The end of a Christian America?

**min0 lee** · 04-06-2009, 06:02 AM

Meacham: The End of Christian America | Newsweek Religion | Newsweek.com

The percentage of self-identified Christians has fallen 10 points in the past two decades. How that statistic explains who we are now—and what, as a nation, we are about to become.

Jon Meacham
NEWSWEEK
From the magazine issue dated Apr 13, 2009

It was a small detail, a point of comparison buried in the fifth paragraph on the 17th page of a 24-page summary of the 2009 American Religious Identification Survey. But as R. Albert Mohler Jr.—president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, one of the largest on earth—read over the document after its release in March, he was struck by a single sentence. For a believer like Mohler—a starched, unflinchingly conservative Christian, steeped in the theology of his particular province of the faith, devoted to producing ministers who will preach the inerrancy of the Bible and the Gospel of Jesus Christ as the only means to eternal life—the central news of the survey was troubling enough: the number of Americans who claim no religious affiliation has nearly doubled since 1990, rising from 8 to 15 percent. Then came the point he could not get out of his mind: while the unaffiliated have historically been concentrated in the Pacific Northwest, the report said, "this pattern has now changed, and the Northeast emerged in 2008 as the new stronghold of the religiously unidentified." As Mohler saw it, the historic foundation of America's religious culture was cracking.

"That really hit me hard," he told me last week. "The Northwest was never as religious, never as congregationalized, as the Northeast, which was the foundation, the home base, of American religion. To lose New England struck me as momentous." Turning the report over in his mind, Mohler posted a despairing online column on the eve of Holy Week lamenting the decline—and, by implication, the imminent fall—of an America shaped and suffused by Christianity. "A remarkable culture-shift has taken place around us," Mohler wrote. "The most basic contours of American culture have been radically altered. The so-called Judeo-Christian consensus of the last millennium has given way to a post-modern, post-Christian, post-Western cultural crisis which threatens the very heart of our culture." When Mohler and I spoke in the days after he wrote this, he had grown even gloomier. "Clearly, there is a new narrative, a post-Christian narrative, that is animating large portions of this society," he said from his office on campus in Louisville, Ky.

More....

**busyLivin** · 04-06-2009, 07:40 AM

Declining, not ending.

Doesn't bother me really. I'd rather people declared non-Christian and follow today's culture than to follow it & claim to be a Christian.

**Chubby** · 04-06-2009, 10:51 AM

Originally Posted by min0 lee

Meacham: The End of Christian America | Newsweek Religion | Newsweek.com
The percentage of self-identified Christians has fallen 10 points in the past two decades.

It is probably because people who are supposed to preach are not serious about their beleif anymore. About two years ago, my co worker's daughter wanted to change her career to become a priest. She said priest makes more money and has better job security. If this is the reason people want to become a priest, then there is no hope for Christianity in the future.
Just my opinion

**min0 lee** · 04-06-2009, 11:19 AM

Originally Posted by chobby192

It is probably because people who are supposed to preach are not serious about their beleif anymore. About two years ago, my co worker's daughter wanted to change her career to become a priest. She said priest makes more money and has better job security. If this is the reason people want to become a priest, then there is no hope for Christianity in the future.
Just my opinion

Wow.
It's always about the money. Politics and organized religion, the necessary evils.

**danzik17** · 04-06-2009, 10:20 PM

I just don't see the point in religion. I take nothing on faith, I require proof.

That and if God does exist, I can't fathom him condoning most of the stuff done in the name of religion.

I would guess that doing what you know to be right would be good enough.

**Chubby** · 04-07-2009, 12:36 AM

Originally Posted by danzik17

I just don't see the point in religion. I take nothing on faith, I require proof.

That and if God does exist, I can't fathom him condoning most of the stuff done in the name of religion.

I would guess that doing what you know to be right would be good enough.

"... all these things: compassion, charity, patience, forgiveness, joy; these do not belong to religion. One does not need religion to understand or practice them. They are simply the expressions of what it is to be human."
~dali loma

**Big Smoothy** · 04-07-2009, 12:44 AM

I hope religions keeps declining in the US, but I am not sure it will.

Americans are a bit odd when it comes to Xtianity: how many denominations have the Americans invented? I've lost count.

Religions were created by human to control the sheep.

**busyLivin** · 04-07-2009, 05:27 AM

Back in the 60s they claimed "God is dead" during Holy Week.

This is all just wishful thinking..Christianity isn't going anywhere.

**min0 lee** · 04-07-2009, 05:48 AM

Originally Posted by chobby192

"... all these things: compassion, charity, patience, forgiveness, joy; these do not belong to religion. One does not need religion to understand or practice them. They are simply the expressions of what it is to be human."
~dali loma

You would be surprised how many dumb fucks out there need guidance, some races fear God....no respect but fear him.

**Chubby** · 04-07-2009, 09:16 AM

Originally Posted by min0 lee

You would be surprised how many dumb fucks out there need guidance, some races fear God....no respect but fear him.

Yes, these dumb fucks need guidance, but not god. People who are afraid of god or who say god is dead, are the one who believe in god. Otherwise it doesn't make sense to hate or fear something that is created by own mind.

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