The vast majority
of Americans may be Christians, but fewer than half join a congregation — and
that trend, warns a religion researcher, should concern church leaders.
“In some ways, our
chickens have come home to roost,” said Dale Jones, a research director with
the Church of the Nazarene who worked on the newly released U.S. Religion
Census. “Churches have talked about needing to have a personal relationship
with Jesus Christ — what you hear is, ‘I need a relationship, I need to be born
again,’ but not, ‘I need to be involved in a congregation.’ Guess what? That’s
where we are.”
The once-a-decade
census, unveiled Tuesday, found that while upward of 80 percent of Americans
claim to be Christians, only about 49 percent are affiliated with a
congregation.
While other
studies examine total membership, beliefs or worship attendance, this one
counts the actual number of people who are affiliated with U.S. congregations —
or, as Jones put it, the people who are “involved enough to the point where
they know to count you.”
And the latest
numbers show that mainline Protestants and Catholics, who dominated the 20th
century, are losing ground — literally — to the rapid rise of Mormons and
Muslims. Read more here......
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