The Patriot Post® · About That Decline in Christianity...

Is America done with faith? A major study by Pew Research Center suggests the Land of the Free may increasingly want to be free of God. According to the study, Christians as a share of the U.S. population are declining, while the number of “unaffiliated” adults — which includes atheists, agnostics or “nothing in particular” — is on the rise.

Whereas in 2007 those identifying as Christian made up 78.4% of the population, by 2014 that number had fallen to 70.6%. Meanwhile, the percentage of unaffiliated had jumped from 16.1% to 22.8%. The steepest declines came in mainline denominations, with Catholics declining both as a percentage of the population (23.9% in 2007 vs. 20.8% in 2014) and in total numbers (51 million today vs. 54 million in 2007) and mainline Protestants dropping from 41 million, or 18.1% of the population in 2007, to 36 million, or 14.7%. Meanwhile, Evangelicals dropped from 26.3% to 25.4% of the population but grew in terms of total numbers.

While the numbers paint a concerning picture for the future of faith in America, there is more to the story.

As Red State’s Erick Erickson points out, “Yes, the Christian cultural traditions in the United States are in decline. But that corresponds to the number of denominations that have actively left the faith. … Emo, weepy Jesus who bakes cakes for gay weddings has replaced the actual Jesus who spent more time talking about hell than anyone else in the Bible and said he is the only and exclusive path to Heaven.”

Indeed, while the survey measures the numbers of those who identify as Christians, it is clear from many claiming the title that, as Jesus once said, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.” (Yes, that’s Matthew 7:21 for those self-labeled Christians who prefer to write their own gospel.) In other words, nominal Christianity is no more Christianity than RINOs are Republicans. Of course, the consequences of the former are far more severe.

Perhaps most striking about the survey, though — and most predictable — is that younger Americans are significantly less likely to identify with a religion than older Americans. Among those 70 and older, 85% identify as Christian, while among those 25 and younger, just 56% do. This is striking as it signals a trend with effects reaching far into the future. It’s predictable, too. What other outcome can there be from the decades-long effort by the Left to eradicate Christianity from American life?

Whereas 60 years ago it wasn’t uncommon for public school children to begin the day with prayer and a Scripture reading, doing so today practically guarantees a legal battle. From academia to entertainment to politics, those who hold the Christian faith are now considered not simply backwards and narrow-minded but actually the problem with America. And having been fed the lie that faith played no role in the freedoms Americans enjoy today but instead is a detriment to those freedoms, the younger generation has no compelling interest in viewing religion as anything other than a national scourge ripe for eradication. Indeed, is it any wonder that young people growing up in such a culture would rather claim “open-minded” religious disinterest than sincere faith?

While our nation was founded on Judeo-Christian principles by immigrants seeking religious liberty, we now live in an age of increasing religious intolerance — aimed squarely against Judeo-Christian groups. How far we have come.

As President Ronald Reagan so accurately noted, “To those who cite the First Amendment as reason for excluding God from more and more of our institutions and everyday life, may I just say: The First Amendment of the Constitution was not written to protect the people of this country from religious values; it was written to protect religious values from government tyranny.”

Tragically, we are witnessing the erosion of America’s foundation not from external enemies but from internal decay. The trend is not irreversible, but changing course will require people whose understanding of American history is not dependent on government-run schools and whose faith is not simply a Sunday badge based on doctrines of their own making.