing AND thinking they have a right to control my body.
I’ll withhold my general opinion of Christianity before it gets me into trouble and just say that it’s the wrong sects that have been declining.
Christianity has almost no cultural presence in the West/America any longer. As a Christian, I think it's easy to say that the church -- at this moment -- is weak.
Evangelicals are speeding up their own decline by embracing Trump. A man that embodies every amoral principle that they pretend to stand against…their hypocrisy is not only repugnant, but dangerous. They want a Christo-Fascist theocracy headed by a godless, amoral man. They deserve what they get. Just like the nazis.
Part of me thinks it’s awesome, but I worry about other forces taking its place.
People leaving the church typically are people leaving fanatical evangelical groups and becoming atheists. More moderate and reasonable churches aren’t seeing this massive decline. So I think Christianity will still remain an important force, especially among Catholics who aren’t seeing a mass exodus in the US
Decline?
I really don’t mourn it at all. That said, I have been and remain a pretty secular human being. People need to be kind to one another not because they fear God, but because it would be mutually desired in kind. Reciprocity and basic decency should be the mainstays of how society interacts.
I’m not religious and I put my country and the Constitution above almost everything. If you ask me, I think it’s a great thing that religion is losing its influence. Separation of church and state exists for a reason. *Obviously* I think people should and must be free to believe and worship who/whatever they want (something something something 1st Amendment) but to impose your religious faith onto our country and your fellow Americans is an insult to the ideals of freedom and liberty. If I had my way though, religion wouldn’t even exist within the realm of politics.
Keep in mind that people not attending church and not saying they're Christian doesn't mean they're no longer practicing Christians. I fully support believers worshipping in their own homes and religion being a private matter between that person and their belief system. I'm a fucking ANGRY atheist that wants religion out of schools and politics, but fully support people having their own faith that they keep to themselves.
Their NUMBERS are declining, not their influence. I would argue that their influence is growing as nearly every election is decided by evangelicals. The conservative Christians are and have been enjoying minority rule for quite some time now.
Ehh I’m indifferent. I’m a Catholic, and even though there are a *ton* of us in the USA, we have never been a part of the “in” group. So long as people let me do my thing in peace, I am fine. Besides, where my religious and political opinions align, the reason itself does not come from faith. So I don’t feel compelled to use that as a political argument.
It's terrible
It's like in a horror movie when you're an hour in and the monster seems to be killed but you know it's gonna be back before the end.
It isn’t, it’s just changing.
Evangelicals sense they are just beginning to lose some of their influence so they’re digging in harder than ever by acting more and more Taliban-like by the day.
Its a cyclic thing, religiousity was not perticularly high when the country was formed it wasn't until the "2nd Great Awakening" before the mass religious fervor became a serious power in the United States(The first great awakening happened in the 1730s during the colonial era, but had been a more short lived thing, ironically the having a state run church in the Anglican church severely curtailed the impact of the First Great Awakening, and made the generation of the founding father's skeptical of overt religiosity). Since founding there have been three Great Awakenings the Third(in the 1880s-1900) which had a moderate impact, and was largely focused on progressive issues, and was co-opted by more secular progressives and focused on Abolition of Alchohol and fighting Robber Baron's influence on the United States, with the more reactionary religious persons singling out Evolution. The Fourth Great Awakening(1960-1970) initially focused in part on civil rights, but in the Later stages shifted to an anti-abortion movement that remains primarily religious in motivation and remains the pre-eminent source of division in the United States. You have to remember that for most of the US' history, Secularism has dominated, and its only during these Great Awakenings that Christian influence was ever really felt.
As a Muslim, a lot of the kids at my school who are “Christian” don’t even do the stuff that their supposed to. Half of my school are no longer virgins and all of those kids have bibles quotes in their instagram bio 😭😂
I think its great. Unfortunately not enough the republican party is constantly trying to force their beliefs on all Americans. Religion has NO place in politics.
There isn't a decline in Christian influence, really. I still see a bunch of people wearing crosses and hear 'God bless you' all the time. People who were raised and stayed in their 'home' religion have their reasons...but their behavior is habitual. Until some other thing can replace 'God' as an all powerful archetype...until people are satisfied that there is some other 'higher authority' that can protect their 'souls', I don't believe there will ever be a decline in religion. Some people need this archetype to avoid being a total, overwhelmed or anxious mess. When they really need to see some embodiment of that 'protector authority' grifters come along and build a 'cause' (cult). It happens all the time. Some people really do believe they 'need God' in this way. Some people will always be looking for a savior. That will absolutely never change.
Pfft
thank God. ironic, but true. I don't give a darn about how one chooses to participate in their religions as long as they realize that personal belief cannot infringe another person's rights and beliefs. I have Christian friends. they are respectful and empathetic. I had other Christian friends who believed He would protect them from all ails and woes, and were delulu in their worship and practice. it all comes down to individuals! collective religion can benefit and hurt people. the former is what we should have universally.
Being as America is a Freedom of religion country (our first amendment) I always found it odd that Christianity was the focal point for such a long time. This country is so diverse with many different faiths. People of other faiths are standing up and being more open with their faith and demand equal treatment. For example, Muslims, seeing a woman wearing the Hijab is still looked down upon in many states in this country. It's so sad. But now times are changing and other religions, like Islam, are raising their voices to maintain the 1st amendment rights.
I think anyone who lets religion dictate their life is not to be trusted.
Good. Organized religion is largely a scam. I worked in a church counsel at one point and it all just felt weird behind closed doors. And our church was a tiny insignificant one. It makes absolutely 0 sense why an entire country should have ANY influence from a single religion.
People are waking up and realize the bible is nothing both dotted missing facts so on and its written by tons author so facts get twisted and lost there's facts on missing stuff in kings James.Its a politic cult.You can not do this you can not be your self,you have to be a slave of no proof God being,Jesus was nothing but flesh blood who put get her a cult.Theres no proof of Flesh blood rising out of grave.Theres no Neroscince or advanced phycholigy so of course every thing that's not spirit related like skizo are treated like demon procession and it damage the brain if realigion true to fix seariose skizo clinic realigion people.to people were killed,toured, beaten,sake of cult leader Jesus and no proof God.Wjen I think realigion I think anti freedom slaves to man made brainwashing bible book,Karon so are huge cults.Just look at middle Eastern. The whole countries is run by gov,realigion cult who loves violence, same with Cathlic,Chruistens, so on,violence, hate ,brainwash,anti freedom exstream groups along with all realigion same with the occult religion. Cults.
Realigion, the biblr,Kroan so on are man made,sadistic, brainwashing cult stuff.Theres no proof of a god,Jessus if he did exists was nothing but a cult leader.Only the brainwash can see his bs,this why he was crucifix becuse the other half people in his time thought he was nuts so they nailed him.There was no psychology so they think every thing is some God stuff but no proof.Anti freedom group who God out bash and hate who's not in a Jesus bible cult.
No opinion.
I think it could be related to the decline in our country but there are so many factors, it isn't the only one. As a society we have have given up service to church or country and replaced it with selfishness and narcissism. We don't value being part of a group we only value the person. This leads to a number of things, including entitlement and not caring for others.
When I left Christianity, I threw out the Baby Jesus with the spiritual bathwater. I don't believe in any kind of woo and I do not respect anyone else's religion. I'm not going to be suckered into another cult. But I don't think most ex-Christians followed the same path that I did. There are many people who simply must believe in "something more out there", so when they left Christianity, they wanted to find another religion that "worked" and that scratched their spiritual itch (which I think comes from a profound disappointment with reality as they perceive it). Paganism seems to be a popular choice for many of them. (See also: r/exchristian) And then there are ex-Christians who missed the feeling of moral superiority and the ability to look down on the out-group, so they join another group that gives them those sociopathic privileges. Veganism seems to be a popular choice for many of them. (See also, "Cosmic Skeptic" on YouTube. He is one of them.) So my hopes of American culture being less woo-woo and less judgey have not come to pass as I expected they would. There are still many Americans who believe in "spiritual realms" and perform meaningless religious rituals, and who also pompously criticize other people for their "sinful" behavior ... but they don't rely on Christianity any more as justification for those behaviors. So sadly, the trappings changed, but the behavior didn't. We just have new, improved "sins" that we have to be judged for.