News: US – More Evangelicals & Non-Believers
USAToday reports that the biggest US churches are modern and evangelical – no surprise there. In an older related article USAToday describes a 20 year comparison of religious profiles in the US with a survey of generational religious changes over last 20 years.
Most religions lost ground with significant state-by-state variations. The broad non-believer category increased significantly (8% in 1990 to 15% in 2008).
One big casualty has been the mainstream Protestant churches, experiencing sharp declines. As discussed before, progressive Christian leaders present more credible religious beliefs (or perhaps better described as non-beliefs) and progressive social attitudes to essentially the disenfranchised, liberal-minded, Christians. However the overall push towards evangelicalism and non-belief does appear ominous for progressives and liberals to compete in that US religious market-place.
One article goes on to suggest the willingness of non-believers to declare themselves with today’s more tolerant society and as a rejection of the perceived irrelevance and destructiveness of organised religions. Child-sex scandals have dug deep into the churches’ moral standings. As an aside, modern religious people rightfully talk about the importance for religious tolerance but often do not apply that thinking to non-religious beliefs.
Alex McCullie
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