Are Secular Public Schools Behind America’s Loss Of Faith? A New Book Suggests Other Answers
From Forbes. com, a look at a new book about troubles with American religion that are not the fault of public schools.
In 2020, Gallup found that fewer than 50% of Americans claimed church membership, down from a postwar steady 70%. In the last twenty-five years, 40 million Americans stopped going to church.
What happened? Within the complaints of culture warriors, there’s a narrative about this country that goes something like this:
Once upon a time, the United States was founded as a Christian nation, led and populated by God-fearing church-going believers. Then a couple of centuries later, certain unbelieving elites captured major institutions, including our schools, and preceded to indoctrinate the young into turning from the Christian church (and America). And so here we are today, a nation in which church-goers are no longer the majority.
For some on the religious right, the solution is to take back schools (one of the Seven Mountains) and bring children back to the church (and country) that they’ve left behind.
The new book The Great Dechurching: Who’s Leaving, Why Are They Going, and What Will It Take To Bring Them Back suggests a different narrative.
Jim Davis and Michael Graham are a pair of evangelical preachers who saw the newest figures about religion in America and wanted to look for answers about people who have chosen to leave the church. They worked with Ryan Burge, an assistant professor of political science at Eastern Illinois University, who has studied and written about religion in American life. Much of what they found confounds some of the conventional expectations.
Davis and Graham assert that the last couple of decades include the largest, fastest departure of citizens from the church in the country’s history.
It took several Great Awakenings to build up religious adherence in this country Contrary to what you may expect, religious adherence in colonial America was only between 10% and 20%; experts estimate about 17% religious adherence in 1776.
These results ring true for me. Blaming dechurching on public schools is so ridiculous, but I see it on Facebook all the time. I'm Gen X, and I remember being disgusted with the church because of the televangelist scandals. My Boomer parents didn't go to church or practice any religion. It's sad to hear about people's bad experiences in churches like the ones you mentioned - where it's all right-wing rhetoric and little actual Bible teaching. I live in the Silicon Valley, and the culture here is largely liberal. I attend a church where people are kind, loving, and accepting. The pastor avoids politics as much as possible and we regularly serve our surrounding low-income and homeless populations. I only mention this last part because so many Americans live in places where this doesn't exist (or they don't know how to find it). Good churches are out there, if you wish to attend.