GUEST COLUMN: What happens when Christianity declines?

We have known for years that the Christian religious landscape in this country is undergoing extraordinary changes. Fewer people are identifying with a Christian tradition, many are no longer participating in religious activities.

Many research organizations have been studying this phenomenon for decades. Most recently, researchers at the Public Religion Research Institute published a study, “Religious Change in America,” noting that 67% of Americans continue to identify as Christian. When account is given to racial and ethnic groups, white Christians have slipped still further in 2023, from 46% of the population to 42%, while Christians in the communities of color have remained steady between 24% and 25%.

Ten years ago, 20% of Americans did not identify with any religious tradition. Today, it is 26%. As a group, these nonidentifiers, or “nones” as they are frequently labeled, are not homogeneous or monolithic. Their only common denominator is that they neither identify with nor participate in a religious tradition. This group, representing 26% of Americans, consists of former religionists (65%) as well as those who identify as atheist (15%) or agnostic (19%).

Why are increasing numbers of Americans never taking up or ceasing participation in religion? Two out of every three respondents who have abandoned their religion say they left because they no longer believe in their religion’s teachings. Now, given the wide-ranging diversity among the traditions of Christianity, who can really know what “I no longer believe in my religion’s teaching” can mean? All forms or denominations of the Christian tradition have lost participants, but especially so among evangelical Protestant and Roman Catholic Christians (the only “religious group” that is growing is the “nones”).

But there are extraordinary theological differences among Christian groups, and any one group can be characterized by the fact that it does not subscribe to certain beliefs found in other groups. Such differences might fall in explicitly doctrinal areas addressing such matters as the authority of scripture; God as triune; the humanity and divinity of Jesus; the nature, scope, and means of salvation; creation as beginnings and the eschaton as last things.

There are different beliefs regarding the nature and purpose of the church, its organization and polity, its role in civil society and its relation to civil government. And there is great variety in the beliefs that touch upon the relationship between the truth claims of Christianity on the one hand, and modern cultures and the knowledge base established by the sciences on the other.

It is known, however, that there are some teachings in the Christian religion that are decisively rejected by those who have left the fold. Religious beliefs that are ill-disposed and antagonistic regarding LGBTQ+ people and their treatment in society are given by 5 out of 10 respondents as reasons for leaving their religion.

Other reasons provided to explain departure from religion include the fact that one’s family just wasn’t all that religious to begin with (41%). These observations signal the rather precipitous decline of religious belief and practice across the generations; the strategies, means, and efforts for handing on and inculcating the tradition in homes, neighborhoods and communities are apparently somewhat inefficient.

Then again, according the study, clergy sexual abuse scandals (31%) and the tendency of some churches to focus on engagement in American politics (20%) weighed heavily in the minds of many who have left religion behind. But what is perhaps even more significant, slightly more than 3 out of 10 respondents stated that their religious affiliation was simply bad for their mental health.

To discern the significance of the withdrawal from religious belief and practice, it might be worthwhile to ruminate on the reasons why people come to and continue to participate in a Christian religious tradition.

According to the study, a solid majority of Americans who attend worship (90%) report they do so because it enables them to feel closer to God, and an almost equally robust number of Americans (79%) report that having this experience in a religious community with others is important to them. Moreover, the same proportion of Americans (79%) who attend religious services consider instilling religious values in their children as important as a reason for their participation, while a somewhat smaller portion (68%) give fulfilling a religious duty or obligation as the reason.

These high percentages are not insignificant as reasons for attending religious services, but they also do not bode well when we consider the decline in religious participation and the rise of the unaffiliated “nones.” Apparently, for rising numbers of people, there is simply an absence of these otherwise positive experiences in religious practices and institutions.

How Christianity responds to trends and its decline will shape its future for the coming generations. History has shown that the health of religious traditions rises and falls through numerous periods. It is not clear at this time whether or when a rise in the personal and social value of Christian religious affiliation and practice will occur.

Douglas R. Sharp, Ph.D, is a retired professor of theology, religion and society.