A Dying Faith
John Ortberg recently wrote for the Out of Ur blog. He provided a few snapshots of how people are showing the loss of faith in America, and specifically the numbers that show Christianity dropping in numbers. Here are the examples he provided:
- The recently released American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) indicates that faith is going down across the board. The number of people who identify themselves as Christian has decreased by 11 percent in a generation. The single fastest-growing category when it comes to religious affiliation is “None,” which grew from 8 percent to 15 percent since 1990.
- Twenty years ago, if someone wanted to look for a model of what an effective church might look like in the future, they would generally go to a place like Willow Creek or Saddleback. But these younger leaders said it was no longer apparent where they should go to see what church might look like in another twenty years.
- A religion reporter for the LA Times wrote an article, and later a book, describing how he lost his faith in the process of covering his beat. He said that article brought in exponentially more positive emails than anything else he’d ever written.
Is the fact that America is losing faith a problem? Well John says, ‘not so fast.’
“It’s not a matter of new evidence being introduced that makes the message of Jesus less likely to be true. What makes a living faith cease to be a live option is much more subtle and complex. It often has more to do with cultural shifts and attitudes that move gradually over time until a tipping point suddenly reveals them. The question is not one of Kingdom Anxiety. The Kingdom of God has been doing very well, and will continue to flourish no matter the ebbs of flows from one century and continent to another.”
Tyler Braun.
