http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christine-wicker/the-great-evangelical-dec_b_105009.htmlThanks Alex.AKA. How to make Atheists! Read this article and be happy! 15 years!
What Baptist leaders have known for years is finally public: The Southern Baptist Convention is a denomination in decline. Half of the SBC’s 43,000 churches will have shut their doors by 2030 if current trends continue.And unless God provides a miracle, the trends will continue. The denomination’s growth rate has been declining since the 1950s. The conservative/fundamentalist takeover 30 years ago was supposed to turn the trend around; it didn’t make a bit of difference.Leaders said it did. Reporters and politicians believed it did. But the numbers kept going down until, finally, they have become obvious to everyone.Evangelical faith has been dropping since 1900, when 42 percent of the U.S. claimed that distinction. Every year, Religious Right evangelicals, such as those who lead the Southern Baptists, are a smaller proportion of the country. Every year, their core values are violated more flagrantly by the media, scientific discovery and mainstream behavior. Every election, politicians promise to serve them and then don’t because evangelicals lack the power to make them.What all this means is that we were duped.All the hype proclaiming an evangelical resurgence was merely that – hype, a furious shout from a faith losing its grip, manipulation by a relatively small group of dedicated, focused, political power-seekers.The long decline of Southern Baptist faith is critical to the entire evangelical movement because the Southern Baptist Convention, which claims 16 million members, is the biggest evangelical denomination in the country, almost six times as large as the next biggest predominately white evangelical denomination.The second-largest evangelical group, the National Association of Evangelicals, has claimed 30 million members. Their churches actually have 7.6 million, tops. Most of those are having the same problems the Baptists are having.
how did they figure 30 million members when in fact the nae has only 7.6?
Digital. They LIED. They do that a LOT.
A matter of fact it lead to the past seven years during which the evangelicals tied their future to the radical imperialistic BushCo regime. That’s one helluva albatross to have about your neck.
The acceptance of religious dogma has little to do with logic and facts. It has far more to do with social structures and socioeconomic interdependencies. Without resources to maintain these structures and enforce the interdependencies the grip on the followers will fade. Quickly too.
I know the number of atheists is growing, but I don’t think that we are the only group taking their numbers. Are the rest just becoming moderate christians (the ones who don’t actually care about religion)?
Or are they converting to a different fairytale?
Also, what are we going to do with all the churches in 2030? Because thats a LOT of buildings, and most are not that nice.
what to do with the closed buildings?
I would hope at least a tax…..I mean an empty buiding on a lot that is not being taxed is a nice little egg I figure….wish I could buy some of those…..
suck it tax free clubs
Note that the wording “growth rate has been declining” does not necessarily mean that the growth rate is negative. A group of 30,000,000 people growing by only 2% a year would still add 600,000 members per year. And the closing of individual churches may have more to do with the organization shifting to a megachurch strategy than running out of members.
Maybe church people nowadays expect that their churches should have schools, day cares, vacation offices, social functions, and all the other amenities and benefits that small churches can’t support. If that is the case, megachurches are, in a social sense, an evolutionary adaptation by the mind-virus we know as religion.
Also, if the infection has reached saturation level (as in 90+% of people report believe in god) then accellerating growth may be impossible.
I’m not trying to be a downer, I’m just saying that we should be aware of what we’re up against.
just because the southern baptists have lost half their membership doesn’t mean the lost members have turned away from god. the article goes on to point out that Alcoholics Anonymous instills god into reformed alcoholics without involving church membership.
so while i would like to be jubilant reading this article like you are Dave, i see no meaningful progress in the conversion of america to atheism here. but keep dreaming, its healthy for the spirit.
I saw a month or so ago another article about the decline of Southern Babtists. The article from Alternet Headlines said fewer young people are drifting in but the elders are going to church more often. Desperation at its finest.
Also think of all the Christians reading the same bad book and disagreeing on interpretation to the point there are something like a couple thousand denominations! It’s all getting watered down.
I remember a cover article a few years ago from Atlantic Monthly entitled, ” Oh Gods” which revealed there were, at that time about a thousand distinct deities on the planet with more being dreamt up. The Halle Bop comet lunatics were a minor example.
The growth of Christianity today is in Africa and parts of Asia, two areas of the planet not known for scientific advancement. Christian growth is relegated to thin ice as the waters of critical thought are warming up here in the land of milk and honey. Archeology, Paleontology, Oceanography, Astronomy, Geology, etc., etc. are all pealing back the whitewash of all religions.
A factor not mentioned which has been whittling away at church life is Karaoke singing. In our narcississitic society I wonder how many people who used to get a charge out of singing badly in a choir now get a rush out of singing badly in a bar. Especially those poor Catholics who no longer have to settle for a sip of grape juice in silence when they can lug around their own mug of amber fluid in a lively pub.
If a Catholic priest was to spank his monkey would he have to confess to a Bishop? If a Bishop had a wet dream is he obligated to tell the Pope? You’ll have to excuse me but I’m going to go turn some beer into urine.
I have often pointed out that religiosity, and by extension support of gay equality, is very clearly delineated along generational lines. In another generation or two the USA will be a much more secular and progressive place.
It’s long been my understanding that once you are counted as a church member, they NEVER take you off the rolls. For instance, a certain evangelical denomination that my parents were members of claimed me when I was 11 years old as a member. They will continue to count me until my expected life span (maybe 75?) runs out. So I don’t count any more as a member after 2028, but I count now. How ridiculous. And this is what they base their claim of “power” on?
Would you buy a used car from one of these preacher types? They sound an awful lot like they didn’t quite cut it in the real world as a salesman, so they had to resort to a profession with a captive audience…
Comment from: atheistmike
It’s long been my understanding that once you are counted as a church member, they NEVER take you off the rolls.
Actually – I insisted that my cathoic parish remove me from the rolls, and my maternal unit told me that it had been done. Unless her religious fervor has caused her to bear false witness to her son, in violation of one of those rules supposedly literally carved in stone by the hand of the invisible sky fairy itself!
atheistmike,
It depends on the religion, some of them offer excommunication if you will be so kind as to denounce their insanity. I called several of their corporate offices a few years ago to find out about their policies.
Not all good news…related though.
http://religionblog.dallasnews.com/
archives/2008/
06/weak-congregations-defy-darwin.html
It seems too simple.
But gotta hand it to those Baptists. They do make the best liars!
Comment from: atheistmike [Member]
“It’s long been my understanding that once you are counted as a church member, they NEVER take you off the rolls. For instance, a certain evangelical denomination claimed me when I was 11 years old as a member. They will continue to count me until my expected life span (maybe 75?) runs out.”
06/05/08 @ 00:14
Something similar happened to me. For years after I stopped going to church, friends I met on the street would urge me to come back. I’d tell them I was thru with it, and they’d say “Your name is still on the membership rolls.” I would say “Take it off!” They didn’t, for years. Finally I had an encounter with a church official who, after I convinced him he wasn’t going to reconvert me, had the church send me a resignation form to sign.
Funny thing. I never had to sign my name to anything to become a member; I just walked up the aisle and made my profession of faith, and got baptized. A lot easier to get in than get out.