Reading Time: 2 minutes By James A. Haught When I was young in the 1950s, Episcopalians – the American wing of the Anglican faith founded by Henry VIII – were the pinnacle of the high-steeple elite. Bankers, business presidents, top lawyers, society doctors, Rotarians and other country-clubbers filled the pews and vestries of ornate churches. They sent their sons […]
demographics
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Episcopal Church Fadeout
Reading Time: 2 minutes One of America’s oldest and wealthiest denominations is in terminal demographic decline.
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Closet Atheists Abound in America
Reading Time: 3 minutes By James A. Haught Atheists are disliked in America — constantly denigrated in public surveys — which may explain why many doubters conceal their lack of belief. However, a 2017 poll by University of Kentucky researchers found that perhaps one-fourth of Americans are either overt skeptics or “closet atheists”: a far higher ratio than previously […]
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Christianity is Collapsing
Reading Time: 2 minutes By James A. Haught Sociologists are amazed by the swift disintegration of Christianity in America. It’s a stunning cultural transformation, confirmed by dozens of surveys and studies. A Gallup Poll found that fewer than half of Americans (47 percent) now belong to a church or mosque or temple – down from seventy percent at the […]
Posted inEthics and Morality, Religion, The Secular
Armstrong’s Bad Sociological Claims: Religion Makes You a Better Person
Reading Time: 12 minutes Dave Armstrong has recently been involved with me in a protracted debate about the unequal distribution of evidence for God’s existence, and God being unfair. Within the debates was a side point about whether this unequal evidence is of benefits in our earthly existences or whether it is just rebalanced in an afterlife. Armstrong takes […]
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America’s New Unchurched Majority
Reading Time: 5 minutes We’ve reached a momentous milestone: For the first time ever, more than half of Americans have no religious affiliation.
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The Long, Slow Death of Religion
Reading Time: 3 minutes By James A. Haught By now, it’s clear that religion is fading in America, as it has done in most advanced Western democracies. Dozens of surveys find identical evidence: fewer American adults, especially those under 30, attend church — or even belong to a church. They tell interviewers their religion is “none.” They ignore faith. […]
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Personal Freedoms Kill Religion
Reading Time: 3 minutes Why is religion collapsing in all Western democracies – and most rapidly in the United States?
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Secular Power Changing America
Reading Time: 3 minutes Washington, Oregon and the “Left Coast” have evolved away from religion, and they seem to indicate where the whole nation is heading.
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America’s Post-Christian Future, Part 2
Reading Time: 6 minutes Americans are discarding their religion at shocking speed, and the change is only going to accelerate in the years ahead.