Fundamentalism and the Decline of Christianity

The cover story in The New York Times Magazine for March 27, 2005, featured an Assembly of God megachurch in Surprise, Arizona, about 45 minutes northwest of downtown Phoenix. The pastor, Lee McFarland, founded Radiant Church in 1996, and now weekend attendance has now reached 5,000 people. Impressive? Yes, until you stop to think what the impact of this kind of Christianity has been on the Christian enterprise as a whole. Many people have failed to realize that the success of fundamentalism in this country has been gained at a terrible price, the loss of respect for Christianity among people who want to think for themselves.

The story of Surprise, Arizona, is a good example of what has been happening around the country. The author of the Times story, Jonathan Mahler, notes that Surprise, a town of 80,000 people, has 27 other churches, but he dismisses them with the observation that "none of them are growing at anything that approaches the pace of Radiant." He does not supply statistics – maybe they are not available – but we can make some guesses based on national averages. Half of the churches in the United States have fewer than 100 members, and only 10% have more than 400 members, which puts them in the class of "large churches". Let us give those 27 churches the benefit of the doubt and assume that on the average they are large churches with a membership of 500, for a total of 13,500. If you add in Radiant’s 5,000 members, you will see that 18,500 church members are the most you are likely to find in Surprise. On the basis of my informed guesses, at least 73% of the Surprise citizens have no church connection at all.

Would other churches in town have better luck if Radiant were not giving Christianity a reputation for being anti-intellectual, anti-scientific, anti-gay, and anti-choice in medical decisions such as the end of life and the termination of pregnancy? No one can say for sure, but the statistics collected by the National Council of Churches and various polling agencies suggest that while groups such as the Assemblies of God and the Southern Baptists grew rapidly in the latter half of the 20th century, church membership as a whole declined. The so-called main line churches suffered serious losses, but the most significant trend may have been among those who claim no religious affiliation. In 1952, only 2% of the people polled claimed no connection with organized religion. By 1990, the figure had climbed to 10%. According to a survey conducted by the City University of New York, by 2001, 19% of the people in this county did not identify themselves with any particular religion. According to this survey, during the same period, 1990 to 2001, the percentage of Americans identifying themselves as Christians declined from 86% to 77%.

From my college course in logic, I am aware of the weakness in any argument based on post hoc ergo propter hoc, after this therefore because of this, so I will admit that I cannot prove the decline in American Christianity as a whole is entirely the result of fundamentalism’s success in winning converts. I do think, however, that in the minds of most people who read newspapers and magazines the word "Christian" has become identified with extreme conservatism. Only a generation ago, according to most dictionaries, you could call someone a Christian and mean a decent, respectable human being. Today, if you identify someone as a Christian, most of the people I know will assume that you mean a narrow-minded, self-righteous bigot.

The negative connotation has made considering Christianity as an option unlikely for many well-informed people. To get their attention, churches reaching out to them can never use the word "Christian" without a qualifying adjective, such as progressive. Even when we do, we have a hard time convincing the skeptical that we are different from the politically influential right-wing Christians they read about in the news. Is it any wonder that a shrinking number of people in America are willing to call themselves Christians?

Comments

[MBH]

Hi,
I really appreciate this writing. I had just read an article on Slate, "In Theocracy They Trust" which I found extremely depressing. At least I'm not alone in my disgust for those the media refers to as Christians. Personally I have decided that I am a Follower of Jesus, as the term Christian is tainted. Besides the religious right doesn't seem to find much Biblical basis from the teachings of Jesus, they seem to prefer the Old Testament and Paul.
Thanks again for a thought provoking article.
MBH

[Nige B.]

I haven't been a Christian in any sense for decades. Partly that's because I haven't been able to reconcile what most Christian "authorities" seem to say with what my reason tells me of the world (or, actually, with my plain old common sense). Partly it's also because I'm queer, and queer and Christianity just never seem to mix (from either point of view). However, just before his consecration as Bishop, I sent Gene Robinson a good wishes email. I was hugely surprised to get a reply. I was even more surprised at the wisdom of what he wrote in just a couple of sentences. Since then I've been exploring why someone as wise as Bishop Robinson can be a Christian. Now I've come across this web site and have breathed a great sigh of relief, since I've been reading right-wing evangelical Bible commentaries recently which had been confirming that Christianity really wasn't for me... Your post has further pulled me back from that. I may not be ready for a long while yet to commit to Christianity, but at least I know there's somewhere for me when I do.

[Roy Dhanda]

What does TCPC stand for? Could you please enlighten

[Adam]

The decline of Christianity is speeding up and the number of people willing to nominally follow this faith is falling fast! With in the next 100-150 years Christianity will have lost all its political power and a vast majority of its cultural power as well. Church buildings will be torn down or converted into better uses. Most western peoples will scoff at the very idea of “One God” and find only scorn for the Bible/Torah/Koran. It may well take a full200- 300 years but Judeo-Christianity will have all but died and then one day it will die. The death of the One God may take longer then most would like but we may rest assured that he is in fact dying.
Adam

[RAMAN]

THESE NONSENCE CHURCHES ARE CREATING HAVOC IN INDIA, SURPRISINGLY THESE ARE GETTING ENOUGH LOT (NO FOOD AND MONEY, SO EASY TO CONVERT), CREATING NONSENCE COMMUNAL UNSTABILITY!!!!!!!!!!! PLEASE HELPOUT.

["quantumbeer"]

I would love for Christianity to die off, but not take any civilization down with it.

[Virtual Mystik]

A new age is dawning, 2000 years and no Jesus, it is becoming apparent he was an apocalyptic thinker, wise but self absorbed, Jerusalem is not the center of the earth, the earth is not the center of the universe, and Heaven is not up. 'Heaven lies within you' he said before coming back from the dead and shooting off into space:) Writing had been invented, why would only four people report such an incredible event? He is supposed to have been seen by thousands of people. And those four incredibly seem to be his disciples, who were understandably angry for the killing of a good man of God.

[Will Kohli]

Think again, Jesus words, "I SAY ONTO THEE, THE STARS WILL FALL TO THE GROUND" & "ALL OF THOSE ALIVE WILL LIVE TO SEE ME COMING DOWN FROM THE CLOUDS ON THE RIGHT HAND OF GOD". How many more Millenia will pass, before the TRUTH dawns! JESUS WAS LYING!I might talk that way too, if I was about to be nailed, you might too.

[Will Kohli]

"STARS WILL FALL TO THE GROUND" ! er, those stars are galaxies, each with 300 Million Suns in each. And they will fall to the ground on this miniscule planet! "HEAVEN AND EARTH WILL PASS AWAY, BUT MY WORDS WILL NOT PASS AWAY". er, the only thing that passed away was Jesus. No Romans saw him come back, No jews saw him come back, AND 7 OF HIS OWN DISCIPLES DID NOT EVEN CARE TO WRITE ABOUT IT. That just leaves Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. And the joke they played in writing before they died. Jesus had'nt returned as he promised! Ultimately by 20,000 CE TRUTH will inevitably have to rule.

[Lee Picton]

Count me as one of the fallen away. My own father was an Episcopalian priest who acknowledged his atheism at the end of his life. I was unencumbered by irrational belief since the age of seven, when I was pretty sure it was all bullshit, but as it was religion that put food on my table, I knew enough to keep my mouth shut. My husband, a nominally churched individual, admitted he didn't believe either, and our child was never indoctrinated. So that's three fewer in the clutches of insanity.

[Windstorm]

I don't direspect Christians or anything but I can't stand the fact that they teach a "no tolerance" of other belief systems. That ain't fair at all how they judge people. Good ridance, sheesh!

[Robert]

made it .All information on this site is represented for users. A site isw

[Jason]

Reading this gives me hope. While I doubt I will get to see Christianity completely marginalized during my lifetime, I really wish I could. There are many decent Christians, and the few who have actually read the whole bible, I commend, as most only turn to the page their pastor/priest tells them to, on Sundays, yet dare to call themselves "Christians." As a former devout Christian, turned angry, rebellious Satanist, turned nonbeliever tired of religious propaganda, I have a deep-seated hatred for any monotheistic belief system, as monotheism automatically implies "my god is right, and your god is wrong; end of discussion". We need to follow in the footsteps of Nietzsche and move "Beyond Good and Evil".