“We are a religious people whose institutions presuppose a Supreme Being.” So declared the U.S. Supreme Court in Zorach v. Clauson (1952).

In an earlier decision, Rector of the Holy Trinity v. United States (1892), the U.S. Supreme Court said: “[Americans are] a religious people. This is historically true. From the discovery of this continent to the present hour, there is a single voice making this affirmation.”

The Trinity decision then went into great detail about the early colonial charters (mostly Christian). Finally, the Supreme Court concluded: “These, and many other matters which might be noticed, add a volume of unofficial declarations to the mass of organic utterances that this is a Christian nation.”

But fast forward to today. Recent assessments declare or imply that the church in America is dying. One headline (Citizen Free Press.com, 9/23/2022) described it this way: “Axios begins countdown to death of Christianity.”

Axios comments on the findings of the Pew Research Center: “Depending on whether this trend slows, stops or speeds up, Pew projects the number of Christians of all ages will shrink from 64% to between 54% and 35% of all Americans by 2070.”

These stories on the alleged death of the American church keep popping up. And I have often talked on the radio with Dr. Byron Johnson of Baylor University about them. He’s a professor of social sciences, and notes over and over that these stories give the wrong impression.

Johnson, who used to teach at Princeton and the University of Pennsylvania, co-wrote an article about the “Nones.” The Nones simply refers to people who would be categorized by the pollsters as having no religious affiliation.

The Pew study mentioned above, for example, declares that, given the present trends, by 2070,”’Nones’ would rise from the current 30% to 34%-52% of the U.S.”

But what Johnson and his co-authors, including the late Dr. Rodney Stark, argue is that many of the “Nones” might not be as irreligious as they would seem.

Here’s what Johnson and Stark et al. noted: “[M]any individuals who report no religious affiliation or check ’none‘ on surveys (as well as atheists and agnostics) display a wide variety of religious and spiritual practices and beliefs. Many attend religious services, pray, meditate, believe in God or a higher power, have religious experiences, and believe in heaven, hell, and miracles.”

It seems almost as if the “Nones” should perhaps be called instead “the Sometimes.” And if from the Windy City, I suppose they could be called “the Chicago Sometimes.”

Johnson and company continue: “Even though a growing proportion of people in the U.S. appear to be reporting no religious affiliation on surveys, there are many measurement-related, conceptual, and methodological reasons to question the assumption that these people are not religious, and scholars need to look more closely at the actual practices and beliefs of so-called nones.”

Johnson and his coauthors also take other pollsters to task for being sloppy in their terminology: “[U]se of phrases like religious none, no religion, and not religious to describe this group of individuals is inappropriate, inaccurate, and misleading since they may simply be institutionally unaffiliated or indeed affiliated but not with any of the list of categories provided.”

They conclude that more research is needed before definitive statements are pronounced: “More focused research is needed before we will fully understand who the nones are, and whether religion is actually declining in the U.S., as well as around the world.”

As Glenn T. Stanton explains in his book, The Myth of the Dying Church (2019): “The apparent shrinking of Christianity is both true and false. True in that nominal and weak ‘Christian-in-name-only’ folks are identifying as Christians less and less. But there is no indication whatsoever that serious faith is shrinking any.”

Stanton adds, “So is Christianity shrinking? Not if you’re talking about the biblically faithful congregations that call their people to genuine Christian discipleship. Only…the mainline churches…are free falling as if they have a millstone tied to their necks.”

“So the real story is,” notes Stanton, “this is a sheep and goats being divided thing. A clarifying of faith, rather than shrinking of faith.”

In John Calvin’s Commentary on Isaiah 9:7, he provides an excellent reminder for Christians of all ages that we are truly on the winning side: “Though the kingdom of Christ is in such a condition that it appears as if it were about to perish at every moment, yet God not only protects and defends it, but also extends its boundaries far and wide, and then preserves and carries it forward in uninterrupted progression to eternity.”

Dr. Byron Johnson told me: “Here’s a bit of advice: the secular media will continue to push out the narrative that religion is dying…why not focus on the hundreds and thousands of peer-reviewed studies that show the power of faith to transform?” That sounds like a great topic for a future column.

This article was originally published at JerryNewcombe.com.

For the last few years the fastest growing group in religion are the “Nones.” Not the kind that wear black and white habits, but the kind that don’t identify with any religion at all. According to the American Family Survey they made up 35 percent of the population in 2018, up from 16 percent in 2007!

Meanwhile, in that same time period, Pew Research Center found that the number of adults who identified as Christians declined 13 percent to 65 percent, while members of non-Christian religions have grown “modestly.” What’s more, 44 percent of adults age 18-29 identify as Nones.

In today’s cultural and political climates, some would assume conservative young people might be more likely to question their religious roots, but the sharpest declines are in the more liberal denominations. Ryan Burge, from Eastern Illinois University, studied data released earlier this year by the General Social Survey. He told the National Catholic Reporter, “The rise of the religiously unaffiliated tracks closely with the decline of mainline Protestantism beginning in the early 1990s.”

Timothy Beal, professor of religion at Case Western Reserve University, wrote in a Wall Street Journal essay,

“What many Nones have in common is a tragically narrow understanding of religion—namely, that a religion is a fixed set of teachings and positions, and that to be religious is to submit to them without question. It is presumed that religion is authoritative, univocal and changeless, and that religious identity is essentially a matter of passive adherence.”

Sharing examples from his classes, Beal told how he has given his students opportunities to argue topics from the Bible using verses they believe support their points in mock trials. He found, “The students learned that there are intellectually responsible arguments by people of faith on all sides.”

Because of this he thinks while the number of Nones will continue to increase in the future, “What we need is sustained conversation in a context that allows and even welcomes different experiences and points of view,” said Beal. “When it comes to religion, Nones are almost never nothing at all.”

“Christian parents and grandparents must become aware of the times and understand how vitally important it is to teach a Biblical worldview to our families,” says IFI’s David Smith. “It is not sufficient just to attend church services a few times a month. Having our children firmly anchored in the Christian faith requires that we teach God’s Word every day (when possible) and take advantage of current events and pop culture to discuss relevant issues through a traditional Judeo-Christian lens.”

Smith continued, “Scripture commands and warns us to impress upon our children and grandchildren a love of the Lord (Deut. 6:4-9; Mat. 28:19-20; Prov. 22:6; Eph. 6:4; Ps. 78:2-4).  Make no mistake, the godless left are working overtime to disciple our children and everyone else’s. If we don’t take our job of passing down our faith, others will gladly fill the void, and are already doing so.

Smith cites Luke 6:40 as a warning:

“A pupil is not above his teacher; but everyone, after he has been fully trained, will be like his teacher.”

“That is the bottom line,” cautions Smith. “Do we know who’s teaching our children?”

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A majority of Americans including many mainline Christians support legal abortion, but many religious conservatives say abortion should be illegal in all or most cases, according to the Pew Research Center.

Those religious conservatives are now hoping that Roe v. Wade will be overturned in light of President Trump’s nomination of Brett Kavanaugh, a practicing Catholic, to the U.S. Supreme Court. They’re optimistic that having a fifth conservative on the bench could lead to a reversal of the 1973 landmark case that made abortion a constitutional right. Kavanaugh gave a speech last year in which he praised former Chief Justice William Rehnquist for dissenting in Roe v. Wade.

A Pew survey last year showed that 57 percent of Americans support legal abortion, while 40 percent believe it should be illegal in most or all cases. A Pew 2014 Religious Landscape Study found that evangelicals tend to oppose legal abortion while people in mainline Protestant churches, as well as Jews, atheists, and agnostics, tend to support it. While Catholics are divided, the Roman Catholic Church continues to speak out against abortion.

Sixty-six percent of Southern Baptists are opposed to legal abortion, compared to only 8 percent of Unitarian Universalists and 18 percent of Episcopalians. Other religious groups with a high percentage opposed include Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Christians affiliated with the Assemblies of God.

In a January 2018 news release, Pew reported:

Among those who do identify with a religion, the majority view about abortion among members of a particular group often mirrors that group’s official policy on abortion. This is the case with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormon church) and the Southern Baptist Convention – both churches oppose abortion, as do most members of those churches. And the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), Unitarian Universalist Association, and Reform and Conservative Judaism, for example, all support abortion rights, in line with most of their adherents.

There are, however, cases where the views of a church’s members don’t align with its teachings on abortion. For instance, while the Roman Catholic Church is an outspoken critic of abortion, U.S. Catholics were divided on the issue in the 2014 survey, with 48% supportive of legal abortion and 47% opposed.  (See chart HERE.)

In June 2017, the Southern Baptist Convention at its annual meeting denounced Planned Parenthood and called on Congress to fully defund it. The convention passed a resolution that called out the “immoral agenda and practices of Planned Parenthood Federation of America and its affiliates, especially their role in the unjust killing each year of more than 300,000 precious unborn babies, its use of particularly gruesome illegal abortion methods, and its profiteering from harvesting unborn babies’ tissues and organs.”

By contrast, representatives of mainline denominations have been vocal in support of legal abortion. This past March, 68 faith leaders in Iowa wrote a letter published in the Des Moines Register criticizing a bill in the state legislature that would make it illegal for a woman to get an abortion once a fetal heartbeat is detected. The letter said in part:

Every person has the right to their own personal and religious beliefs and to live their life how they determine is best for them. The government does not have the right to infringe on the freedoms or privacy of Iowa women based on those religious beliefs. Every woman deserves to consult her values, faith, and doctor when making a decision about her body and her pregnancy. Any law that strips a woman of her faith and tries instead to legislate her values for her is immoral.

Republican state lawmakers in Iowa were able to pass the fetal heartbeat bill despite objections from Democrats. No Democrats supported the bill. It was signed into law by Republican Governor Kim Reynolds, but a judge blocked it from taking effect July 1 as a result of a lawsuit filed by abortion activists.

The Chicago Tribune has reported that more out-of-state women have been coming to Illinois for abortions because of less restrictive laws compared to those in surrounding states. The overall number of abortions had dropped, however, but is now on the rise, an increase attributed to a state law passed last year that expands taxpayer subsidies for abortions. Under the new law, which took effect January 1, Medicaid recipients and state employees and their dependents covered by state employee insurance can get taxpayer-subsidized abortions.

Read more:  Illinois Taxpayer Funded Abortions Increase at Least 274 Percent in First Six Months of 2018

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