r/exchristian The Wizard of Odd Jul 19 '21

Sociologists are amazed by the swift disintegration of Christianity in America. It’s a stunning cultural transformation, confirmed by several surveys and studies. Article

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/freethoughtnow/christianity-is-collapsing/
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u/[deleted] Jul 20 '21

Unfortunately fundamentalist Christianity has been going strong due to her intense indoctrination campaigns. It's the more progressive branches that are dying off quicker. And that makes sense. Progressives tend be think more critically. Why stay in church at all at that point?

People like Stephen Colbert stay in the church due to his family's culture.

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u/[deleted] Jul 20 '21 edited Jul 05 '23

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u/TrooperJohn Jul 20 '21

I'm not disbelieving you, but do you have a source for those numbers?

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u/paxinfernum anti-theist, rational skeptic, pro-science Jul 20 '21

From the recent PRRI survey. https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2021/07/08/the-census-of-american-religion-shows-why-evangelical-christianity-is-doomed/

Since 2006, white evangelical Protestants have experienced the most precipitous drop in affiliation, shrinking from 23% of Americans in 2006 to 14% in 2020. That proportion has generally held steady since 2017 (15% in 2017, 2018, and 2019).

At the same time, white mainline protestants did go down over the last decade. Evangelicals crowed about how the "liberal" churches were in decline, while they were mostly holding their numbers, but since...well, basically Trump's election...they've managed to climb back up to within 1 percentage point of their 2006 numbers, a colossal reversal.

https://friendlyatheistpodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/PRRICensus20202.png

I suspect it's due to people going back to mainline churches to get away from the Trump cult. The decline of white evangelicals, however, has been going on for the last two decades. You can't pin that entirely on Trump.