Shifting religious identities

[nina2]

Shifting religious identities

Most religious groups in USA have lost ground, survey finds

By Cathy Lynn Grossman, USA TODAY

When it comes to religion, the USA is now land of the freelancers.

.../...

"The percentage. of people who call themselves in some way Christian has dropped more than 11% in a generation. The faithful have scattered out of their traditional bases: The Bible Belt is less Baptist. The Rust Belt is less Catholic. And everywhere, more people are exploring spiritual frontiers — or falling off the faith map completely."

.../...

Full article:

www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2009-03-09-american-religion-ARIS_N.htm?csp=34

What do you think? Sign of the times??

[krazeeboi]

Pentecostalism Still Burns

Paul Steven Ghiringhelli News - Featured News

An annual report released this week about church growth highlights two Pentecostal denominations as the only faith groups of traditional Christian orthodoxy that increased church membership.

Feb. 26, 2009 -- While membership in the nation's largest Christian communions declined last year, two Pentecostal denominations showed an increase.

The Assemblies of God (AG) of Springfield, Mo., and the Cleveland, Tenn.-based Church of God were the only two denominations of traditional Christian orthodoxy among the 25 largest churches in the U.S. to report membership increases, according to the 2009 edition of the Yearbook of American & Canadian Churches, an annual chronicle of religious institutions edited by the National Council of Churches (NCC) and published by Abingdon.

The AG listed nearly 2.9 million members while the Church of God reported 1 million.

The ecumenical NCC reported the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and Jehovah's Witnesses as the only other church groups to show membership increases, even though most Pentecostals, and many mainline churches and orthodox Christians, would consider those two groups separate religions.

A slight membership decline among Catholic and Southern Baptist churches, according to the yearbook, raised eyebrows because both denominations have typically grown over the years. "Now they join virtually every mainline church in reporting a membership decline," stated an NCC release.

In the bigger picture, the yearbook reported the small less-than-one-percent drop in membership in each denomination was not "earth-shattering" because there are still more than 67 million Roman Catholics in the U.S. and 16 million Southern Baptists.

Churches listed in the NCC yearbook as experiencing the highest rate of membership loss are the United Church of Christ, the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, the Presbyterian Church (USA), the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod, and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

The Rev. Eileen W. Lindner, the yearbook's editor, said there are no clear-cut theological or sociological reasons for church growth or decline. "Many churches are feeling the impact of the lifestyles of younger generations of church-goers," Lindner said, "the Gen X'ers or Millenials in their 20s and 30s who attend and support local congregations but resist joining them."

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I wonder if this report includes the Church of God in Christ, which normally reports membership increases every year.

[stillfocused]

Interesting article..as for church growth. A question that is in the back of my mind is it new church growth..non believers..or transfer growth?

[Beulah5]

interesting conversation even though with research like that i am not so sure as there are many house groups and non-registered ministries etc out there so wehether that is an accurate reflection or not i dont know....

However maybe the good news is that more and more people are stopping identifying themselves with denominations and simply becoming christians xx

[krazeeboi]

^Not sure if that can necessarily be seen as a good thing. A lot of people like that have no clue what they believe exactly--nor do they see it as important.