Christian Subversion And Missionary Activities - 5

[acharya]

Faith is fluid in America

The Pew Forum survey of religious attitudes reveals some telling shifts in Americans' spiritual allegiances
Comments (45)

* little
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o Jane Little
o guardian.co.uk, Friday 1 May 2009 14.00 BST
o Article history

It has been called the divine supermarket, and a new survey on America and its inhabitants' religious lives suggests that's an accurate description.

Americans appears to switch religious affiliation as often as they switch cereal brands. (Actually being fairly stuck in my cereal habits, I'm thinking they probably change religion more frequently.)

The Pew Research Centre's Forum on Religion and Public Life has updated its 2007 Landscape Survey, and decided that it had underestimated what already seemed a striking trend. Then it found that one in four Americans had changed their religion from the one in which they were raised. Now, having conducted further, more in depth interviews, Pew says that roughly half of the US adult population has changed religion at some point in their lives.

Most of those did so before they were 24, and many of them changed religion more than once.

That is fairly remarkable, and suggests another way in which America pushes the envelope – religion is one's identity in most of the rest of the world, but here in this land of spiritual frontiers, it is an affiliation, a choice based on where one lives, who one marries, which pastor offers the finest sermons, or the best after church soccer club.

There are other reasons for losing one's religion, and the survey gives food for thought to religious leaders. The group that has grown the most in recent years due to religious change is the "unaffiliated" one.

Two-thirds of former Catholics and half of former Protestants who have become unaffiliated say they left their childhood faith because they stopped believing in its teachings. Many also cited hypocrisy with religious organisations too consumed by rules, and their leaders by money and power – in other words they were not spiritual enough.

This point deserves further probing. After the 2007 survey was released many commentators hit on the large number of people now unaffiliated – 16% – as evidence of a growing body of atheists in this country. And indeed atheism, led by people like Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins, has become something of a movement for the first time in the US.

That said, this survey reveals that only four in 10 of the unaffiliated shunned their religion because they stopped believing in God. This was not the triumph of scientific rationalism over religious superstition.

In fact an equal number – four in 10 unaffiliated individuals – say religion is at least somewhat important in their lives, and many leave the door open to a possible return.

What this suggests – and I wish Pew had asked a specific question on this – is that many of the unaffiliated remain spiritual seekers, and would probably identify with the category of "spiritual not religious."

That's one of the most nebulous and difficult to quantify trends in America, but it is alive and thriving. Just look at the market for spiritual, and quasi-spiritual self-help books out there. Eat, Pray, Love sold millions of copies (worldwide) because it was about a young woman's quest to find God and meaning outside of organised religion (and because it was funny).

As religion loses its claim to exclusivity (others leaving their faith cited the reason that while many faiths may be partly true no single one is completely true), it inevitably loses some of its pulling power. And Americans are exposed to hundreds of different options every day.
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So while the recession bites, and other stores close their doors, the divine supermarket is well-stocked, and open for business. Just don't expect much brand loyalty anymore.</b>

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/be...ith-america-pew

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I'm surprised that you didn't comment on the other large point in the Pew report.
WASHINGTON (CNN) — The more often Americans go to church, the more likely they are to support the torture of suspected terrorists, according to a new analysis.

More than half of people who attend services at least once a week — 54 percent — said the use of torture against suspected terrorists is often or sometimes justified. Only 42 percent of people who seldom or never go to services agreed, according the analysis released Wednesday by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.

White evangelical Protestants were the religious group most likely to say torture is often or sometimes justified — more than 6 in 10 supported it. People unaffiliated with any religious organization were least likely to back it. Only 4 in 10 of them did.

The analysis is based on a Pew Research Center survey of 742 American adults conducted April 14-21. It did not include analysis of groups other than white evangelicals, white non-Hispanic Catholics, white mainline Protestants, and the religiously unaffiliated, because the sample size was too small.

G.


http://cnnwire.blogs.cnn.com/2009/04/30/ch...e-survey-finds/

Somebody is saying that: that roughly half of the US adult population has changed religion at some point in their lives. If you believe that, then you believe in anything. If more than 80 % are Christians now, how was it 50 years ago? may be 70 % and that too because of large influx of new immigrants from outside Europe.
It is possible that people go to church less than they used to do 50 years ago, but that is a different category. I hope one day, we all come to the conclusion that there is no god and we are humans and have similar wishes and desires and habits. We want a job, schools for our kids and hospitals when we are sick, which should be affordable. Ask any Muslim, or hindu or a Jew, they will second me on that. But if you ask a hindu what they think of Muslims, or a Muslim what they think of Jews and so on, you know that the real culprit is faith.

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Americans are for the most part indoctrinated into one faith or another when they are children, and might switch brands from time to time, but usually stay religious.
The big change - from belief in some supernatural god to nonbelief is not so rampant or clear. Once indoctrinated it's not easy to become un-indoctrinated. Very difficult as a matter of fact.
Now if they stopped indoctrinating the children - then we would see massive change in future generations, and religion would eventually die a natural death. Switching brands is kidstuff, and barely worth a comment.

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Interesting piece. Concerning Americans who switch from one Christian denomination to another, I've noticed that a lot of this has to do with the availability of parking spaces. In my area the fastest growing denominations are those with the largest parking lots. I doubt there was much soul-searching involved in switches based on the availability of parking.

Of course Americans who regard themselves as "spiritual not religious" are not swayed by the availability of parking, but neither are most of them really "spiritual" in any detectable way. Philosopher George Santayana said that a man who claims to be a spiritual person, but who practices no particular religion, is like a man who claims to be a musician, but who plays no instrument. He's got a point. Next time somebody claims in your presence to be a spiritual person, hand to him pen and paper and ask him to write down the five main precepts of his spirituality. I think your request would be met in most instances (but not all) with a blank stare. I have more respect for those who proclaim their religious beliefs with certainty, and for those who say it's all a lot of rot, than I have for those who trot out that pathetic little PC claim of "spirituality".

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The USA fits the trend of almost all Christian countries.

Catholicism and other apostolic denominations, along with "national" churches like Anglicanism or Lutheranism (in the USA often associated with specific immigrant groups from northern European countries), have members becoming unaffiliated on mass while denominations based on the Bible alone grow in numbers. Of the latter Pentecostalism is growing most strongly.

The difference between the USA and Europe in religiosity can be seen most clearly where we draw this split, Bible alone versus those with non-Biblical traditions, rather than between Catholicism and Protestantism. Since there where many more Bible alone denominations in the USA to start with it remains more Christian and more religious than western Europe. In places that where overwhelmingly Catholic, such as France or the Republic of Ireland, on the surface it appears to be a straight loss of Catholicism to unaffiliated, secular and atheist, however the small Bible alone groups are growing strongly in those countries relative to their tiny base, not just through immigration but indigenously, but from that very small base so it doesn't register on the radar.

In Latin America we see more clearly. Brazil now has many more who call themselves unaffiliated but the growth, almost entirely of the Bible alone groups, now makes Brazil 15% Protestant. Similarly the Philippines is now 10% Protestant, rewriting the 98% Catholic figures you'd see in an Atlas even 25 years ago. Latin America now marginally has more Protestant bums on seats on a given Sunday than Catholicism. Most Catholics there are Catholic for census forms purposes but you wont find them at mass on a Sunday.

In majority non-Christian countries where Christianity is growing, demographically most importantly India and China, it is these Bible alone groups who do not carry western non-biblical traditions, who form the bulk of the growth. However in China Catholicism bucks the trend by growing whereas it is shrinking in almost all other countries.

I believe that in Muslim countries there is a parallel trend of a growth in "Koran (and Hadith) alone" belief, against traditional practices such as veneration of saints.


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Americans are for the most part indoctrinated into one faith or another when they are children, and might switch brands from time to time, but usually stay religious.
The big change - from belief in some supernatural god to nonbelief is not so rampant or clear. Once indoctrinated it's not easy to become un-indoctrinated. Very difficult as a matter of fact.
Now if they stopped indoctrinating the children - then we would see massive change in future generations, and religion would eventually die a natural death. Switching brands is kidstuff, and barely worth a comment.

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