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Pew Research Center projects that Christians will be a minority group in America by 2070, and there is one major factor that is contributing to that statement: shifting cultural values.
Theology and sociology professor Stephen Bullivant told Grid news recently that young adults are spearheading a mass exodus from the church as a kind of “cultural whiplash” from religion to secularism. Bullivant said this trend has hit the United States much faster than it has in other parts of the world.
“Each person has a complex story, and we need to recognize the personal journey,” Bullivant, who recently wrote a book titled “Noverts: The Making of Ex-Christian America,” told Grid.
Bullivant is a practicing Catholic who teaches at St. Mary’s University in London and the University of Notre Dame in Sydney, Australia.
Pew Research points out that, since the 1990s, large numbers of Americans have left Christianity to join the growing ranks of U.S. adults who describe their religious identity as atheist, agnostic or “nothing in particular.”
This accelerating trend is reshaping the U.S. religious landscape, and it gives a bleak glimpse into the future of what religion in America will look like 50 years from now.
The Pew Research Center has published several intriguing hypothetical scenarios describing how the U.S. religious landscape might change over the next half century.
The report estimates that, in 2020, 64% of Americans, including children, were Christian. People who are religiously unaffiliated, sometimes called “religious none’s,” accounted for 30% of the U.S. population. All other religions—including Jews, Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists—total about 6%.
By 2021, Pew reports, 42% of young adults, compared with 29% of all adults, weren’t religiously affiliated. Bullivant says that the largest demographic of what sociologists are labeling as “nonverts”—people who are ditching Christianity—will raise their children as “none’s.”
Bullivant says a tiny percentage of “noverts” return to religion while none’s rarely embrace religion at any point of their lives.
“When people do nonvert, they tend to do it in their early to mid-20s,” Bullivant said.
So, why is this happening now? Bullivant says you can’t simply blame shifting political views.
Bullivant told Grid news that there are three reasons for the mass exodus that began in 20th century culture: the Cold War, 9/11 and the Internet.
“The generation born after the height of the Cold War—in the early to mid 1980s—didn’t grow up with propaganda and blacklist fears,” Bullivant said from a secular point of view. “So, there is a safe space for the idea of a nonreligious life to open up.
“When 9/11 happened, then you have the new atheism with many prominent people coming out publicly questioning faith in a higher being. They opened up a nonreligious space. And, of course, the Internet.”
The Internet brought about a major shift in cultural in cultural values, giving anyone access to people who questioned their faith. Bullivant said he saw this particularly when interviewing ex-Mormons and ex-evangelicals.
“If you’re raised in small-town Texas or Idaho and everyone you know is some kind of Christian, you’re kind of in a bubble,” Bullivant said. “And then with the Internet, you start getting support groups online with thousands of members, and that helps erode those bubbles.”
There is only one thing that can stop this trend, and that’s a Third Great Awakening, which many kingdom leaders believe is coming to America very soon.
“The mighty God is creating people to turn the tide of wickedness,” says evangelist Mario Murillo. “He doesn’t care about your age or your education. He searches for someone who is travailing over the evil, and who will die without power and purpose. They want to be in the fight—and they want to be in the thick of it.
“The Holy Spirit is energizing you to take a giant leap out of dead church life. You are about to make a courageous declaration of war on the godless ideologies that are destroying our nation. You and I will see a harvest of lost souls. We will carry the gospel to those most victimized by America’s leftist plunge.” {eoa}
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Shawn A. Akers is the online editor at Charisma Media.
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