Is Declining Church Attendance Responsible For Declining American Exceptionalism?

According to Biden, Everything is Amazing

PEW: If recent trends in religious switching continue, Christians could make up less than half of the U.S. population within a few decades

PUBLIUS SPECIAL GUEST: Richard V. Battle, a fifth generation Texan, is a longtime Lone Star state business and community leader and award-winning author. His latest book is Made in America By AmeriCANS Not AmeriCANTS.

ARE DECLINES IN CHURCH ATTENDANCE CONTRIBUTING TO THE DOWNTURN OF AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISM?

Millions of Americans celebrated this Easter Sunday by attending services in numbers rivaling pre-pandemic levels. That’s good news for many religious leaders who now say predictions about the decline of Christianity in America may be premature. 

This contradicts much press coverage from the past several years in which many church leaders have warned that Christianity is dying in America. They pointed to the steep decline of churches in Western Europe, where many Christian churches and cathedrals are filled with empty pews or are shuttered completely.  

Author, researcher, media commentator and speaker Richard Battle has written several books from his Christian perspective and faith says he is cautiously hopeful that recent declines in church attendance in some pockets of the country take a turn back upward. 

“Where I live near Austin, TX our church’s attendance has been way up, but I realize it’s not that way everywhere, especially post-COVID. There is no doubt in my mind that when church becomes less important in a community’s life, it causes a gradual breakdown in that region that leads to all sorts of issues that we’re seeing more and more of today with crime and major breaches of morals and ethics.”

Battle and other religious scholars say that the American Christian church is poised to find new life. One of the key factors is that many new Christians are legally migrating to the US every year. These are by and large proud new Americans, many who were community leaders in their homeland, who are drawn to the messages of objective truth, hope and redemption in Christianity’s appeal to the discouragement and instability in today’s world…especially outside the US.  

Battle also says that “many churches who practice service to others as part of their core message is attracting people who have stopped attending other churches who have watered down their principles for a less faith-based social justice doctrine and activism.”

Richard can weigh in on: 

-The biggest challenge to Christianity’s future in America (he says it’s not declining numbers, but the Christian church’s ability to adapt to this migration)

-The dangers of a secularized society in America like the one that is becoming commonplace n Western Europe- one theologian said Christianity as a norm is “probably gone for good”.

-How we can make the church more inviting for the millions of young Americans who identify as “nones”. These are people who describe themselves as atheists, agnostics or “nothing in particular” when asked their religious identity. About 30% of Americans now call themselves nones.

-A poll that says 64% of Americans call themselves Christian today-while just 50 years ago that number was 90%, according to a 2020 Pew Research Center study. (That same survey said the Christian majority in the US may disappear by 2070).

PLUG BOOK: Made in America By AmeriCANS Not AmeriCANTS

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Richard V. Battle, a fifth generation Texan, is a longtime Lone Star state business and community leader and award-winning author. His latest book is Made in America By AmeriCANS Not AmeriCANTS.