Good news: Church attendance declining

From the Daily Beast:

....According to a new Gallup poll released this week, only 47% of Americans polled in 2020 belong to a house of worship, which is the first time that number has fallen below half of the country since they started polling Americans on this question.

But what's really interesting is that the collapse in church membership has happened mostly over the past two decades. Since Gallup started recording these numbers decades ago, church membership rates were relatively steady, with only the smallest decline over the decades. In 1937, 73% of Americans belong to a church. In 1975, it was 71%. In 1999, it was 70%. But since then, the church membership rate has fallen by a whopping 23 percentage points.

....Once an adult actively chooses to belong to a church, it's hard to admit that you were wrong and now want to abandon the whole project. 

But young adults, even those who went to church with their parents, do have to make an active choice to join a church as adults. And many are going to look at hypocritical, power-hungry ministers praying over an obvious grifter like Trump and be too turned off to even consider getting involved.

....Robert P. Jones, author of "White Too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity," spoke with Salon about how the decline in religion is concentrated largely among young people. 

There's "a culture clash between particularly conservative white churches and denominations and younger Americans," he explained, noting that young people were particularly critical of anti-science and homophobic rhetoric from religious leaders.

"[C]onservative white Christians have lost this argument with a broader liberal culture," he explained, including "their own kids and grandchildren."

See also The Republican Party is the crackpot party, Good news: Americans with no religion increasing! and Mencken's prophecy: "A downright fool and a complete narcissistic moron" will be elected.

Kevin Drum