Sublime

Apparently, though, the pollsters were onto something. The number of high school seniors who agreed that most people can be trusted was cut in half from the Boomer late 1970s to the Gen X early 1990s (see Figure 4.24). This went beyond cynicism: Gen X’ers were saying they personally didn’t trust others, and that you have to be very careful when dea

“Mainline Protestants comprised over half of the population until the early 1960s, and together with Roman Catholics and Southern Baptists they accounted for upwards of 80 percent of Americans,” James Hudnut-Beumler, a historian of American religion from Vanderbilt University, told reporter and scholar Tara Isabella Burton at Vox.com in 2018.7 “The

What do you think about the gap between most churches’ priorities (teaching, worship, evangelism) and what unchurched people believe churches should prioritize (meeting practical needs within the community)? Do you think it’s important to close this gap? Why or why not?

Among evangelicals in our study, there is a higher rate of marriage among the dechurched (77%) than there is among people who are still actively churched (62%). Dechurched evangelicals in our study also have a lower rate of divorce at 8 percent compared to 13 percent among still churched evangelicals.

no longer in America or in the rest of the Western world does there exist one dominant religious culture that is given “overwhelming credibility” or is seen as being “beyond challenge.”6 And as a result, religious belief has become far more fragile.

the consolidation of people into larger and larger churches, the increasing frailty of small “ordinary congregations,”

These new churches in suburban America were the height of secular: no time-bending gravity permeated their walls. They looked more like Johnson & Johnson headquarters than the Duomo. But these buildings played an important part in the recasting of the pastor.

By 2012, however, a poll by the Pew Forum discovered that nearly 20 percent (i.e. one in five) of Americans checked “none” or no religious affiliation. One-third of adults under the age of thirty are religiously unaffiliated.

most of the dechurching has happened in the last twenty-five years and is accelerating.