RESPECT.......

[pippinwhitepaws]

Most religious groups in USA have lost ground, survey finds
Updated 3/17/2009 6:35 PM

When it comes to religion, the USA is now land of the freelancers.
The percentage. of people who call themselves in some way Christian has dropped more than 11% in a generation. The faithful have scattered out of their traditional bases: The Bible Belt is less Baptist. The Rust Belt is less Catholic. And everywhere, more people are exploring spiritual frontiers — or falling off the faith map completely.

These dramatic shifts in just 18 years are detailed in the new American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS), to be released today. It finds that, despite growth and immigration that has added nearly 50 million adults to the U.S. population, almost all religious denominations have lost ground since the first ARIS survey in 1990.

"More than ever before, people are just making up their own stories of who they are. They say, 'I'm everything. I'm nothing. I believe in myself,' " says Barry Kosmin, survey co-author.


Among the key findings in the 2008 survey:

• So many Americans claim no religion at all (15%, up from 8% in 1990), that this category now outranks every other major U.S. religious group except Catholics and Baptists. In a nation that has long been mostly Christian, "the challenge to Christianity … does not come from other religions but from a rejection of all forms of organized religion," the report concludes.

• Catholic strongholds in New England and the Midwest have faded as immigrants, retirees and young job-seekers have moved to the Sun Belt. While bishops from the Midwest to Massachusetts close down or consolidate historic parishes, those in the South are scrambling to serve increasing numbers of worshipers.

• Baptists, 15.8% of those surveyed, are down from 19.3% in 1990. Mainline Protestant denominations, once socially dominant, have seen sharp declines: The percentage of Methodists, for example, dropped from 8% to 5%.

• The percentage of those who choose a generic label, calling themselves simply Christian, Protestant, non-denominational, evangelical or "born again," was 14.2%, about the same as in 1990.

• Jewish numbers showed a steady decline, from 1.8% in 1990 to 1.2% today. The percentage of Muslims, while still slim, has doubled, from 0.3% to 0.6%. Analysts within both groups suggest those numbers understate the groups' populations.

Ihsan Bagby, associate professor of Islamic studies at the University of Kentucky-Lexington, says that most national telephone surveys such as ARIS undercount Muslims, and that he is conducting a study of mosques' membership sponsored by the Hartford (Conn.) Institute for Religious Research.

Meanwhile, some Jewish surveys that report larger numbers of Jews also include "cultural" Jews — those who connect to Judiasm through its traditions, but not necessarily through actively practicing the religion.

Meanwhile, nearly 2.8 million people now identify with dozens of new religious movements, calling themselves Wiccan, pagan or "Spiritualist," which the survey does not define.

Wicca, a contemporary form of paganism that includes goddess worship and reverence for nature, has even made its way to Arlington National Cemetery, where the Pentagon now allows Wiccans' five-pointed-star symbol to be used on veterans' gravestones.

Religion as a hobby

Since the first ARIS study was released, other major national surveys have offered snapshots of the USA's faith.

The Baylor University Religion Surveys in 2006 and 2008 -- based on 1,721 and 1,700 interviews, respectively -- were distinguished by a look at how people described and understood God. The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life released its Religious Landscape Survey last year, based on 35,000 interviews, mapping Americans' beliefs state by state. It found that 41% of people had switched their religion at some point in life.


BAYLOR: How far is heaven? At least half will make it, Americans say
PEW: How people from different faiths answered questions on Hollywood, homosexuality, politics and prayer

The initial ARIS report in 1990 set the table for those surveys.

It was based on 113,000 interviews, updated with 50,000 more in 2001 and now 54,000 in 2008. Because the U.S. Census does not ask about religion, the ARIS survey was the first comprehensive study of how people identify their spiritual expression.

Kosmin concluded from the 1990 data that many saw God as a "personal hobby," and that the USA is "a greenhouse for spiritual sprouts."

Today, he says, "religion has become more like a fashion statement, not a deep personal commitment for many."

Kosmin is now director of the Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture at Trinity College in Hartford, Conn.; ARIS co-researcher Ariela Keysar is associate director.

The ARIS research also led in quantifying and planting a label on the "Nones" — people who said "None" when asked the survey's basic question: "What is your religious identity?"

The survey itself may have contributed to a higher rate of reporting as sociologists began analyzing the newly identified Nones. "The Nones may have felt more free to step forward, less looked upon as outcasts" after the ARIS results were published, Keysar says.

Oregon once led the nation in Nones (18% in 1990), but in 2008 the leader, with 34%, was Vermont, where Nones significantly outnumber every other group.

Meabh Fitzpatrick, 49, of Rutland, Vt., says she is upfront about becoming an atheist 10 years ago because "it's important for us to be counted. I'm a taxpayer and a law-abiding citizen and an ethical person, and I don't think people assume this about atheists."

Not all Nones have made such a philosophical choice; most just unhook from religious ties.

Diane Mueller, 43, of Austin, who grew up Methodist, says she's simply "totally disengaged from the church and the Bible, too." Sunday mornings for her family mean playing in a park, not praying in a pew.

Ex-Catholic Dylan Rossi, 21, a philosophy student in Boston and a Massachusetts native, is part of the sharp fall in the state's percentage of Catholics — from 54% to 39% in his lifetime.

Rossi says he's typical among his friends: "If religion comes up, everyone at the table will start mocking it. I don't know anyone religious and hardly anyone 'spiritual.' "

Social mobility a factor

Anger and dismay over the clergy sexual abuse scandal, which erupted in Boston in 2002, may be reflected in declining rates of Catholics across New England. But the total percentage of Catholics in the USA declined only slightly from 1990 to 2008, from 26.2% to 25.1%. Analysts say immigration and other demographic shifts account for most of the changes.

"It's not that everyone in New England lost their Catholic faith since 1990. It's not the same people in New England," says sociologist Mary Gautier, senior researcher at the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, the research arm of the Catholic Church in America.

Membership in New England's Catholic churches is shrinking as older Catholics have died or moved to sunnier climates. Young adults are choosing non-Catholic partners, having civil weddings and skipping baptism for their babies. And those moving in to areas served by the churches are young adults who often find their communities of work and friendship online, not in parish halls.

"I sometimes wish I had a sky hook to take people from dying parishes up North and plunk them down in the parishes around Austin or Atlanta — and bring their beautiful buildings with them," Gautier says.

Bishop Gregory Aymond would be happy to have those resources in Austin. He's spiritually delighted and financially challenged as his Texas diocese has doubled in numbers with retirees, Mexican immigrants, students at five major universities and Californians moving in for high-tech jobs.

"And demographers expect it to double again in the next 10 to 12 years," he says.

In Mount Pleasant, S.C., a suburb of Charleston, "everyone from Ohio is here," says Msgr. James Carter, pastor of Christ Our King Catholic Church. The church has grown so big so fast that it has spun off another parish and a mission church, and it plans outdoor split-shift services for Easter to accommodate about 2,500 families.

South Carolina also exemplifies the Protestant faiths' shrinking share of the national religion "pie." The state has more Catholics (10%, up from 6% in 1990) and the percentage of Nones has more than tripled, from 3% to 10%. The share of Protestants is 73%, down from 88% in 1990.

Like Gautier, the Rev. Kendall Harmon, theologian for the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina, blames social mobility.

"Mobility means your ideas are more challenged and your family and childhood traditions have less influence, particularly if you are not strongly rooted in them. I see kids today who have no vocabulary of faith, and neither do many of their parents."

Harmon recalls, "A couple came into my office once with a yellow pad of their teenage son's questions. One of them was: 'What is that guy doing hanging up there on the plus sign?' "

Kosmin and Keysar also found a "piety gap" in how Americans understand God: While 69% say they believe in a personal God, the Judeo-Christian understanding of the Almighty, an additional 30% made no such connection.

The piety gap defines the primary sides in the culture wars, Kosmin says.

"It's about gay marriage and abortion and stem cells and the family. If a personal God says, 'Thou shalt not' or 'Thou shalt' see these a certain way, you'd take it very seriously. Meanwhile, three in 10 people aren't listening to that God," he says.

"There's more clarity at the two extremes and the mishmash is in the middle," Keysar adds.

Mark Silk, director of the Greenberg Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life at Trinity College, sees in the numbers "an emergence of a soft evangelicalism — E-lite — that owes a lot to evangelical styles of worship and basic approach to church.

"But E-lite is more a matter of aesthetic and style and a considerable softening of the edges in doctrine, politics and social values," Silk says.

Additional narrowly focused surveys, with closer looks at Catholics, evangelicals, mainline Protestants, and African-American Christians, will be released later this year by Trinity's Program on Public Values, which sponsored ARIS, Silk says.

Some believers might be alarmed by the ARIS findings, but Tom Haynes isn't. Haynes, 46, a Houston entrepreneur, is the brother of Diane Mueller, the Austin mom who claims no religion. Same Methodist upbringing. Totally different spiritual choices.

Haynes, like 69% of Americans, said in the ARIS survey that he believes there is "definitely a personal God." He calls himself a deeply committed "follower of Christ," rather than aligning with a specific denomination. He attends a non-denominational community church where he likes the rock music, but Bible study is the focus of his faith.

"We just look to Jesus," he says. "That's why I don't pay attention to surveys. Christianity is moving totally under the radar. It's the work of God. It can't be measured. It happens inside of people's souls."

Religious movement in the USA

How Americans describe their religious identity, 1990 — 2008:



Religious tradition


2008 estimate (in millions)


Estimated % of population 1990


Estimated % of population 2008


Change


Catholic 57.2 26.2% 25.1% -1.1%

Baptist 36.1 19.3% 15.8% -3.5%

No religion 34.2 8.2% 15.0% 6.8%

Christian, generic 32.4 14.8% 14.2% -0.6%

Mainline Protestant 29.4 18.7% 12.9% -5.8%

Don't Know/Refused 11.8 2.3% 5.2% 2.9%

Pentecostal/Charismatic 8.0 3.2% 3.5% 0.3%

Protestant denominations 7.1 2.6% 3.1% 0.5%

Mormon/latter-day Saints 3.2 1.4% 1.4% 0.0%

New movements (such as Wiccan), other religions 2.8 0.8% 1.2% 0.4%

Jewish 2.7 1.8% 1.2% -0.6%

Eastern religions 2.0 0.4% 0.9% 0.5%

Muslim 1.4 0.3% 0.6% 0.3%

[Joe Ribaudo]

pip & lbj,

You both certainly know how to spin the surveys to reflect your own personal beliefs. There is little doubt that Christianity in America is slowly declining. Hard times, which are here and will get harder, will probably reverse that trend.

People like the two of you, who believe someone else owes them a living, will turn to taking what they feel they need/deserve, assuming the government doesn't provide enough, from those who work for what they have.
I believe this is the latest available report:
__________________________________

ARIS 2008 Report: Highlights
The ARIS 2008 survey was carried out
During February-November 2008 and
Collected answers from 54,461 respondents
Who were questioned in English or
Spanish.

The American population self-identifies as
Predominantly Christian but Americans
Are slowly becoming less Christian.

• 86% of American adults identified as
Christians in 1990 and 76% in 2008.

• The historic Mainline churches and
Denominations have experienced
The steepest declines while the non-
Denominational Christian identity
Has been trending upward particularly
Since 2001.

• The challenge to Christianity in
The U.S. Does not come from other
Religions but rather from a rejection of
All forms of organized religion.

34% of American adults considered
Themselves "Born Again or Evangelical
Christians" in 2008.

The U. S. Population continues to show
Signs of becoming less religious, with
One out of every five Americans failing to
Indicate a religious identity in 2008.

• The "Nones" (no stated religious
Preference, atheist, or agnostic)
Continue to grow, though at a much
Slower pace than in the 1990s, from
8.2% in 1990, to 14.1% in 2001, to
15.0% in 2008.

• Asian Americans are substantially
More likely to indicate no religious
Identity than other racial or ethnic
Groups.

One sign of the lack of attachment of
Americans to religion is that 27% do not
Expect a religious funeral at their death.

Based on their stated beliefs rather than
Their religious identification in 2008,
70% of Americans believe in a personal
God, roughly 12% of Americans are
Atheist (no God) or agnostic (unknowable
Or unsure), and another 12% are deistic
(a higher power but no personal God).

America's religious geography has been
Transformed since 1990. Religious
Switching along with Hispanic
Immigration has significantly changed
The religious profile of some states and
Regions. Between 1990 and 2008, the
Catholic population proportion of the
New England states fell from 50% to
36% and in New York it fell from 44%
To 37%, while it rose in California from
29% to 37% and in Texas from 23%
To 32%.

Overall the 1990-2008 ARIS time
Series shows that changes in religious
Self-identification in the first decade of
The 21st century have been moderate in
Comparison to the 1990s, which was a
Period of significant shifts in the religious
Composition of the United States.
_______________________________________

I don't expect to educate the uneducateable, but see no reason to let your assertions stand unopposed by the facts. You have exaggerated the facts of a trend that is not as severe as it was in the 90's. That's to be expected from those who are stuck in that era. Nothing worse than old hippies.

You will both be long gone before America is a non-Christian nation, but it's interesting to see you trying to hide from the truth. While America continues to be a, predominatly, white Christian nation, we have always accepted and made room for those who are non-white and have other beliefs. That's why, many, people around the world are still trying to become Americans.

Thanks for the minority propaganda.

Joe Ribaudo

[Joe Ribaudo]

pip & lbj,

In support of my last post:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_in_America

http://faithofourfathers.net/

Jon Meacham writes in Newsweek:

Let's be clear: while the percentage of Christians may be shrinking, rumors of the death of Christianity are greatly exaggerated. Being less Christian does not necessarily mean that America is post-Christian. A third of Americans say they are born again; this figure, along with the decline of politically moderate-to liberal mainline Protestants, led the ARIS authors to note that "these trends … suggest a movement towards more conservative beliefs and particularly to a more 'evangelical' outlook among Christians." With rising numbers of Hispanic immigrants bolstering the Roman Catholic Church in America, and given the popularity of Pentecostalism, a rapidly growing Christian milieu in the United States and globally, there is no doubt that the nation remains vibrantly religious—far more so, for instance, than Europe. http://www.newsweek.com/id/192583
_________________________________

Just as you are a minority here, almost below noting, you are two very small voices in the American populace. You speak for a minute fringe element, longing for communism or socialism. President Obama may bring us to that, but it will destroy the nation. Like him, I believe you are hoping for that very thing.

Joe Ribaudo

[pippinwhitepaws]

ROLF

the self righteous speak.
ya know why it's called self righteous huh punkassjoey?

[pippinwhitepaws]

oh..i forgot.
people can claim anything they wish.
true christians are a historic minority anywhere in the universe...

[Joe Ribaudo]

pip,

"people can claim anything they wish.
true christians are a historic minority anywhere in the universe..."

Don't believe I ever said anything about "true christians". Try to focus a little more on what is being posted.

Joe Ribaudo

[lbj]

joe, joe , joe, dear joe. follow your own advice and read the post before responding. i clearly stated "white christians". that certainly excludes hispanics, blacks, asians, aboriginals, jews, muslims and others who by their demographics are banned by party rules from joining the kkk. and yes that means catholics too. dont you remember, the Grand Klan does not allow them to join? it and pat robertson say catholics are not christians, as did jerry fallwell. that in essence leaves the true christians which are the right wing born agains. the "real americans" of sarah palin. true, the stats you quoted indicate that the us is still backward and way too religious but going in the right direction. the white right wing born again are becoming a smaller and smaller percentage of the population. hallelujah, praise the lord and pass the plate.

[lbj]

oh joe, how little do you know me.

People like the two of you, who believe someone else owes them a living, will turn to taking what they feel they need/deserve, assuming the government doesn't provide enough, from those who work for what they have.

how can you believe that i would be satisfied with such meager crumbs from the table. you are quite blind if you think i am after some gov handouts. i though it obvious from my posts that handouts of no consequence to me.

read carefully and try to remember for your future posts. i am seeking the destruction of capitalism and nationalism not some fucking handout. christ, joe, you can be so petty sometimes. handout? humbug!

[Joe Ribaudo]

We received this today. It is written by a highly respected American, and we agree with every word:

[A Patriotic Resistance, Here

I have noted that many elected officials, both Democrats and Republicans, called upon America to unite behind Obama.
Well, I want to make it clear to all who will listen that I "AM NOT" uniting behind Obama. However, I promise to give our country the devoted loyalty of a patriot.

I will respect the Office which he holds, and I will acknowledge his abilities as an orator and wordsmith and pray for him, BUT that is it.

I have begun today to see what I can do to make sure He is a one-term President!

Why am I doing this? It is because I do not share Obama's vision or value system for America;

I do not share his Abortion beliefs;

I do not share his radical Marxist's concept of re-distributing wealth;

I do not share his stated views on raising taxes on those who make $150,000+ (the ceiling has been changed three times since August);

I do not share his view that America is arrogant;

I do not share his view that America is not a Christian Nation;

I do not share his view that the military should be reduced by 25%;

I do not share his view of amnesty and giving more to illegals than American Citizens who need help;

I do not share his views on homosexuality and his definition of marriage;

I do not share his views that Radical Islam is our friend and Israel is our enemy who should give up any land;

I do not share his spiritual beliefs (at least the ones he has made public);

I do not share his beliefs on how to re-work the healthcare system in America ;

I do not share his Strategic views of the Middle East, and certainly do not share his plan to sit down with terrorist regimes such as Iran .

Bottom line, my America is vastly different from Obama's, and I have a higher obligation to my Country and my God to do what is right!

For eight (8) years, the Liberals in our Society, led by numerous entertainers who would have no platform and no real credibility, but for their celebrity status, have attacked President Bush, his family, and his spiritual beliefs!

They have not moved toward the center in their beliefs and their philosophies, and they never came together nor compromised their personal beliefs for the betterment of our Country! They have portrayed my America as a land where everything is tolerated except being intolerant!

They have been a vocal and irreverent minority for years;

They have mocked and attacked the very core values so important to the founding and growth of our Country;

They have made every effort to remove the name of God or Jesus Christ from our Society;

They have challenged capital punishment, the right to bear firearms, and the most basic principles of our criminal code;

They have attacked one of the most fundamental of all Freedoms, the right of free speech!

Unite behind Obama? Never!

I am sure many of you who read this think that I am going overboard, but I refuse to retreat one more inch in favor of those whom I believe are the embodiment of Evil!

PRESIDENT BUSH made many mistakes during his Presidency, and I am not sure how history will judge him. However, I believe he weighed his decisions in light of the long established Judeo-Christian principles of our Founding Fathers!!!

Majority rules in America , and I will honor the concept; however, I will fight with all of my power to be a voice in opposition to Obama and "his goals for America ."

I am going to be a thorn in the side of those who, if left unchecked, will destroy our country!! Any more compromise is more defeat!

I pray that the results of this election will wake up many who have sat on the sidelines and allowed the Socialist-Marxist anti-God crowd to slowly change so much of what has been good in America !

"Error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it." (Thomas Jefferson)

God bless you and God bless our Country!!!]

Thomas Sowell is a PhD and a member of the Hoover Institute

At Stanford University
____________________________________________________

Joe & Carolyn Ribaudo