4 ms·

I'm not sure the narrative you're trying to paint here actually works. If you dig deeper into the actual poll, it says: > In addition to Protestants, declines

I'm not sure the narrative you're trying to paint here actually works. If you dig deeper into the actual poll, it says: > In addition to Protestants, declines in church membership are proportionately smaller among political conservatives, Republicans, married adults and college graduates. These groups tend to have among the highest rates of church membership, along with Southern residents and non-Hispanic Black adults. From the actual first-party news article on the poll: https://news.gallup.com/poll/341963/church-membership-falls-below-majority-first-time.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/341963/church-membership-falls-... For better or worse, conservative (both politically and theologically) people seem to be holding on to their Christian faith in greater numbers (at least marginally) than their more progressive or liberal leaning counterparts. Anyway, as someone who almost left the faith, I would agree with the overall narrative that Christianity became ineffective in the late 20th century. Personally though, I would attribute it to a lack of focus on youth and issues relevant to youths. I can't find it now, but I'm pretty sure I saw a poll that indicated most people who leave do so in the transition from high school to college. That certainly lines up with what I observed, most people just didn't care enough to keep going (regardless of what branch they were in). I would have been one of them myself, if I hadn't been able to find a college Christian community that was dramatically more vibrant than what I grew up with. But overall I think I'm one of the lucky ones.

randcraw 6y ago
Yeah, I suspect this news story (and poll) only scratches the surface as to identifying the multiple demographic trends afoot. Most notable to my eye was the 15% drop in church membership between GenX and Millenial. Of course, to do that metric justice we'd need to monitor change in that age group over time. Are today's 18-to-30 year olds so different than 18-to-80 year olds were in the 1970's or 1990s? I suspect the range of ages that are today's Millenials has forever been less traditional than other age groups. That's unsurprising given they have the least personal history of any adult group to weigh when deciding their life's priorities, and are likely to think least about their relationship to others in their family (since they just left the parents behind and have yet to add any more). At that age, the need to join another 'family' and adopt a bunch of new familial responsibilities is likely to be less compelling a notion than it may be a few years hence.

randcraw 6y ago

Yeah, I suspect this news story (and poll) only scratches the surface as to identifying the multiple demographic trends afoot. Most notable to my eye was the 15% drop in church membership between GenX and Millenial. Of course, to do that metric justice we'd need to monitor change in that age group over time. Are today's 18-to-30 year olds so different than 18-to-80 year olds were in the 1970's or 1990s? I suspect the range of ages that are today's Millenials has forever been less traditional than other age groups. That's unsurprising given they have the least personal history of any adult group to weigh when deciding their life's priorities, and are likely to think least about their relationship to others in their family (since they just left the parents behind and have yet to add any more). At that age, the need to join another 'family' and adopt a bunch of new familial responsibilities is likely to be less compelling a notion than it may be a few years hence.