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Life is Long, and Changes Inevitable
If Americans find it easy to switch religious affiliations, as the Pew Forum's extensive research reports, we shouldn't take this as either a sign of "sickness" or "health" in the nation's religious landscape. Rather, it's a practical result of two inescapable factors: being an American and, more basically, being human.
Being a citizen of the United States, in a nation lacking an established church but legally guaranteeing freedom of conscience, has meant living with religious choice. And although Pew presents us with interesting new statistics, the fact that people have grasped that choice is nothing new. Take, for example, some of the people we admire most.
Abraham Lincoln, raised a Baptist, attended a Presbyterian church as president--one he never joined, by the way. These days, we would count Lincoln (never baptized), as a member of Pew's "unaffiliated, but religious" sub-set. Theodore Roosevelt traced his ancestry to Dutch Reformed stock, was baptized in a Presbyterian church and, while at Harvard, taught Sunday School in an Episcopal Church, the denomination with which he later identified. U.S. Grant was at different times in life a Methodist and a Presbyterian. Dwight Eisenhower went from sectarian Protestantism to Presbyterianism.
There are some eminently practical grounds for Pew's findings, too. We're a mobile population, and it's easy to change denominations (Christian or Jewish) when you relocate, especially if you find a congregation that strikes you as more exciting or closer to your home or more family-friendly than anything under your former brand. Too, people do fall in love and get married, and it is not unusual for a spouse to take the faith of his/her partner.
Finally, we all get older, and as we do our needs and perspectives change. That applies to religion as it does to everything else, from the politics we hold to the friends we choose. For an individual, that may mean leaving one faith for another, leaving faith altogether, or coming to faith for the first time. It's natural, folks.
Not only that, but it results in a certain type of public good, in that it provides great fodder for people who study religious trends. And so I say, amen to that, and keep those statistics coming!
By
Gustav Niebuhr
|
February 29, 2008; 8:51 AM ET
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Posted by: Garyd | March 2, 2008 11:22 AM
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Eenie meenie, miney mo, catch a god by the toe. If he hollers, let him go.
Posted by: Gideon | March 1, 2008 10:06 PM
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Garyd is a seeker of truth. Good boy. Come by our church for we have nothing but the truth. For sure that was God in the burning bush. The Bible says so.
Those Hoax Buster people are stupid. Can't they read? Just so much atheistic jibberish. God cannot tell a lie.
Exodus 3:6
Moreover he said, I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. And Moses hid his face; for he was afraid to look upon God.
Posted by: Anonymous | March 1, 2008 5:02 PM
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Or maybe their looking for some place that actually teaches the truth as found in scripture rather than bilge as taught by hoax busters et al?
Again Christians are looking for a Church that is real. And whose theology is underpinned by something rather more than the warm fuzzies.
Posted by: Garyd | March 1, 2008 2:59 PM
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You don't suppose http://www.hoax-buster.org/sellyoursoul has anything to do with it? I didn't think so but thought I would ask.
At least 14% of Americans are on board with that Hoax Buster Bible study, faith it. Maybe the 40% has a few of them that were so psychologically disturbed by threats of hell while they were still children that they don't know what to do?
Posted by: BGone | February 29, 2008 12:19 PM
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I was baptized in a Methodist church, confirmed in a Presbyterian church, and now attend a Holdeman Mennonite church. Most of my life was "unaffiliated but religious." In other words, I was seeking. I've dropped in on Lutheran, Catholic (in the US and in Europe), First Christian, Southern Baptist, and non-denominational Christian (US military chaplain-led) services. I've looked into Islam, Judaism, and Buddhism.
It has been a long and tortuous road to where I am and I think it has given me greater insight to who I am and what I seek - and that which I seek is as much within me as in a given religion. I have not seen enough which I like in most *religions* to engender any desire to join.
Despite my skepticism about organized religion, my faith remained strong. I remained a Christian throughout, although my faith is much stronger now.
I have come to realize that the faith of many people differs from their religion. It seems that many people go to a given place of worship or adhere to a religion because they are comfortable with that practice. I wonder how many changes of Christian denomination are driven by changes within one's home congregation. Certainly, I left the Presbyterian church because my congregation had, during my absence overseas, become something quite alien and unfriendly to me. The Mennonite church was welcoming (okay, I already knew the ministers and some of the deacons) and the lack of politics in the sanctuary was refreshing. I have not become an official member because I disagree with some of the church's doctrine. Despite that, I remain welcome in the congregation and feel comfortable worshipping there.
On the other side of this coin, I wonder how many self-identified Christians are truly Christians. How many profess to be Christian because they once attended church? How many pick up their faith on the church steps and lay it back down as they leave church? How many really understand what Christ taught? How many even try to follow the word? I suspect that, if one could count the number of actual, practicing Christians, the number is a small fraction of those who profess to the faith.
Posted by: MikeLM | February 28, 2008 11:02 AM
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Anonymous I no longer seek. I know the truth or at least as much of it as my all too limited capabilities are capable of understanding this side of heaven and it has indeed set me free but like Paul ( and I make no claim to be him or as faithful as him) it has made me rather annoying to others who wish so desperately to hang on to false ideas about God and the world at large.