Is Religion in America Declining
nBrendon Williams
3/22/2012
Essay 2
Is Religion In the America Declining? In this day and age the amount that religion is present in everyday life is very questionable. It seems that in the past few decades that religion has taken a back seat to science and other relevant things. All though religion has by no means been terminated, you could definitely say that it is not as practiced as it used to be. One study by the Barna Group for the American Bible Society found that Americans are losing interest in the Bible. In just one year, the number of people who said they read the Bible to be “closer to God” dropped 9 percentage points from 64% in 2011 to 55% in 2012. This is just one study that shows that Americans may be slowly be losing interest in religion. Religion was once a huge part of the average American family. Attending church service was a routine. This isn’t necessarily different during present times but you could argue that the amount of families that attend church has decreased. “Between 2001 and 2008, the U.S. Census Bureau reported that membership in congregational churches (like Zion) dropped from about 1.3 million in the U.S. to about 736,000.” <Josh Rhoten: WyomingNews.com, Nov. 13, 2011>. All though this doesn’t essentially mean that Americans are becoming less religious, it is obvious that Americans are less devoted to attending church than they used to be. It is hard to say the direct cause of the absence of many religious families in church but many would argue that people don’t make Church a priority and are too busy with their everyday lives to make time to attend church. ”…whether it is a major change such as a drop in the rates of religious affiliation or a small change such as the number of Americans who say they believe in God declining from 99 percent in the 1950s to 92 percent in 2008, no indicator of traditional religious belief or practice is going up” <David Briggs- HuffingtonPost.com, 2011> The reason for this
3/22/2012
Essay 2
Is Religion In the America Declining? In this day and age the amount that religion is present in everyday life is very questionable. It seems that in the past few decades that religion has taken a back seat to science and other relevant things. All though religion has by no means been terminated, you could definitely say that it is not as practiced as it used to be. One study by the Barna Group for the American Bible Society found that Americans are losing interest in the Bible. In just one year, the number of people who said they read the Bible to be “closer to God” dropped 9 percentage points from 64% in 2011 to 55% in 2012. This is just one study that shows that Americans may be slowly be losing interest in religion. Religion was once a huge part of the average American family. Attending church service was a routine. This isn’t necessarily different during present times but you could argue that the amount of families that attend church has decreased. “Between 2001 and 2008, the U.S. Census Bureau reported that membership in congregational churches (like Zion) dropped from about 1.3 million in the U.S. to about 736,000.” <Josh Rhoten: WyomingNews.com, Nov. 13, 2011>. All though this doesn’t essentially mean that Americans are becoming less religious, it is obvious that Americans are less devoted to attending church than they used to be. It is hard to say the direct cause of the absence of many religious families in church but many would argue that people don’t make Church a priority and are too busy with their everyday lives to make time to attend church. ”…whether it is a major change such as a drop in the rates of religious affiliation or a small change such as the number of Americans who say they believe in God declining from 99 percent in the 1950s to 92 percent in 2008, no indicator of traditional religious belief or practice is going up” <David Briggs- HuffingtonPost.com, 2011> The reason for this
Cited: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-shook-phd/churchgoers-now-a-minorit_b_1537108.html http://www.americanhumanist.org/HNN/details/2012-04-the-state-of-religion-declining-belief-in-god-worldw http://www.wyomingnews.com/articles/2011/11/13/news/01top%2011-13-11.txt http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-briggs/is-religion-in-america-in_b_843801.html