Living The Worthy Life- These Are The Best Times For Evangelism

It is not a secret to those who attend church each week, but the United States is becoming a less Christian country, and the decline in religious affiliation is particularly rapid among younger Americans.  Many Churches have little or no young families attending on a regular basis.  My question to you is what is going to happen in the next few years? 

The proportion of US adults who describe themselves as Christian has fallen to two-thirds, a drop of 12 percentage points over the past decade, according to data from the Pew Research Center 2009- 2019. 

Over the same period, the proportion of those describing themselves as an atheist, agnostic or “nothing in particular” has risen by 17 percentage points to more than a quarter of the adult population. Is there any wonder why the appeal that Communism, Socialism and large government programs are so wildly popular with people of the same age?  Have they indeed already replaced God with the government in their life? Where are these young people learning this message?  It surely can not be in Church if they do not attend correct? 

Although churches and faith movements continue to exert strong political influence on the Trump administration and at the state level, the proportion of American adults attending religious services has declined and is declining as you read this article. 

The proportion of US adults who are white born-again or evangelical Protestants – the religious group which strives hardest to see its political agenda adopted – is now 16%, down from 19% a decade ago. This is almost a 15% drop in attendance among some of the most devoted Christians.  

The number going to church at least once or twice a month has fallen by seven percentage points over the past decade. More Americans now say they attend religious services a few times a year or less (54%) than say they attend at least monthly (45%).   

The fall in religious identification and activity has affected both Protestant and Roman Catholic churches alike. According to Pew, 43% of adults identify with Protestantism, down from 51% in 2009. And 20% are Catholic, down from 23% in 2009. 

Fewer than half of millennials (49%) describe themselves as Christians; four in 10 are religious “nones”, and 9% identify with non-Christian faiths.  This makes non-Christians outnumbering the Christians in this age group.  This is the first time ever for this survey.  What does this say about America as a whole? 

As many millennials say they never attend religious services (22%) as those who say they go at least once a week. What moral education does that mean the parents of the next generation will have?  What religious training will these parents have?  What will happen for their children and grandchildren?  Today the seriousness of the problem can be fully seen as the future of the American Church is clearly in grave problems.  

Grave problems two ways.  First, many of the people regularly attending Church currently will within the next twenty years be in the grave themselves.  Second, their place in the pews will not be replaced because the young people of today are not attending and so many are adopting beliefs that are anti-church or anti-church teachings.  

Pew’s report said that the decline of Christian communities is continuing at a rapid pace. 

“Religious ‘nones’ have grown across multiple demographic groups: white people, black people and Hispanics; men and women; all regions of the country; and among college graduates and those with lower levels of educational attainment. 

“Religious ‘nones’ are growing faster among Democrats than Republicans, though their ranks are swelling in both partisan coalitions. And although the religiously unaffiliated are on the rise among younger people and most groups of older adults, their growth is most pronounced among young adults,” the report said. 

The share of US adults who identify with non-Christian faiths has increased from 5% in 2009 to 7% in 2019. Two percent of Americans are Jewish, 1% are Muslim, 1% are Buddhist, 1% are Hindu, and 3% who identify with other faiths, including people who say they abide by their own personal religious beliefs and people who describe themselves as “spiritual”. 

Pew’s data is based on telephone surveys conducted in 2018 and 2019 yet these results should not shock anyone.  Bishop Fulton Sheen predicted this exact thing.  

Yet Sheen is not fearful for the Church but for the world in speaking of the “emergence of the anti-Christ against Christ.” 

“We tremble not that God may be dethroned, but that barbarism may reign; it is not Transubstantiation that may perish, but the home; not the sacraments that may fade away, but the moral law. The Church can have no different words for the weeping woman than those of Christ on the way to Calvary: Weep not over me, but weep for yourselves and for your children.” (Luke 23:28) 

Over the centuries the Church has had its Good Fridays, he reminds us, but there’s always Easter Sundays “because Jesus promised the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And Behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world.’ (Matthew 28:20) 

As bleak as things may be, never has “there been such a strong argument for the need of Christianity, for men are now discovering that their misery and their woes, their wars and their revolutions increase in direct ratio and proportion to the neglect of Christianity.  Evil is self-defeating; good alone is self-preserving.” 

Brothers and Sisters, we need the Gospel now more than ever.  Please join me and invite our friends, neighbors, and family to Church this week.  You will be glad you did and so will be the entire world.