US religious identity is rapidly changing

[Neil D]

Inflation is up...Foreclosures are up...and now the religious community is changing....Question: Is there a pattern here that is recogniseable in the Adventist mind?

Protestants likely to become a minority; Growing percentage now unaffiliated; Immigrants help fill Catholic parishes

By Michael Paulson

Globe Staff / February 26, 2008

The United States, founded by dissident Protestants seeking religious freedom, is on the verge of becoming a nation in which Protestants are a minority.

A growing fraction of Americans identify themselves as unaffiliated with any religious tradition, and a small but increasingly significant number say they are Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, or Orthodox Christian. And a flood of overwhelmingly Catholic immigrants, mostly from Latin America, is helping to offset a high dropout rate among US-born Catholics

These are among the key findings of a groundbreaking study of the American religious landscape released yesterday by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. The study, which is the most comprehensive such examination of the country in at least a half century, finds that the United States is in the midst of a period of unprecedented religious fluidity, in which 44 percent of American adults have left the denomination of their childhood for another denomination, another faith, or no faith at all.

"Americans are not only changing jobs, changing locations, changing spouses, but they're also changing religions on a regular basis," said Luis E. Lugo, director of the Pew Forum. "We have nearly half the American public telling us they're something different today than they were as a child, and that's a staggering number. It's such a dynamic religious marketplace and very competitive."

The study is based on a survey of 35,000 Americans age 18 and over, a very large number for survey research, and the size of the pool allowed the researchers to get more detail about minority religious groups than is usually available from smaller studies. The study is also important because the quantification of religious affiliation in the United States is often difficult and contested; the US Census does not include questions about religion, and many studies rely on counts submitted by denominations, whose self-reporting is often unreliable.

Protestantism in America has been declining at least since the 1980s, the researchers said, when about two-thirds of Americans identified themselves as Protestant. Scholars have debated the causes of the decline, but said it might be due in part to low birth rates among mainline Protestants and difficulties among mainline Protestant churches in retaining the children of their members.

"The continuing decline in the size of Protestantism is very important for American culture and American politics," said John C. Green, a professor of politics at the University of Akron and a fellow at the Pew Forum. The traditions of civility, tolerance, and individualism are values that arose from Protestantism, Green said. "So much of our values and institutions in American public life came out of mainline Protestantism."

The new study is filled with findings about a remarkably diverse nation, with a population that is shaped by affiliation with a vast and shifting array of religious groups and sects. Every religious family - Christians, Jews, Muslims, and Buddhists - is represented by a number of subgroups. Scholars believe, for example, that the Muslim population of the United States - which is made up of African-Americans, whites, and immigrants from both south Asia and the Arab world - is more diverse than anywhere else

Continued

[olger]

I have that article on the couch beside me, Neil. I highlighted three quotes within it.

regards,

oG

[fccool]

The truth is that Catholic church has been a powerful influence in US for years. Catholicism is pretty much a religious preference of Hollywood when it comes to portraying any kind of church.

I partly understand the Hollywood's position of Catholic cathedrals to be a bit more "convincing", yet when was the last time you've seen any other church depicted in major Hollywood blockbuster? It has mainly been Catholic churches, and catholic ideas of Christianity were depicted as "Christan ideas". Think about the big ones like... Exorcist, Constantin, Runaway Bride, End of Days, Passion, just to name a few. It's funny that Hollywood is being "owned by Jews", yet it is Catholic views that are being pushed.

[Planey]

Catholicism is pretty much a religious preference of Hollywood when it comes to portraying any kind of church.

Unless they wish to hold it up to ridicule in some way - then it's usually some wayout type of semi-cultish Protestant church, be it inner-city or redneck-country.

Rarely do they hold the RC church up to even implied ridicule. (Except maybe "The Da Vinci Code" but they partly got around that by making Opus Dei the bad guys, rather than the official church.)

Graeme