Predictions About the Decline of Christianity in America May Be Premature

And Churches in Transition and Change Plus The State of Black Churches

In This Edition

• Predictions About the Decline of Christianity in America May Be Premature

• The Church in Transition and Change — By Russ Bredholt

• Half Online, Half in Person: The State of Black Churches Now and Possibly on Easter

Predictions About the Decline of Christianity in America May Be Premature

“For years, church leaders and commentators have warned that Christianity is dying in America. They say the American church is poised to follow the path of churches in Western Europe: soaring Gothic cathedrals with empty pews, shuttered church buildings converted into skate parks and nightclubs, and a secularized society where one theologian said Christianity as a norm is ‘probably gone for good — or at least for the next 100 years.’

Yet when CNN asked some of the nation's top religion scholars and historians recently about the future of Christianity in the US, they had a different message.”

Click HERE to read the CNN report.

ForthTelling Innovation Insights: This blog has reported over the past six months on various scientific studies — such as a major one from Pew Research — predicting the decline of Christianity in America. We stand by the trends predicted by these studies. At the same time there can be other trends not yet validated by available data. The CNN article is from a series of conversations with people considered experts about the future of Christianity in America.

Their anecdotal responses are consistent with the assessment and predictions made by historian Philip Jenkins of Baylor University in his books The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity (2002 — now in third edition) and The New Faces of Christianity: Believing the Bible in the Global South (2008).

He has published other articles and books that speak into this subject and predicted mass movements of Christians — particularly Pentecostals — from the Global South who would populate and strongly influence Christianity in North America.

Will these mass movements be enough to change the decline of Christianity in America? What are your thoughts?

The Church in Transition and Change — by Russ Bredholt

My long-term ministry colleague — Russ Bredholt — recently weighed in on church participation trends through a blog post HERE.

He references multiple perspectives and research reports and then offers this insight: “Suppose you only read the news headlines about organized religion, not the stories themselves. In that case, it's possible to conclude that the church, especially in first-world areas like America, is a slow-motion version of the Cathedral spire and roof falling to the ground.” [Talking about the fire at the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris in 2019]

ForthTelling Innovation Insights: Statistics on the future of American Christianity often fail to clearly identify the vitality of many segments of American Christianity, and the huge benefits seen in the impact of regular church participation. We need to be careful about spending too much time on statistical trends and too little time seeking to empower the vitality of our Christian practices with greater boldness and passion. That is, to see what is working.

Yes, let’s sound the alarm when people participate — or I prefer engage — less in regular, public Christ-centered activities. At the same time, let’s understand that counting engagement is much more difficult than it has ever been. Statistical analysis — as important as it is — shows the more public and visible signs of formal religion participation.

With engagement now emerging as the measure of religious participation rather than attendance, it will be increasingly more difficult to figure out whether faith involvement is increasing or decreasing. Are you finding this to be true?

Half Online, Half in Person: The State of Black churches Now and Possibly on Easter

As Easter approaches, leaders of Black denominations use cautious language even as they hope for a resurrection in the numbers of people who return to the pews.

Click HERE to read this article in Religion News Service.

ForthTelling Innovation Insights: The Black Church in America — and likely elsewhere — has been significantly impacted deeper and longer by the COVID-19 pandemic than some other church demographic groups. Hope for a greater return to live worship is an appropriate viewpoint to hold. But it is not a strategy. The Black Church needs to move beyond hope for a new normal, and redefine what it means to be engaged in congregational life.

This same discovery of and addressing engagement is true for many other demographic groups.

What are you experiencing where you minister concerning engagement and attendance?