Decline of Christianty

I was reading an article about the decline of Christianity on the WSJ.

...the percentage of Americans calling themselves Christian dropped from 86% in 1990 to 76% earlier this year while the percent saying they had no affiliation jumped from 8% to 15%

Those percentage jumps are pretty big. Granted, it has been 17 years. More importantly, what do the numbers really mean? The author has a theory.

...perhaps it's not that the devout have lost their way, it's that the nominally religious have stopped pretending to be religious. Perhaps what we're seeing is not an increase in the number of "nones" but an increase in the numbers willing to admit it.

Another bit of evidence for this theory is that the rates of church attendance during this same period from 1990 to 2009 have remained stable.

As Christians, pastors, or leaders, this should be fairly good news. It means that people are no longer afraid to say they're not religious. This allows us to have different sorts of conversations with people.

When asked, these were the top 3 reasons why they left the faith

• "Religious people are hypocritical/judgmental/insincere"
• "Many religions are partly true, none completely true"
• "Religious orgs. are too focused on rules, not spirituality"

The first has to do with character and discipleship. The hypocritical thing has been around for so long. We talk about relational witnessing and wonder why it doesn't work. That's why. But it goes deeper than that. It speaks to a faith that's not realized or a fear of transparency with our faith. I don't think people are asking us to be perfect, but they're asking us to be honest and authentic. That yes, we strive for holiness and godliness, but we still sin.

It's how we present that to people. Are we standing on a pedestal looking down? Or are we reaching out and offering to journey with them through these struggles. People want to know that this faith has hope and implications for their current life, not just the next life. They want to know that the faith is real and has power.

The second has to do with teaching. For too long, we've taught that Christianity is the only truth and therefore, all other religions are not true. But I don't think that's right. Jesus is still the only way, but that doesn't mean that other religions don't get some of it right. Instead of fighing the "truth" battle, we can focus on what sets Christianity apart from the other religions. That personal relationship with the heavenly Father through Jesus.

The third has to do with soul care. The church has focused a lot on behavior. You can't do this, you need to do this, etc. In trying to reform people's actions, we forgot to go for the heart.

There's one sign of hope for those wishing for a more pious population. One-third of the unafilliateds are still open to joining a church. They just feel they haven't found the right fit yet.