In episode 86 of Dangerous Dogma, Sara Billups talks about her new book Orphaned Believers: How a Generation of Christian Exiles Can Find the Way Home. She also discusses issues the impact of growing up with end-times theology, culture war politics, and commercialism.
What’s happening to my church is occurring in hundreds of churches across the United States. Large numbers of adults have left organized religion behind, and in their wake churches are faced with difficult questions.
For the past 25 years, the number of Americans claiming no religion has steadily ballooned as more and more people quit church, synagogue or mosque and openly acknowledged being a “none.” But that growth may be leveling off.
(RNS) — The latest Pew Research report released Thursday (Oct. 17), finds that two-thirds (65%) of Americans describe themselves as Christians. A decade ago, that figure was 77%.
About 26 percent of Americans 65 and older identify as white evangelical Protestants, but only 8 percent of those ages 18 to 29. Some evangelical leaders are tidying up the kitchen over repealing the Johnson amendment and saying "Merry Christmas" while the house burns down around them.
(RNS) — Despite our digital connectedness, Americans are lonelier than they have ever been in recent memory. Three of four report wrestling with loneliness, and one of the loneliest times in our lives is when we enter young adulthood.
The 18-to-29-year-olds missing from predominantly white evangelical churches span two generations. While some of these young people do eventually return, two-thirds of young adults go missing, some for more than a decade.
The percentage of Americans who are unaffiliated with any one religion has grown from 16% to 23% over the past decade. A recent paper in Science Advances found in other parts of the world, a rise in secularism often coincides with an increase in economic growth.
(RNS) — A new Gallup report found that only half of Americans say they belong to a church or other religious body, down from 69% two decades earlier.
Many evangelicals, like the author, have grown disenchanted with their born-again faith. Recently, those who have left evangelicalism have begun organizing themselves online under the hashtag #exvangelical.