Newsweek Projects Wishes In Headline
Good grief. This is the blaring headline in Newsweek:
The End of Christian America
Really? Are non-Christians now 51% of America? Hardly.
According to the American Religious Identification Survey that got Mohler’s attention, the percentage of self-identified Christians has fallen 10 percentage points since 1990, from 86 to 76 percent.
The percentage of Americans who are Christians has dropped, but 76% of Americans are still Christians. It’s a bit premature to be declaring “The end of Christian America.”
The percentage of Americans who are Christians has dropped, but 76% of Americans are still Christians. It’s a bit premature to be declaring “The end of Christian America.”
You almost quoted the article with that statement. It’s a headline to get people to read the article and buy it off the newstand, nothing more.
That said, as an atheist, I look at this two ways. The percent number of self identified Christians in this country may decline, but I don’t forsee a future where this country doesn’t have a vast majority of self identified Christians among the total population.
Now practicing, or even remotely following…
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on April 06, 2009 at 0008 hrs
Newsweek was a great magazine that I grew up reading as a young kid and then for the next 30-years. Then last year I canceled the subscription when I realized the editorial staff of Mother Jones magazine had hi-jacked the publication about two years ago.
But at least they fessed up a few months back into turning it into a magazine of liberal commentary.
They do need a parental warning sticker on the front though until the rest of America realizes the change they made and begins to realize this is not their father’s Newsweek.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on April 06, 2009 at 0631 hrs
I utterly lack the motivation to read Newsweek, but I’ll bet the actual article talks about declining influence of Christians in America.
Which, when one reads about how priests are no longer giving benedictions before high school graduations and other public events, when City Hall is challenged on a dopey looking creche on an annual basis ... there might be something to that.
Posted by Brian Dunbar on April 06, 2009 at 0642 hrs
Which, when one reads about how priests are no longer giving benedictiosn before high school graduatiosn and other public events, when City Hall is challenged by a dopey looking chreche on an annual basis…
But that’s by the force of Constitutionally illiterate folks who don’t understand that actual meaning of the First Amendment - which protects the right to free expression of religion (including - gasp! - in public!). The First Amendment does not protect anyone’s right not to be exposed to religion under any circumstances.
If 76% were Obama’s approval ratings (down from 86%), he’d still be “overwhelmingly popular”, so this is another wishful thinking piece from can’t-die-soon-enough Newsweek.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on April 06, 2009 at 0828 hrs
Owen,
The article provides the same stat. It’s just a sign of progress, not a final victory.Amy,
I think you need to do some constitutional research somewhere besides World Nut Daily. It has two religion clauses. The first one absolutely provides for a situtation in which I have a right not to be exposed to religion. That’s when Congress is making a law that respects any establishment of religion (and the 14th applies this to the states too). You can’t just dry hump the free exercise and ignore the establishment clause you psycho.Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on April 06, 2009 at 0948 hrs
JIJAWM,
The stat I quote is from the article, My point was that the headline is a ridiculous overreach that is refuted by the article itself.
Posted by Owen on April 06, 2009 at 0952 hrs
Yeah, I guess it’s a bit much. It probably would have been better if there was a question mark after it, no? Or maybe even make it “Is the End of Christian America Near?”
I do think those stats don’t tell the whole story though. I’d guess that a significant portion of those self identified Christians are the “wink wink, nudge nudge” kind of Christians. They don’t really believe that stuff. They just grew up with it and don’t care enough about it to say otherwise in a survey. I have no data to back this hunch up, I just know a lot of people like that.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on April 06, 2009 at 1000 hrs
I’ll bet the actual article talks about declining influence of Christians in America.
I remembered that the very excellent journal First Things had a pretty good on this topic last fall:
The Death of Protestant America: A Political Theory of the Protestant Mainline
http://www.firstthings.com/article.php3?id_article=6254
Posted by Brian Dunbar on April 06, 2009 at 1003 hrs
But Owen, isn’t YOUR title for this post “Newsweek Projects Wishes in Headline” an even more “ridiculous overreach”? It seems that you’re the only one who thinks the title is “blaring”.
Newsweek has become just another “rag” that is trying to stay afloat and sell magazines. They’re no better than People magazine these days; their circulation has dwindled down to waiting rooms in doctor’s and dentist’s offices. Sensationalism sells…
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on April 06, 2009 at 1106 hrs
The headline is certainly designed to get people’s attention.
That said, I don’t think it’s any coincidence that the reach of Christianity within the general population has decreased as a small group of socially conservative Christians continues to appropriate the name for their theologically-based political movement. And let’s be honest - that’s really what the Moral Majority and the Christian Coalition were all about. It wasn’t about church building or faith building; it was about turning faithful people into political soldiers.
There’s a very good book that came out not so long ago called unChristian, which looks closely at why the Christian brand has been damaged in the eyes of young people. Not surprisingly, it has mostly to do with the perception of the type of faith so often practiced by those who try to use the name of God to accomplish their political objectives: it’s judgmental, it’s negative, it’s exclusive, it’s divisive. Let’s face it, the people holding their “Adam and Steve” and “God: Kills Fags Dead” signs aren’t exactly extolling a faith based on compassion and love.
That isn’t, of course, to suggest that the Bible does not talk about what we shouldn’t do sometimes, nor is it to suggest that faith is always about rainbows and unicorns. It is, however, unfortunate that much of the good work that churches do in our communities gets lost in the larger picture because of folks like Fred Phelps and his ilk, who would rather pre-condemn everyone they don’t like to hell.
Groups are often defined by their worst members, and that’s really what has happened to Christianity in America in the last twenty years. And to the extent that the majority of Christians stand idly by while a small, mostly white, mostly rural minority turn their faith in a political caricature, many people will continue to look elsewhere, whether they’re looking for emotional/spiritual comfort or for a way to serve their community.
Posted by Recess Supervisor on April 06, 2009 at 1244 hrs
Recess,
I’d avoid lumping all of the politically-oriented, conservative Christians in with the “God Hates Fags” fringe.
That Fred Phelps contingent not only has Christianity exactly backwards, but I’d venture a guess that these guys probably aren’t pulling the old lever for the GOP in the polling place, either.
Some years ago, when the Phelps group was protesting in Madison (long before they decided to disrupt military funerals), I had a discussion with an Assembly page about it. That person knew I was a conservative Christian, and suggested that my fellow travelers were the folks who were outside with the “Fag Flag” signs.
I explained that I believe that homosexuality is a sin, and that I hope that its practitioners turn away from it. But by the same token, everyone is a sinner. Me, too. And as God abhors all sin, I stand here no better than the prostitute, the idolater, and the homosexual. (Sort of the, “I’m not perfect, just forgiven” school of thought.) And while I think that unrepentant homosexuality is a serious problem, I also think that the folks outside are neither Christians nor are they advancing the cause they think they are.
This guy was rather taken aback, as I don’t think he expected to hear this from me. And it is true that more conservative Christians need to oppose the Fred Phelps lunatic fringe with this kind of response if people are to understand where the real religion of Christ is coming from. (My personal opinion of Phelps and his followers is that they’re not really religious at all. They’re really just Howard Stern without a microphone—the kinds of folks who get off on shocking and insulting others.)
But I have sat shoulder-to-shoulder with lots of very devout Christians in campaign headquarters across this state, and none of them were motivated by the kind of hatred with which you would paint them all. But they’re not the ones who get the press, are they? They are, however, concerned about the growth of unrepentant sin of all kinds in society—whether it’s gay “marriage,” or crimes of all sorts, or sexual immorality, or pornography, or whatever. Not because they themselves are without sin, but because it becomes increasingly difficult to raise a generation who knows right from wrong most of the darned time when they’re immersed in nothing but overwhelming “wrong.”
And, finally, it becomes easy to assume that there are no conservative Christian young people when you choose social venues where you are unlikely to find them. We’re all guilty of that - I work in Dane County, and after a while, it gets pretty easy to feel like you’re the last living Republican on earth. It takes an occasional drive to Washington County to remember that they *do* still exist.
Likewise, when you hang out with a bunch of horn-blowing musicians, you’re probably hard-pressed to find a lot of sentiment against gay marriage (or for conservative Christianity) among your young cohorts. But that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on April 06, 2009 at 1930 hrs
I do think those stats don’t tell the whole story though. I’d guess that a significant portion of those self identified Christians are the “wink wink, nudge nudge” kind of Christians. They don’t really believe that stuff. They just grew up with it and don’t care enough about it to say otherwise in a survey. I have no data to back this hunch up, I just know a lot of people like that.
I agree.
I highly doubt the “real” number of christians has increased or decreased.
The “christians” that did it cause it was cool and “jesus was their homeboy” are just fad-chasing sheep that never really believed anything in the first place. These are the kind of people who just attach themselves to whatever is most positively received at any given moment.
It would be like a republican getting upset that the swing voters would rather identify themselves as democrats right now. Those kinds of “people” swing back and forth. They always will.
As an agnostic who grew up in an ultra-christian family and knows christian teachings implicitly, I can say with absolute certainty that the wild swings that the news media and guys like Tim Russert reported that in 2004 the “evangelical christians” ruled the world of politics, but now suddenly 4 years later they’ve all gone away are all just media storytelling.
Lets face it. If news was “reality”, reality is almost always boring. News cycles are made on the capitalization of the unusual, the anecdotes, the exceptions.
I know some christians might be bothered that the “brand” as RS has appropriately named it is being battered in the press, but in reality, your faith is “your” faith, it shouldn’t matter what the mass media is reporting, and ultimately I don’t think the number of core-believers has probably changed much at all.
I suppose for political expediency its probably damaging to the political-christian movement, but I’ve never figured out why a “true” christian would want to leverage government to advance a system of beliefs that is based on free-will no????
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on April 07, 2009 at 0956 hrs
CC,
“I’d avoid lumping all of the politically-oriented, conservative Christians in with the “God Hates Fags” fringe.”
Okay, perhaps you have a point. Please go on.
“I explained that I believe that homosexuality is a sin, and that I hope that its practitioners turn away from it. But by the same token, everyone is a sinner. Me, too. And as God abhors all sin, I stand here no better than the prostitute, the idolater, and the homosexual.”
So homosexuality is a “sin” and God abhors all sin. But you’re different from t he “God Hates Fags” crew how? Unrepentant homosexuality is a serous problem? It’s amazing to me how blind you Christians are to just how insulting you can be. The story you told the assembly page doesn’t make it sound any better. If you told me “we’re all sinners” I’d tell you to go fuck yourself, that “Sin” is a figmant of your imagination, and that I’m a good person and I don’t need your childish labels. You just wrote two paragraphs about making a whole group of people that aren’t hurting anyone into second class citizens. And it doesn’t make it better that you say “I’m a sinner too.” What next, are you going to tell us you have “black friends”?
Maybe the language you use is less harsh than Phelps, but you basically just told us you think the same things he does. Moderate Christians are admittedly better than Phelps (I’m not sure I’d place you in that category though), but they make it easier for the extreme wack jobs to spout their trash.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on April 07, 2009 at 1242 hrs
I guess my broader point is that to the extent that denominations and believers use their faith as a weapon in the political arena, the power of that faith in the spiritual arena will be irreparably damaged. I believe that, more than anything, is the problem at hand. In the hands of fools like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, Ralph Reed and Gary Bauer, Christianity is now just another pawn on the chess board of politics.
I don’t believe in gay marriage as a religious institution either, but I’m hardly a sinner for believing that a secular democracy lacks the authority to tell homosexual couples that they can’t marry, especially when the only real argument against it is that it’s a tradition based around some people’s perception of what is or is not sanctioned by the Lord. Fine. If it’s a religious institution then the state has no business sanctioning it in the first place.
It’s one thing to allow your decisions to be humbly guided by your faith. It’s another thing to take your faith and shove it in everyone’s face, whether you’re Fred Phelps or Mike Huckabee. That’s what has happened to Christianity in the last generation in America, and every little win at the ballot box costs it a little bit more in the pews every Sunday. Talk about your Pyrhhic victories.
Posted by Recess Supervisor on April 07, 2009 at 1333 hrs
I think it is not fair to declare it as the end of christian America, at this point of time, when most of the Americans are christians only.
Posted by Defensive Driving on April 21, 2009 at 0324 hrs
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