Vanishing Christianity
by Rebecca Bynum (Oct. 2008)
In Pakistan, for example, he was “surprised by how the extremely small Christian minority there is perceived as so deeply threatening by an overwhelming Muslim majority which ought to be more confident and generous about its identity.”[1]
“What Americans Really Believe,” a comprehensive new study released by Baylor University yesterday, shows that traditional Christian religion greatly decreases belief in everything from the efficacy of palm readers to the usefulness of astrology. It also shows that the irreligious and the members of more liberal Protestant denominations, far from being resistant to superstition, tend to be much more likely to believe in the paranormal and in pseudoscience than evangelical Christians.
The Gallup Organization, under contract to Baylor’s Institute for Studies of Religion, asked American adults a series of questions to gauge credulity. Do dreams foretell the future? Did ancient advanced civilizations such as Atlantis exist? Can places be haunted? Is it possible to communicate with the dead? Will creatures like Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster someday be discovered by science?
The answers were added up to create an index of belief in occult and the paranormal. While 31% of people who never worship expressed strong belief in these things, only 8% of people who attend a house of worship more than once a week did.
Even among Christians, there were disparities. While 36% of those belonging to the United Church of Christ, Sen. Barack Obama’s former denomination, expressed strong beliefs in the paranormal, only 14% of those belonging to the Assemblies of God, Sarah Palin’s former denomination, did. In fact, the more traditional and evangelical the respondent, the less likely he was to believe in, for instance, the possibility of communicating with people who are dead.
This is not a new finding. In his 1983 book “The Whys of a Philosophical Scrivener,” skeptic and science writer Martin Gardner cited the decline of traditional religious belief among the better educated as one of the causes for an increase in pseudoscience, cults and superstition. He referenced a 1980 study published in the magazine Skeptical Inquirer that showed irreligious college students to be by far the most likely to embrace paranormal beliefs, while born-again Christian college students were the least likely.
Surprisingly, while increased church attendance and membership in a conservative denomination has a powerful negative effect on paranormal beliefs, higher education doesn’t. Two years ago two professors published another study in Skeptical Inquirer showing that, while less than one-quarter of college freshmen surveyed expressed a general belief in such superstitions as ghosts, psychic healing, haunted houses, demonic possession, clairvoyance and witches, the figure jumped to 31% of college seniors and 34% of graduate students.
We can’t even count on self-described atheists to be strict rationalists. According to the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life’s monumental “U.S. Religious Landscape Survey” that was issued in June, 21% of self-proclaimed atheists believe in either a personal God or an impersonal force. Ten percent of atheists pray at least weekly and 12% believe in heaven.[2]
this speech delivered in 2006 on religion:
After all, the problems of poverty and racism, the uninsured and the unemployed, are not simply technical problems in search of the perfect ten point plan. They are rooted in both societal indifference and individual callousness – in the imperfections of man.
Solving these problems will require changes in government policy, but it will also require changes in hearts and a change in minds. I believe in keeping guns out of our inner cities, and that our leaders must say so in the face of the gun manufacturers’ lobby – but I also believe that when a gang-banger shoots indiscriminately into a crowd because he feels somebody disrespected him, we’ve got a moral problem. There’s a hole in that young man’s heart – a hole that the government alone cannot fix.
[3]
As a nonbeliever, I am happy to withdraw any formal claim to the United States being a “nation of nonbelievers” if I must do so in order to prevent, in the slightest way, recognition being given to this nation being “also…a Muslim nation.” And I suspect that many Jews, many Buddhists, many Hindus, would be happy to do the same.
In any case, as a matter of history — and what is a nation if not that nation’s history? — the United States was founded by, settled by, developed by, Christians or those who thought of themselves, in some cases, as embodiments of the Hebrews, building Zion on a Hill in, of all places, the Massachusetts Bay Colony (for more on this, read Oscar Handlin). It is truthful to call this nation “Judeo-Christian” in its origins and its mental makeup; it is untruthful to claim otherwise.[4]
This was now the third time Jesus appeared to his disciples after he was raised from the dead.
(Peter had thrice denied Jesus during his trials.)
16 Again Jesus said, “Simon son of John, do you truly love me?”
He answered, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.”
Jesus said, “Take care of my sheep.”
17 The third time he said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?”
Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, “Do you love me?” He said, “Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you.”
[5]
Neither politics, economics nor social reform were part of the Master’s explicit mandate for his followers. One can only hope that the churches which proudly bear his name, might humbly begin to comprehend his words and pay heed to his advice, leaving politics at the church door.
[1] “The Archbishop of Canterbury” interview with Sarah Joseph in Emel magazine Nov. 2007
[2] Hemingway, Molly Zeigler “Look Who’s Irrational Now” Wall Street Journal September 19, 2008
[3] Obama, Barack “Call to Renewal Keynote Address” Washington D.C. June 28, 2006
[4] Fitzgerald, Hugh “America Is Not ‘Also A Muslim Nation’” The Iconoclast, New English Review, June 24, 2008
[5] Bible, New International Version, John 21, 14-18
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