"The Decline and Fall of Christian America"? - Not!

". . .Why do you not know how to interpret the present time?" (Luke 12:56)

The cover of Newsweek magazine for the Easter week issue this year was coal black, with large red letters in the form of a cross that spelled out: The Decline and Fall of Christian America. For the few evangelical Christian readers that Newsweek may still have this was déjà vu -- the magazine has gleefully trumpeted about three times in the last 15 years or so that Christianity is dying, and all but in its influence in our society.

Don't you believe it, folks! We're still here, and there are more of us than ever. Ironically, it is Newsweek that's dying: from a peak of 3.4 million readers in 1998 their readers have slid to 2.4 million today, and they themselves estimate that by next year there will only be 1.5 million. Newsweek's spiral is typical of what's happening with the printed news media -- Fox News and the Internet news services are replacing newspapers, news magazines, and the old network TV news shows. Actually, the anti-Christian bias of Time and Newsweek may very well be helping to cause their demise, for the readership of World magazine, a Christian-based newsmagazine to which your scribe subscribes, is growing in circulation.

The editor of Newsweek, Jon Meacham, wrote the cover story about Christianity's supposed decline in America. As is typical of anti-Christian biased news stories these days, he did some rather selective editing of his sources to produce the slant he wanted for the article. Let's take a careful look at some of his statements.

He wrote that "Christians are now making up a declining percentage of the population." Well, that's true. From its high water mark in 1958, church attendance has slid a quarter of a percentage point each year. But, on the other hand, the population has grown by almost 50 percent since 1970, and the absolute number of Christians is much, much larger than it was then. From 151.2 million in 1990 we have grown to 173.4 million in 2008. Of course, questions need to be asked about how committed to Christ these people really are, but to talk about Christianity declining and falling is ridiculous. This may be wishful thinking on Meacham's part.

Meacham also stated that "the percentage of self-identified Christians has fallen 10 percentage points since 1990, from 86 to 76 percent." But what he didn't say is that his own Newsweek poll found 81 percent of Americans labeling themselves as Christians -- five percentage points higher than the figure he used. And by far the largest subset in that 81 percent was Evangelical Protestant." It is also interesting to note that the American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) in 2008 revealed that the percentages of those who profess some other faith are tiny: Mormons (1.4 percent); Jews (1.2 percent); Atheist (0.9 percent); Agnostic (0.7 percent); and Muslim (0.6 percent). Christianity certainly doesn't have any serious competition for religious allegiance in America -- at least not as yet.

What is perhaps most significant is that the same ARIS survey found that the number of Americans who claim no religious affiliation at all (called "nones" by ARIS) doubled from 8 percent in 1990 to 15 percent in 2008. At first glance, this would seem to be a dangerous trend to the future of Christianity in our nation. But, it would be wrong to conclude that this group is nonreligious in nature, or secular. Only 25 percent of them are atheist or agnostic, and the remaining 75 percent labeled their religion as "nothing in particular." But half of that 75 percent said that religion was very important in their lives. So, nothing in particular might mean "no particular denomination." It's hard to tell.

Now, these "nones" are certainly not committed Christians, but I suspect that these folks are simply more willing to identify themselves that way today than they would have been 20 or even 10 years ago. In other words, I am not sure that we can accurately conclude that the percentage of true Christian believers in America is 15 percent less than it was 5 or 10 or 20 years ago. Certainly the failure to attend church has no social penalties these days, so it may be that a good many people in that 15 percent are just more willing to be honest these days. By the way, surveys show that the percentage of Americans declaring themselves to be atheists has not changed in 60 years -- it was 4 percent in 1944 and 4 percent in 2007. Even after 70 years of atheistic Communism, the percentage of Russians calling themselves atheists was exactly the same as in the U.S. – 4 percent! Not even the horrible suffocation of Communism can stamp out the Christian faith (ask the Chinese!).

The religious landscape of America is definitely changing -- no question about that. The percentage of the population attending church is slowly dropping, and it is certainly true that fewer people are inclined to turn out for evangelistic meetings or services -- any evangelical pastor will confirm that. The day of huge evangelistic rallies is past in this nation, although the size of the crowds that will show up for these kinds of services in the third world countries is mind-boggling.

The trend for American Christians is that we are more inclined to get our spiritual input from TV or the Internet or books than we are from church services or programs. But, it would be wrong to conclude from this that belief in the Christian faith is eroding. What we can say is that when Christian believers do not attend public worship and neglect meeting together with other Christians, the chances are good that over a period of time their commitment to Christ is going to slip. Sliding church attendance and the fact that there is a very slow moving but discernible trend toward legalizing same-sex marriage in various states (New Hampshire just caved in) may be combining to create the impression that the impact of the Christian faith on society is lessening. Meacham quoted the Newsweek poll to the effect that "two-thirds of the public (68 percent) now say religion is 'losing influence' in American society." He failed to mention that the same poll found that 81 percent of the people surveyed thought that it was bad for religion to lose influence, and that 74 percent said that they support "old-fashioned values about marriage and family."

Here's another statement from Meacham's cover story: "Many Conservative Christians believe they have lost battles over issues such as abortion, school prayer, and even same-sex marriage." Since when are we supposed to believe this? If you go back as far as Roe v. Wade in 1973, when abortion was first legalized, then we obviously "lost" at that point. But, just recently, the percentage of Americans who identify themselves as pro-life climbed over 50 percent -- it now stands at 51 percent. And those indicating they were pro-choice dropped to 42 percent. Public opinion is swinging to our side -- we're slowly winning on this issue.

As for school prayer, outlawed by the Engle v. Vitale Supreme Court case in 1962, we've taken some losses on this one -- notably losing the right for schools to offer prayer at football games and graduations -- but we are definitely fighting back in the courts. The game is not over here -- it needs to be remembered that the vast majority of the American people want prayer in public schools, and that counts for something. The secular elitists are consistently misinterpreting the First Amendment's prohibition of an establishment of religion in the public sector (e.g., public schools) to mean that prayer cannot be uttered in school. Were a conservative revival of "strict construction" interpretation of the Constitution to take place in our court system, the ban on prayer could possibly be overturned. Just because the opposing team has put some runs up on the board and taken a lead in the middle innings doesn't mean the game is over yet. After all, every court case is an at-bat for us.

Same-sex marriage is by no means a slam-dunk (to change my sports image) for the secular left. Sure, every state that legalizes it is a loss for our side, but so far you can count those on the fingers of one hand. And don't forget that voters in 30 states have approved constitutional amendments to ban it, reflecting the fact that, once again, the vast majority of the American people are firmly against legalizing it. Of course, this may very well turn out to be a losing proposition for us conservative Christians -- I wouldn't be surprised, and in my more pessimistic moments tend to expect it. But, on the other hand, the battle rages on, and is far from over.

Taking all of this into consideration doesn't seem to me to lead to the conclusion that conservative Christians are discouraged and ready to concede that the secularists have won. Meacham would love to see us do that, of course. Jim Dobson, appearing on Fox News' Hannity on April 14 said: "The Left-wing media is itching for members of the pro-family movement to put up a white flag and declare the ure war over and to just hand the country to them." Just so. But we are not about to do that.

Meacham writes: "While we remain a nation decidedly shaped by religious faith, our politics and ure are, in the main, less influenced by movements and arguments of an explicitly Christian character than they were five years ago." I'm not at all sure this statement is true. Perhaps the operative word here is "explicitly." Certainly, Christian ideas and themes are still pervasive in our ure. Take, for example, the strongly Christian themes of the savior figure's and resurrection, around which the latest "Terminator" movie was constructed. Not even very subtle there.

And the influence and power of explicit Christians was amply strated by the fact that the Presidential candidates for last year's election wouldn't have thought of being "no-shows" at the "debate" hosted by renowned Pastor Rick Warren. And quite explicit, and in your face for the millions and millions tuned in to the inauguration ceremony of Barack Obama, was Rick Warren's prayer -- delivered in the name of Jesus Christ. You can argue that one prayer, even at a Presidential inauguration, doesn't mean much. But the fact that, in spite of the secular leftists protests beforehand that the President Elect shouldn't have Warren do the prayer, Obama went ahead with it, reveals his perception of the power and influence of America's evangelical Christians.

The decline and fall of Christian America?

Not on your life!

This Article was published on 06/16/2009 and filed in