How do we stop the Hemorrhaging? A follow up to the Pew Forum Data

May 18, 2009

By Michael Bell

I recently published this post at InternetMonk.com

In my previous post at Internet Monk, I looked at two surveys conducted by The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life: Faith in Flux: Changes in Religious Affiliation in the U.S. that was released a few weeks ago, and which was a followup to their U.S. Religious Landscape Survey that they released last year.

religiousswitching2By working with the numbers of the surveys I was able to come up with a chart that showed how Americans have been changing from their childhood faith to their current faith. One of the key findings was that Christian denominations are losing adherents though the back door so to speak than they are gaining new believers through the front door. If you haven’t had a chance to check it out, please check out the original post, as it will help you understand some of the ideas behind this post, as well us understand the magnitude of the changes.

Today I wanted to focus on the “when” and the “why” this hemorrhaging was occurring, but as I have been pondering the data, the “when” seemed to really stand out as being important. I was reminded of my preaching classes back in seminary, when our professor, Dr. Peter Ralph, would constantly remind us to find the “big idea” that needed to be communicated from the biblical text. I think the same holds true when looking at survey data. Here is the “big idea” that jumped out at me when going through the Flux survey data and reports:

Most religious life decisions, even among those who have been open to change, has been set by age 23.
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The Times They Are A-Changin’ – How Americans Are Shifting From Their Childhood Beliefs

May 9, 2009

By Michael Bell

This post was originally published at Internet Monk.

The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is
Rapidly fadin’.
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin’.
- Bob Dylan 1963

For years I have heard about the many changes that have been taking place within the Christian World. Churches and denominations growing, churches and denominations shrinking. We have had a pretty good idea of who has been growing, and who has been shrinking, but with birth rates, death rates and other factors, it has been pretty hard to pin down the source of the growth and decline. Have Evangelicals been growing? If so, has the growth come from the non religious, Catholics, Mainline Protestants, or other religions? What sort of outflows have they experienced that have offset the inputs? Is the back door larger or smaller than the front door? How are the Catholics, the Mainline Protestants, the non religious and others doing?

Well now we know.

A few days ago, The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life released the results of a survey entitled Faith in Flux: Changes in Religious Affiliation in the U.S. This was followup to their U.S. Religious Landscape Survey that they released last year.

I have been busy in the last week doing a bit of reverse engineering on the numbers to represent the shifts in belief as best and as clearly as I can. Here is the resulting chart. You can click on it to see the full sized version.

religiousswitching2
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Status update

May 9, 2009

By Michael Bell

I had previously posted that because of the busyness of life, both for myself and Joshua Hearne, that posting to Eclectic Christian is going to be quite limited for the next few months. However, I am going to be posting infrequently at Internet Monk and I will repost those items here.

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