You wouldn't believe how fast Americans are losing their rel

[Valigarmander]

http://www.alternet.org/belief/you-woul ... -have-plan

Protestants, a number that had remained stable for the several preceding decades. But sometime in the 1990s, the ground started to shift, and it's been sliding ever since. Whether it's the "mainline" Protestant denominations like Methodists, Episcopalians, Lutherans or Presbyterians, or the independent evangelical, charismatic and fundamentalist sects, the decline is happening across the board. The rise of so-called megachurches, like Rick Warren's Saddleback Church in California or Mark Driscoll's Mars Hill in Seattle, represents not growth, but consolidation.

What's happening to these vanishing Protestants? For the most part, they're not converting to any other religion, but rather are walking away from religion entirely. They're becoming " nones," as the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life puts it. It seems likely that this is the same secularizing trend being observed in Europe, as people of advanced, peaceful democracies find religion increasingly irrelevant to their daily lives.

The spokespeople of the religious right have noticed this trend as well, but it's clear they have very little idea what to do about it. In a column from 2005, Albert Mohler, the president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, declared that "theological liberalism" is at fault for Christianity's decline, and that the only thing they need to do to reverse it is to make "a bold commitment to biblical authority." Far from it, the evidence is clear that churches clinging to antiquated dogma are part of the problem, as young people turn away from their strident decrees about gays and women.

But the footsoldiers of fundamentalism haven't been entirely idle these past few decades. As their power declines in America and Europe, they're increasingly moving abroad, to developing countries not as far along the secularization curve, where they often find a more receptive audience.

The first example is Uganda, where the most despicable kind of American culture warriors have run amok with horrifying results. Since 2009, the country's parliament has been debating an "Anti-Homosexuality Bill," which among other things would establish a crime of "aggravated homosexuality," punishable by life imprisonment or death.

What's less well known is that three American evangelical preachers, Scott Lively, Caleb Lee Brundidge and Don Schmierer, visited the country a month before the bill was introduced, giving talks about how "the gay movement is an evil institution" which seeks to prey on children, destroy "the moral fiber of the people," and abolish marriage and the family and replace it with "a culture of sexual promiscuity." Lively boasted that their campaign was "a nuclear bomb against the gay agenda in Uganda," and later admitted to meeting with Ugandan lawmakers to help draft the bill, although he professed ignorance of the death penalty provision. Other American evangelicals, including Kevin Swanson and Lou Engle, have also expressed their support for the so-called Kill the Gays bill.

It's not just LGBT people in Uganda who've been harmed by the spread of aggressive evangelicalism. American megachurch pastor Rick Warren has a Ugandan protege, a pastor named Martin Ssempa, who has preached aggressively against contraception (in one bizarre public stunt, he burned condoms in the name of Jesus). Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni had formerly been a staunch advocate of the so-called ABC program (consisting of abstinence, monogamy and condom use) which successfully reduced HIV infection rates in Uganda; but thanks in part to Ssempa's influence and access, the government was persuaded to stop free condom distribution, and as a result, new HIV infections spiked again. (Ssempa, too, has called for the imprisonment of gay people. President Museveni also has ties to the Washington, D.C.-based fundamentalist group " the Family," which has called him their " key man" in Africa.)

(More of the article on the website.)

A good read. Scary, too.

[GurrenLagann]

The non-religious are certainly on the rise (not to be conflated as atheism, unfortunately), but I believe Christianity is as well, though probably to a much lesser degree. I think Hitchens' explanation still holds:

People are getting sick and tired of theocratic encroachment upon free society. From the attempted teaching of garbage to children in state-run schools, to the interference with research that could save the lives of untold scores of people via stem cells, it would seem resistance to the buck has built.

[Hydra009]

Yep.  Us former mainline Christians have been leaving the flock in droves, and a good portion - especially the youngsters - have been going atheist big-time.  That's good and bad news.  The good news is obvious - a bigger atheist presence in the States.  The more the merrier.  The bad news is a serious brain drain in the Christian camp, more or less paving the way for the current conservative/fundie stranglehold.  We all know who's winning the battle between liberal Christians and conservative Christians, and it ain't the liberals.  The net result:  an increasingly polarized America torn between a deeply conservative and entrenched good ol' time religion VS a burgeoning band of atheists.  And only one camp will ultimately prevail.  It definitely won't be pretty, though.

[Shiranu]

I was raised Lutheran, and I would say a good majority of the people were either borderline atheists or at least extremely secular in their beliefs. (what is wrong/right according to their ethos, not bible).

If that's consistent with Lutheranism at large, then I definitely see them as a big contributor to the nones. I kinda get that impression given most of the practicing Lutherans I know now are older fundamentalists and not the younger generation like my old church was full of (though that could just be demographics).

[Atheon]

I remember being a kid back in the 70s; a teenager in the 80s. Back then, my friends and fellow students for the most part (as far as I was aware) thought of religion as kind of silly. People who were a decade older than me (the hippie generation) seemed to be more into New Age spirituality and Eastern religions, but were theists of some sort, even if it was a hippy-trippy-dippy variety.

It was my parents' generation (the 50s beboppers) which I regarded at the time as the last solidly Christian generation. Though my own parents were non-religious, those of most of my religion-pooh-poohing peers were Christians. It's this generation that's been at the height of political power over the past decade or so (bringing with it a political hyper-religiosity of unprecedented levels), though they're starting to die off and are being replaced by the lukewarm religious hippies. My generation (80s post-punk) will be coming to political power in the next decade or so, bringing with it more skepticism toward religion. And the current crop of young'uns is even more atheistic it seems.

Religion is dying in America.

Good.

[widdershins]

I remember being a kid back in the 70s; a teenager in the 80s. Back then, my friends and fellow students for the most part (as far as I was aware) thought of religion as kind of silly. People who were a decade older than me (the hippie generation) seemed to be more into New Age spirituality and Eastern religions, but were theists of some sort, even if it was a hippy-trippy-dippy variety.

It was my parents' generation (the 50s beboppers) which I regarded at the time as the last solidly Christian generation. Though my own parents were non-religious, those of most of my religion-pooh-poohing peers were Christians. It's this generation that's been at the height of political power over the past decade or so (bringing with it a political hyper-religiosity of unprecedented levels), though they're starting to die off and are being replaced by the lukewarm religious hippies. My generation (80s post-punk) will be coming to political power in the next decade or so, bringing with it more skepticism toward religion. And the current crop of young'uns is even more atheistic it seems.

Religion is dying in America.

Good.

Oh, how I want to believe that is true...so I do!

[Hydra009]

It was my parents' generation (the 50s beboppers) which I regarded at the time as the last solidly Christian generation. Though my own parents were non-religious, those of most of my religion-pooh-poohing peers were Christians. It's this generation that's been at the height of political power over the past decade or so (bringing with it a political hyper-religiosity of unprecedented levels), though they're starting to die off and are being replaced by the lukewarm religious hippies. My generation (80s post-punk) will be coming to political power in the next decade or so, bringing with it more skepticism toward religion. And the current crop of young'uns is even more atheistic it seems.

Yep.  I personally blame the Boomers for the latest wave of reactionary hyper-religiosity.  Gen Y is much less religious, and when they take the reins, a lot of that stuff will go by the wayside.

[AxisMundi]

http://www.alternet.org/belief/you-wouldnt-believe-how-fast-americans-are-losing-their-religion-fundamentalists-have-plan

Protestants, a number that had remained stable for the several preceding decades. But sometime in the 1990s, the ground started to shift, and it's been sliding ever since. Whether it's the "mainline" Protestant denominations like Methodists, Episcopalians, Lutherans or Presbyterians, or the independent evangelical, charismatic and fundamentalist sects, the decline is happening across the board. The rise of so-called megachurches, like Rick Warren's Saddleback Church in California or Mark Driscoll's Mars Hill in Seattle, represents not growth, but consolidation.

What's happening to these vanishing Protestants? For the most part, they're not converting to any other religion, but rather are walking away from religion entirely. They're becoming " nones," as the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life puts it. It seems likely that this is the same secularizing trend being observed in Europe, as people of advanced, peaceful democracies find religion increasingly irrelevant to their daily lives.

The spokespeople of the religious right have noticed this trend as well, but it's clear they have very little idea what to do about it. In a column from 2005, Albert Mohler, the president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, declared that "theological liberalism" is at fault for Christianity's decline, and that the only thing they need to do to reverse it is to make "a bold commitment to biblical authority." Far from it, the evidence is clear that churches clinging to antiquated dogma are part of the problem, as young people turn away from their strident decrees about gays and women.

But the footsoldiers of fundamentalism haven't been entirely idle these past few decades. As their power declines in America and Europe, they're increasingly moving abroad, to developing countries not as far along the secularization curve, where they often find a more receptive audience.

The first example is Uganda, where the most despicable kind of American culture warriors have run amok with horrifying results. Since 2009, the country's parliament has been debating an "Anti-Homosexuality Bill," which among other things would establish a crime of "aggravated homosexuality," punishable by life imprisonment or death.

What's less well known is that three American evangelical preachers, Scott Lively, Caleb Lee Brundidge and Don Schmierer, visited the country a month before the bill was introduced, giving talks about how "the gay movement is an evil institution" which seeks to prey on children, destroy "the moral fiber of the people," and abolish marriage and the family and replace it with "a culture of sexual promiscuity." Lively boasted that their campaign was "a nuclear bomb against the gay agenda in Uganda," and later admitted to meeting with Ugandan lawmakers to help draft the bill, although he professed ignorance of the death penalty provision. Other American evangelicals, including Kevin Swanson and Lou Engle, have also expressed their support for the so-called Kill the Gays bill.

It's not just LGBT people in Uganda who've been harmed by the spread of aggressive evangelicalism. American megachurch pastor Rick Warren has a Ugandan protege, a pastor named Martin Ssempa, who has preached aggressively against contraception (in one bizarre public stunt, he burned condoms in the name of Jesus). Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni had formerly been a staunch advocate of the so-called ABC program (consisting of abstinence, monogamy and condom use) which successfully reduced HIV infection rates in Uganda; but thanks in part to Ssempa's influence and access, the government was persuaded to stop free condom distribution, and as a result, new HIV infections spiked again. (Ssempa, too, has called for the imprisonment of gay people. President Museveni also has ties to the Washington, D.C.-based fundamentalist group " the Family," which has called him their " key man" in Africa.)

(More of the article on the website.)

A good read. Scary, too.

Scary indeed. The Dominionist Movement is quite alive and well, and active along the lines Dominionists like Rushdooney set down to succeed in their endeavors to make this a "Christian Nation".

One merely has to take a peek at the laws and legislation being pushed through "conservative" held states.

[Sal1981]

The religious nuts doing what they do best; genocide.