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This just in! Millions of folks are sort of religious, a key to church membership decline

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This just in! Millions of folks are sort of religious, a key to church membership decline

When it came to poll numbers about religion and American life, the late George Gallup, Jr., wasn’t all that interested in many of the most obvious questions.

As he told me in several telephone interviews, starting in the 1980s: The religion numbers just don’t add up. You could see the same sentiments in some of his public addresses.

Gallup — who died in 2011 — wasn’t impressed by the high numbers of Americans who told pollsters that they believe in God, attend worship services on a regular basis and say that faith is “very important” in their lives. That didn’t seem to fit with national patterns of divorce and family breakdown. He kept trying to find ways to ask questions that focused on the role of religious faith in daily life.

When push came to shove, Gallup was convinced that about 20% of Americans were seriously practicing some form of religious faith. The number might be lower than that.

Thus, that recent blitz of news about church membership trends. As the Washington Post headline stated: “Church membership in the U.S. has fallen below the majority for the first time in nearly a century.” Here’s some of the overture:

The proportion of Americans who consider themselves members of a church, synagogue or mosque has dropped below 50 percent, according to a poll from Gallup. … It is the first time that has happened since Gallup first asked the question in 1937, when church membership was 73 percent. …

In 2020, 47 percent of Americans said they belonged to a church, synagogue or mosque. The polling firm also found that the number of people who said religion was very important to them has fallen to 48 percent, a new low point in the polling since 2000.

Click here for the Gallup report on these findings, old and new. Here is another summary from 2019. And here is some additional background from the new Gallup release:

Gallup asks Americans a battery of questions on their religious attitudes and practices twice each year. The following analysis of declines in church membership relies on three-year aggregates from 1998-2000 (when church membership averaged 69%), 2008-2010 (62%), and 2018-2020 (49%). …

The decline in church membership is primarily a function of the increasing number of Americans who express no religious preference.


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Welcome to Holy Days 2021: How to handle the latest sensational claim about the Bible

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Welcome to Holy Days 2021: How to handle the latest sensational claim about the Bible

The New York Times often ignores developments in religious scholarship, an especially serious deficiency of its Sunday Book Review (where Nash K. Burger, who was hired by fellow Mississippian Eudora Welty, long and carefully monitored the field until he retired in 1974).

Thus, hallelujahs should greet a huge article by culture reporter Jennifer Schuessler, posted March 10 and granted two full pages in the Arts & Leisure section of last Sunday's print edition.

The piece reports that young Israeli-American scholar Idan Dershowitz may have identified "the oldest known biblical manuscript by far," which offers "an unprecedented window into origins and evolution of the Bible" and, in particular, the Book of Deuteronomy. If substantiated, some say, this "will be the most consequential Bible-related discovery since the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947."

Or not. Journalists assessing what's hot should consider that across the years, manuscript frauds and ill-supported speculations about the Bible have been rife.

The Times is known to sometimes "bury the lede," and in this case it buried the news peg. The piece was nicely timed for Jewish Passover and Christian Holy Week when media often dig into biblical mysteries and controversies. But the news here is the April publication of Dershowitz's book "The Valediction of Moses: A Proto-Biblical Book."

The book will fill in the missing element in the Times story and thus provide major fresh substance for reporters to develop: Which portions of Deuteronomy are involved in this discussion, and how do specific wordings and passages in today's Bibles compare with the purportedly ancient texts Dershowitz cites? On that basis, what do the agreements and contrasts tell us and why?

Dershowitz seeks to rehabilitate Wilhelm Moses Shapira, whose 19th Century Jerusalem shop sold both tourist trinkets and allegedly valuable ancient manuscripts. He tried to sell these Deuteronomy fragments to a regular customer, the British Museum, but its expert and others declared them forgeries in 1883, based on what Dershowitz considers slipshod study.

Shamed, Shapira soon committed suicide in Rotterdam. The leather fragments themselves then disappeared.


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Thinking about J.S. Bach: As it turns out, it's hard to ignore the composer's views on doctrine

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Thinking about J.S. Bach: As it turns out, it's hard to ignore the composer's views on doctrine

Sometimes we forget how strange the Internet is, in terms of providing an environment for reading and sharing news stories and other features.

Readers used to be able to flip through their daily newspaper and know that they had a chance, in an orderly manner, to look at “everything” that was in those pages. Today, there is no way to know — for a variety of technical reasons — if you’ve looked at everything in the “daily” New York Times or any other news product . It all exists in a vast digital cloud of material that is always evolving and being updated. There is no logical sequence or form.

People find “news stories” with a search engine, they run into them on Facebook or people end them URLs in emails or texts. Often these articles are stripped of context — news or editorial, for example — and often the publication dates vanish, as well.

Thus, every now and then, GetReligion readers ship us a story that they think deserves praise or criticism. Sure enough, I’ll find that it’s amazing and start work on a post and then notice — oh no — that it’s actually several years old.

This happened to me the other day with a “feature” story from the Times with this headline: “Johann Sebastian Bach Was More Religious Than You Might Think.” Well, I love Bach. As far as I am concerned, the stunningly productive and brilliant Bach is either (a) evidence of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, (b) the most important artist in the history of Western civilization or (c) both.

I dug into the piece and quickly realized that this essay by Michael Marissen, author of “Bach & God,” wasn’t a news feature and, on top of that, it ran in 2018. I’m sharing it as a weekend “think piece” because it is fascinating stuff and contains an interesting example of modern thinkers reaching conclusions about a historical figure — even though there is hard evidence that directly contradicts their views. This feature focuses on a piece of Bach material (not a piece of music) that I didn’t know about — with incredible implications for discussions of this cultural giant’s faith. Here is the overture:

Bach biographers don’t have it easy. Has there ever been a composer who wrote so much extraordinary music and left so little documentation of his personal life?


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Inspiring Easter feature idea sent aloft by (what are the odds?) producers at MSNBC

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Inspiring Easter feature idea sent aloft by (what are the odds?) producers at MSNBC

Most media consumers will think of MSNBC as a heavy-breathing, politically and socially liberal cable television news operation — 24/7/365. Nor, so far as The Guy knows, has it shown much interest in religion coverage.

So it was quite the eyebrow-raiser when the March 11 edition of "Morning Joe" aired a relatively long and serious discussion of a theme that journalists may want to grab if they're looking for a promising Easter feature idea.

Adding to the surprises, MSNBC located and featured two intelligent evangelical Protestant leaders of the sort who all too rarely get air time on cable news networks, whether liberal or conservative.

One of this era's most successful pastors, the Rev. Timothy Keller of New York City, appeared to chat about his newly released book "Hope in Times of Fear: The Resurrection and the Meaning of Easter" (Viking). Joining him was journalist-attorney David French of TheDispatch.com, booked this time not as a #NeverTrump scribe but to undergird Keller's case for why modern people can believe in Jesus Christ's literal resurrection and what this means for them.

Adding to the drama, Keller mulled his simultaneous publication of one of those must-read articles, a very personal account for The Atlantic about writing an objective book on life and death during a year when he was coping with his own fatal diagnosis of pancreatic cancer.

As Keller confesses, it's one thing for a pastor to try to help parishioners face terminal illness and quite another for the pastor himself to face the same. In Keller's case, it took months for questions to give way to an even sweeter appreciation of life and of faith.


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Keep the Bible in one hand, a newspaper in the other: Tips for stressed-out preachers

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Keep the Bible in one hand, a newspaper in the other: Tips for stressed-out preachers

“You preach with the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other.”

That’s what Bishop Timothy Clarke, an Ohio senior pastor, said in a recent front-page feature by Danae King, the Columbus Dispatch’s religion writer.

It’s an idea that originated with the late Karl Barth, one of the most influential theologians of the 20th century. Barth put it this way: “Take your Bible and take your newspaper, and read both. But interpret newspapers from your Bible.”

Barth’s concept was a prominent theme of a Facebook Live panel discussion organized this week by the Siburt Institute for Church Ministry at Abilene Christian University in Texas.

“We used to think the hard part was interpreting the Bible, but now we've decided the hard part is interpreting the newspaper,” quipped Randy Harris, one of the co-hosts, along with Carson Reed, of the discussion on “Light, Truth and Fake News.”

The panel — on which I was honored to speak — aimed to help stressed-out ministers make sense of the news in a time of polarization and conspiracy theories.

“Read broadly. Value truth,” urged Cheryl Mann Bacon, a Christian Chronicle correspondent and retired journalism chair at Abilene Christian. “Be compassionate when you share it, but be courageous when you share it.”

Co-host Harris is a longtime preacher and spiritual director who works with the Siburt Institute.

He advised: “Pay attention to local news. We can get caught up with what's happening in Washington, but there's stuff that's happening in your town that needs a response. The second thing is, to ministers: You've made a commitment to read the news through a certain lens, and that's the lens of a crucified and risen Messiah.”


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Ravi Zacharias scandal shows why independent ministries are so difficult to investigate

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Ravi Zacharias scandal shows why independent ministries are so difficult to investigate

If you have followed the Ravi Zacharias story in recent years, you know that it’s a tragedy on multiple levels and a reminder of why repentance is a crucial element of orthodox Christianity.

I followed this story at a distance, because — unlike many religion-beat pros — I had next to zero contact with Zacharias. I interviewed him only once, by telephone, several decades ago. I thought that he was clever, especially when addressing Hollywood’s trendy take on Eastern religions (“Only in America would anyone argue that reincarnation is Good News).”

The stunning, sordid details of his abuse of women make it clear that he suffered from some kind of sexual addiction. And while his mind was razor-sharp when dissecting many questions about moral theology and ethics, he also used his intellectual gifts to justify his own behavior — to the point of saying that God was blessing his actions.

What can we learn from the news coverage of this scandal?

First of all, it’s a good example of what happens when editors allow religion-beat professionals to cover important stories on their beat. Second, the reporting — in Christianity Today and also in the mainstream press — is devastating because it is based on mountains of documentation and on-the-record sources, as well as the testimonies of victims who deserve privacy.

However, there is a third point that must be emphasized, echoing a point frequently made at GetReligion for nearly two decades. I repeat this as a way of stressing one of the biggest challenges facing journalists — even veteran religion-beat pros — covering stories of this kind.

The fall of Zacharias is a perfect example of why it is so difficult to cover independent, non-denominational parachurch ministries (and independent congregations, as well). Nine times out of 10, radically independent religious organizations are only as honest as their charismatic, gifted, rainmaker founders allow them to be. This is true whether we are talking yoga or the prosperity anti-gospel. It was true long ago when I worked with skilled investigative reporters trying to probe the hidden scandals of PTL’s Jim Bakker. Alas, this remains true today.

Hold that thought, because we will come back to it.

Readers who want to know the horrifying details of this case can start with Christianity Today or with The New York Times. Here is the summary material from CT:


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Spot the link between Trump ally Sen. Josh Hawley and hot 5th Century Christian dispute?

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Spot the link between Trump ally Sen. Josh Hawley and hot 5th Century Christian dispute?

THE QUESTION:

How is Trump ally Sen. Josh Hawley linked with 5th Century Christianity’s hottest dispute?

THE RELIGION GUY’S ANSWER:

New York Times contributor Katherine Stewart doesn’t care much for conservative Christians.

Consider the subtitle of her 2012 book “The Good News Club: The Christian Right’s Stealth Assault on America’s Children.” (Actually, these non-political after-school clubs operate openly, and participation is voluntary.) Last year, she wrote the timely “The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism.”

Stewart’s latest Times op-ed article (“The Roots of Josh Hawley’s Rage”) decries U.S. Senator Josh Hawley’s clenched-fist backing for President Trump’s attempt to have Congress overturn the 2020 election that culminated in the U.S. Capitol riot, Trump’s second impeachment and multitudes of criminal investigations.

The controversial 42-year-old is a Stanford and Yale Law alumnus whose rapid rise included clerking for Chief Justice Roberts and just two years as Missouri’s attorney general before winning his U.S. Senate seat. Pundits assume he’ll seek the presidency in 2024 if Trump does not or cannot run.

Hawley tells World magazine he is part of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, he was formerly a staff attorney with the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty and some count him among Capitol Hill’s most devout figures.

Stewart makes the surprising assertion that to understand the senator’s role in the unprecedented furies of recent weeks we must look back 16 centuries to one of the hottest theological disputes in Christian history.


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Could these writings shatter Christian history? True or false, journalists might take a look

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Could these writings shatter Christian history? True or false, journalists might take a look

Let's pretend there's not much news coming out of Washington, D.C and a reporter yearns to cover something different. And what if the press has missed "the biggest biblical discovery to date," indeed, "arguably the most important religious discovery of all time"?

Sounds interesting. And if those lavish promotional claims turn out to be false, that's a story, too.

A friend of The Religion Guy uses the News360.com app, whose algorithms scan 7,000 newspapers and magazines for articles keyed to the individual's interests. This friend's interests include Christian history, and he was alerted to a Jan. 29 article announcing the discovery of ancient documents that "could revolutionize our picture of Christianity."

A seasoned journalist immediately recalls hoaxes of this sort. Leave aside the deceptive history on Christian origins offered as fact in "The Da Vinci Code" novel, a huge 2003 seller that spawned a movie starring Tom Hanks. A claim of proof Jesus Christ was married that emanated from august Harvard Divinity School was debunked. Evangelicals swooned over spurious reports about finding a manuscript of the Gospel of Mark written in the 1st Century. In 2017, The Guy attempted to assess the Shroud of Turin dispute.

The Jan. 29 article wasn't from a recognized scholarly journal or site but CoreSpirit.com, which informs practitioners, entrepreneurs and curiosity-seekers about magic, esoterica, life enhancement nostrums, transcendence and "ancient wisdom."

By the way, this site is potentially useful for media. The Guy bets journalists know nothing about most of the 800-plus topics covered (e.g. global brain, isolation tank, medical intuition, superhuman agility, urine therapy, tongue cutting, wall crawling, you name it).

Core Spirit neglected to tell readers that its news is not new.

The mysterious "Jordanian Codices," a collection of small, bound-together metal tablets, first won publicity in 2011 and mostly in Britain. Though scholars scoffed, there's been lively chatter across the Internet ever since that reporters can plumb to assess story prospects. The history of where these items came from is confused, but they're now being held by Jordan's antiquities department.


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Lost in the digital morgue: David Caleb Cook (1850-1927), founder of a global publishing powerhouse

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Lost in the digital morgue: David Caleb Cook (1850-1927), founder of a global publishing powerhouse

Alicia Fabbre, a freelance writer for the Elgin Courier-News, wrote a lovely story recently about Ramona and Sam Jones, who have rescued a former mansion in that city from a long abandonment.

Fabbre had a more dramatic story to tell but for one considerable detail that did not appear: Who was David Caleb Cook, and how did he afford to build this mansion in 1885?

Yes, there is a religion angle here.

Fabbre referred to Cook only as “a publishing magnate.” Imagine if someone bought the former mansion of the legendary and volcanic Robert R. “Colonel” McCormick and the Elgin Courier-News, which is owned Tribune Publishing, referred to him only as “a former Chicago newspaper editor.”

McCormick’s onetime home, Cantigny, was spared that fate and is under the protective shield of the McCormick Foundation. Still, the comparison is valid for Christians who have worked in Sunday schools that have relied on the extensive curriculum developed by David C. Cook, the global publisher that still bears its founder’s name.

A Courier-News story by Mike Danahey in May 2018 had this minimal detail about Cook:

Born in 1850, David C. Cook founded what would become the nation’s largest interdenominational publishing house. The Cook home is a 12-room mansion that cost $10,000 to build in 1885, the city said. It became a nursing home in 1945, and additions were added over the decades.

It appears the background on Cook’s former mansion may be the victim of morgue decay, in which good details fall to the side based on various reporters’ limits on column inches, or their greater interest in other matters.

Certainly the primary focus of this story belongs on the visionary couple from the suburbs of Atlanta who knew they had found a neglected jewel with an asking price of only $1.


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