Dr. Ryan Burge has a dual career, teaching Political Science at a university and serving as a pastor in an American Baptist church. A self-confessed data nerd, he pores over polling data in search of trends in religion. Recently he posted a column on “Four of the Most Dramatic Shifts in American Religion Over the Last 50 Years.” Things typically change slowly in religion surveys, he says, but these four trends “still blow my mind.”
I’ll provide a brief overview of Burge’s findings, and you can find more detail on his website.
The Evangelical Surge (1983-2000)
Election year fever is heating up, and already we’re seeing internet headlines about the powerful voting bloc of evangelicals. When Jimmy Carter—a Democrat—catapulted into the presidency in 1976, and spoke openly about his born-again faith, a Newsweek cover story pronounced that bicentennial year “The Year of the Evangelical.” Yet, as Burge points out, the real surge in the movement took place in 1983. In a single decade, the percentage of evangelicals shot upward to encompass three in ten American adults.
During that growth spurt, evangelical megachurches were springing up across the country, and Christian music was gaining airtime. People like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell were regulars on television, talking as much about politics as theology. When the media wanted a soundbite from an evangelical, they turned to such prominent figures who already had sophisticated satellite uplinks and would offer a ready opinion on any subject.
By the year 2000, however, the percentage of evangelicals had declined to the same level as existed in 1983, and little has changed since then.
Young People Lose Their Religion (1991-1998)
Burge’s second chart covers the next two of the four dramatic shifts. The year 1991 saw the beginning of a downward trend among 18- to 35-year-olds. The number in that age group who checked “Christian” when asked their religious affiliation began an abrupt decline, falling from 87 percent to 64 percent. Meanwhile the “Nones,” who had no religious affiliation, grew from 8 percent to around 30 percent. Noting the steep changes between 1991 and 1998, Burge says, “That’s an insane level of growth/decline in such a short period of time.”
Burge proposes several possible explanations. Politics became increasingly polarized, especially over culture war issues such as abortion, transgenderism, and same-sex marriage. The end of the Cold War lowered the barrier between God-fearing Americans and godless communists, even as a surge of immigrants gave exposure to other religions. In addition, the internet allowed young people to explore different faiths as well as listen to strident voices against all faith.
In a mirror image of the decline among Christians, the Nones experienced a fivefold increase in just three decades. Burge comments that “the rise of the ‘nones’ may be the most significant shift in American society over the last thirty years.” The trend inspired him to write a book about the phenomenon (The Nones: Where They Came From, Who They Are, and Where They Are Going).
The Collapse of the Mainline (1975-1988)
Burge’s final chart depicts a dramatic decline within mainline Protestant churches, which include the United Methodist Church, PCUSA Presbyterian, Episcopalian, American Baptist, the United Church of Christ, and some Lutheran denominations. These tend to be more moderate theologically than evangelicals, and most allow women pastors and are open and affirming to same sex couples.
In the 1950s more than half of all Americans belonged to this group; now barely 10 percent do so. Tens of millions have left mainline denominations, many of them opting for an evangelical church not affiliated with a denomination.
Burge, an American Baptist pastor, has no sure explanation for the major shift. Nor does he dare to predict the future.
Will the non-affiliated Nones continue to increase or has their number peaked? Will the disaffected young return to church as they become parents? Will mainline denominations revive, or will evangelicals experience another surge (even as their largest denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention, bleeds members)?
I’m neither a social scientist nor a prophet, so I leave these questions with you the reader. What do you think, and why does it matter?
I am with a “traditional” reformed and evangelical church in Durbanville, Cape Town.
Covid hit all churches really hard, and once the bans were lifted we worked hard at encouraging the “meeting together of the saints” and “building up the body of Christ” through the local Church. We are known as Emmanuel Church and the sign outside on the building says “Emmanuel Church…. meets here”
We have grown so much in the past year with a huge influx of young families in particular that if a graph were drawn – it would tell a different story. Praise the Lord.
Hmmm. For those of us who are old enough to remember, are these comments summarized in Pogo’s “We have met the enemy, and he is us” – ? We ARE the church- shall we abandon it, ignore it, let it die in our scorn and anger, give it over to those we decry? Or get back in the fight to make it whole? It is the body of Christ, and as Philip has written, for whatever His reasons to do so, Christ has placed Himself as the head of this palsied, erratic and defective body by which He reaches out to the world. Don’t hate your body!
I have a very different view on ‘church’ in that I work with it, but I don’t depend on the organization, just proven members. In the OT God did not create a weekly day to meet. Only 3x a year were the males to come to Jerusalem for special days. Synagogues were man’s invention during the Exile, a good invention, too.
So did all Hebrews kowtow to the will of leaders? There was a time when they did not. Judges 17:6– “In those days there was no king in Israel; every man did what was right in his own eyes.”
Decide godliness and faith in your own sight, but along with that freedom comes a TON of self-responsibility! It better be righteous, but you don’t need anyone to rule for you.
So we come to the NT. Believe it or not, there is no command to meet on a specific day. Not even Sunday. Early Christians did, and it is a good tradition I observe, but we have no specific command. Hebrews 10:25? No. Easily misunderstood, but that deals with the long-foretold gathering of the faithful before the destruction of the Jewish economy. People have misapplied (my studied opinion) this passage and many come to get their weekly attendance ticket punched – sadly, a work, not real faith.
Bottom line for me is that the criticisms in these replies are the same basically as in NT times. Domineering Pharisees, hucksters like the 7 sons of Sceva in Acts 19, religious politicians like the Sandedrin, Alexander the coppersmith that did Paul ‘much harm’, Hymanaeus and Philetus spread gangrenous talk, Demas loved the present world and deserted Paul. It isn’t going away, so we must learn to deal with it. I choose to ignore such negative attempts if I can’t quash them, and just do what is right in my own sight, my own (daily) studies, my own actions. It is not to say I am an island. I attend several groups but I look for the positive, confront the negative when such an action stands a chance, but always, always maintain my independence.
Ken Kemp hit many nails on the head. I want to point out the hypocrisy of the evangelical fundamentalist churches desire to become state churches is NO DIFFERENT than the Muslims who want SHARIA LAW. They are so similar in nature it is appalling. In addition, fascism is creeping into our politics via Christianity. I am so discouraged by these changes….
So many insightful comments here. I will add one more. Youth sports seems to have taken over Sunday mornings and afternoons.
The cross stands as stark evidence that God Himself is willing to walk through death, darkness and despair out of love for us. I pray we can learn to live with that kind of humility–and wherever we gather– in churches, homes, or coffee shops… Christ’s love will be present. Church is a Body, not a place .