Since 1990, the percentage of unchurched adults in America has risen from 30% to 43% of the population. Even as this segment has grown, has their profile changed?
With the aid of more than two decades of tracking research””a sort of cultural time-lapse photography””Barna Group has discovered real and significant shifts in unchurched attitudes, assumptions, allegiances and behaviors. We’ve identified five trends in our research that are contributing to this increase in the churchless of America.
This new study of the unchurched population comes in conjunction with the release of Churchless, a new book from veteran researchers George Barna and David Kinnaman. Churchless draws on more than two decades of tracking research and more than 20 nationwide studies of the unchurched.
Parts of this report are badly phrased, but the report, if I understand it correctly, seems to say that 18% of the unchurched cite ‘violence in the name of Christ’ as a turn-off factor. Well, yes. But I wonder what they would cite as examples? Whenever people tell me that religion is a source of violence I ask for examples from Christianity in recent times. Usually they struggle to find an answer.
Or they will cite the OT conquest of Canaan.
Or the Crusades. Or the Spanish Inquisition. Or the burning of witches. Or The Thirty Years’ War (1618-1848) between Catholics and Protestants in Europe, etc. However, one reason why so few people can actually cite examples is because so many adults, especially in America, are appallingly ignorant of history. Of any kind.
However, the point is that when people cite a reason for their objections to Christianity, or institutional religion of any sort, that isn’t grounded in evidence (known data), that is a clear sign of prejudice, i.e., a bias that is no less real or significant for not being based on facts. We really are dealing with a disturbing increase in anti-Christian prejudice in the Global North.
I would be interested in reading this latest Barna megastudy, Churchless. However, one of my reservations about most of the Barna research that I’ve seen is that it’s presented too simplistically, in a perhaps futile effort to get more people to pay attention. For example, although this summary notes the striking differences between generations of Americans, with alarming signs that the younger you are, the more likely you are to be secularized and alienated from the Church, there are no indications in this report about regional and ethnic variations in the data. Those differences are often highly significant.
Bottom line: We have a HUGE challenge on our hands. And it’s getting steadily worse, as Western/Global North societies become ever more secularized, pluralistic, postmodern, and cynical. We need to pay careful attention to research like this that can help us learn how outsiders perceive us and how we might best serve and reach them in Christ’s name.
David Handy+