Where are the nones and why did they leave Evangelical churches?

I was listening to a Christianity Today Podcast and the guest claims there was a big rise in "nones" beginning in 2016, and he claims it's Trump's fault. Nones don't identify as evangelicals--or any religion. It's the "I'm spiritual, not religious." I listened about 5 minutes and logged off. I assume he's tagging a particularly demographic--millennials and some gen-x--because Pew reported there was no mass departure of White Americans from evangelical Protestantism between 2016 and 2020. Besides, like so many other terms, the word has become almost meaningless and meaning is squishy. They weren't pro-life, they didn't care about gay-marriage, and they weren't particularly sensitive to the needs of the poor unless it was through a government grant for their church body. So the support of the pro-life movement, the biggest rise in income of blacks in 50 years, policies to keep illegals in Mexico, and prison reform meant little to those who rarely attended church opting for yoga classes and mindfulness.

Trump haters/blamers rarely can point to a policy--i.e. that which affects us at our address, only a visceral dislike of his personality and how he threatened to "drain the swamp." Whereas those of us who can't stand Biden know exactly minute by minute what he is doing to tear apart the nation, to drag us into wars while funding our former enemies, to destroy our border and thus the concept of a nation, to enlist us in attack groups of race, sex, class -- ridiculing God's creation and our religion. Let me count the ways . . .

 
Trump tried to transplant a spine into a party that lost theirs. It was messy and painful. Maybe those "nones" (a group which had been growing for two decades before 2016) really had no religion before Trump and just got honest about it? It's so much easier to love the guy fumbling in the basement who is the head of a crime family.

Prodigal evangelicals

 This is an amazing, beautifully articulate testimony about the wokeness in the Christian church.

Prodigal Evangelicalism: A Video Essay | Megan Basham | First Things

Megan Basham describes her experience of conversion into the evangelical church and present ideological pathologies growing within it. She discusses the rise of progressive moralizing and the threat it poses to both the nation and the ecclesial health of the evangelical church.

When Donald Trump spoke to the Catholic Bishops

I missed this story in April 2020. As you'll recall, the white liberal church threw itself into the George Floyd tragedy a month later, eager to move the blame to Trump and all white people for the failings of the Minneapolis Democrat run city and police department. To do this, Democrats/liberals/progressives/socialists had to lionize an ex-con who really hadn't contributed in a positive way to black culture until BLM took up the banner. Anyway, President Donald Trump identified himself as the “best [president] in the history of the Catholic Church” in a conference call for Catholic leaders and educators in late April 2020 where he warned that issues at stake in the upcoming presidential election, particularly on abortion and religious liberty, “have never been more important for the Church.” 

Catholic liberals were spitting fire, and conservative Evangelical Christians were probably shocked and chagrined to see a Protestant president say something good about Catholicism (in an indirect way he was pointing out that Catholics have always had the weakest, poorest, and "least of these" close to the heart of the church).

Looking at the fury from the left since the first leak and then the final decision on Dobbs, we have to say, once again, President Trump was/is right. He's the best President ever in terms of life, religious liberty, and was a gift to the poor and minorities in their climb out of despair and poverty.

We don't even have to wait for history to confirm the President's call (although it was far more shocking than the one they impeached him for). Just go back and read recent government archives, research, documents, newspapers and websites. Just look how quickly the green-goes, border-free advocates, racialist rioters and fossil fuel furies are working to destroy our nation. Listen to them demonize patriots, people of success and merit, love for country and respect for the constitution. It's all there.

You were right again, Mr. President.

Divorce statistics from divorce lawyers

 I was looking for an update on some 2005 divorce statistics from my blog and came across a website for divorce lawyers and these interesting tidbits.  These three professions have the highest rate of divorce, dancers (43), bartenders (38.4) and massage therapists (38.2). These three professions have the lowest rate, clergy (5.61), optometrists (4.01) and agricultural engineers (1.78).

The groups with the most divorces are downscale adults (adults making less than $20,000 (annually)  (39 percent), Baby Boomers (38 percent), those aligned with a non-Christian faith (38 percent), African-Americans (36 percent), and people who consider themselves to be liberal on social and political matters (37 percent).

Among the population segments with the lowest likelihood of having been divorced subsequent to marriage are Catholics (28 percent), evangelicals (26 percent), upscale adults (adults making more than $75000 annually) (22 percent), Asians (20 percent) and those who deem themselves to be conservative on social and political matters (28%).

A lot of other statistics that might surprise you--or not.  https://www.wf-lawyers.com/divorce-statistics-and-facts/

Ohio Right to Life and Title X

 "On Monday, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost filed a joint motion with the U.S. Supreme Court in an effort to keep Title X funds from being used to pay for abortions. Title X funds are designed to support family planning and are currently prohibited from being used to pay for abortions. An executive memorandum by President Biden indicates however, that he will throw out the pro-life protection in Title X and allow abortion to be funded through the program.

Eighteen other states signed on to Attorney General Yost’s motion: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, and West Virginia.

This is what those silly Evangelicals for Biden were upset about.

In what must be the worst reading of political tea leaves ever,

 
"More than 5,000 evangelical pro-lifers signed the Pro-Life Evangelicals for Biden statement, insisting, “Joe Biden’s policies are more consistent with the biblically shaped ethic of life than those of Donald Trump.” They focused on economic issues (the welfare state) that might lead more women to choose life over killing their preborn child." (Catholic Daily)

How could Christians even imagine that after 8 years as Obama's V.P. the only politician (at that time) who was against born alive abortion legislation to save a child's life. A job is always better than welfare, and Trump offered low income women the best possibility for a good life for their children. Some anti-Trumpers will use any excuse to hide their hate. No president reduces welfare ever. What were they thinking?

Catholic Daily continues: "If the leadership of this group feels used and betrayed, they should: they were used and betrayed. It appears that Biden wanted their endorsement to provide cover to pro-life evangelicals and Catholics who had their misgivings about Trump but were also uncomfortable with the Democrats’ full-throated endorsement of abortion. It also appears that Biden had no interest in finding common ground on abortion funding or any other issue."

Evangelicals increasingly follow the mainline churches and the world

“The irony of the reshaping of the spiritual landscape in America is that it represents a post-Christian reformation driven by people seeking to retain a Christian identity,” noted Dr. George Barna, Director of Research at the Cultural Research Center. “Unfortunately, the theology of this reformation is being driven by American culture rather than biblical truth."

Among those associated with evangelical churches.:

--44% claim the Bible is ambiguous in its teaching about abortion

--34% argue that abortion is morally acceptable if it spares the mother from financial or emotional discomfort or hardship

--34% reject the idea of legitimate marriage as one man and one woman

--40% accept lying as morally acceptable if it advances personal interests or protect one’s reputation

--39% identify the people they respect as being only those who have the same beliefs as their own

And it's even higher in charismatic and Pentecostal churches.

 https://www.arizonachristian.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/CRC_AWVI2020_Release11_Digital_04_20201006.pdf  American Worldview Inventory 2020

Hillary Clinton wants the Hispanic vote

But first she wants to kill their babies.  She's pro-choice, pro-abortion for any reason, including gender and disability, and pro-Planned Parenthood which puts their clinics in minority neighborhoods.

Unlike their Catholic compatriots, Hispanic evangelicals tend to skew to the right on several issues that line up squarely with the Republican base, according to data provided to ThinkProgress from the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI). Evangélicos roughly mirror Hispanic Catholics in terms of age and education, but PRRI’s polling showed Latino evangelicals far more likely than the general Latino population to “oppose” or “strongly oppose” legalizing same-sex marriage (66 percent vs. 36 percent) and to say that abortion should be illegal in all instances (42 percent vs. 27 percent). The Pew Research survey found almost identical results.

Most significantly for Republicans, polls show that a solid slice of evangélicos are also uncharacteristically conservative on the most important question in American politics: Party identification. The PRRI survey reported that 21 percent of Hispanic evangelicals say they’re Republicans, a full 10 percent more than the total Hispanic population. (For context, most evangélicos — 41 percent — identify as independents, while 28 affiliate with the Democratic Party.) Pew found an even bolder conservative streak: A full 30 percent of Hispanic evangelical Protestant respondents said they “identify or lean Republican,” compared to 20 percent of Latino Catholic. http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2015/06/16/3668780/hispanic-evangelicals-battle-political-soul-americas-curious-new-swing-vote/

  http://time.com/4342885/donald-trump-immigration-hispanic-evangelicals/

I'm not the only Evangelical without a party or candidate

"There is consternation about the hard line Trump takes on immigrants and about the morality of a thrice-married man who has long bragged about his sexual conquests. But another factor is at work as well: The traditional social and cultural positions that drive many religious conservative voters, including same-sex marriage and abortion, have been cast aside by a candidate who seems to have little interest in fighting the culture wars."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/theres-nobody-left-evangelicals-feel-abandoned-by-gop-after-trumps-ascent/2016/05/08/

"Heather Dreesman said thinking about the election in November makes her feel sick to her stomach. She said she now carries a sense of grief that the country is forsaking its values and feels anguish about what will happen. She would like to see a third-party candidate but doesn’t think it’s a real possibility — meaning she probably won’t vote.

“I hate to make this comparison,” she said. “I really do feel like in the future I would hate to look back and say, ‘I voted for Hitler.’ I feel like that may be what is happening if I vote for Trump.”"

This campaign has been humbling

I don't know about you, but I was too smug about our American legal system and process for electing leaders. I'd look at what Asian countries, Eastern Europe or emerging economies or even Germany in the 1930s elected--crooks, liars, socialists, and haters--and wondered "What were they thinking?" Was their life that miserable that they'd fall for that? It's been a humbling experience watching Republicans destroy the best group they've ever put forward after years of struggle only the have the worst one emerge on top, and then the Democrats fall for 100 year old failed myths and the lies of the queen of corruption. I'm particularly disappointed in those who call themselves "Evangelicals." Is that a box you check or a church you attend? I don't recognize the term anymore.

 http://www.npr.org/2016/02/25/468149440/why-do-evangelicals-support-donald-trump-a-pastor-explains

 http://www.christianpost.com/news/john-piper-finding-inspiration-donald-trump-hillary-clinton-bernie-sande

 http://www.catholic.org/news/national/story.php?id=66759

Pastor Buba (North American Lutheran Church evangelist)

https://vimeo.com/117041982

Always happy to find his program in English—he travels all over the world.

What has Obama done for blacks?

After the election results showed 95% of blacks voted right down racial lines for Obama, someone observed, "But he hasn't done anything for the black community!" Oh, but he has. What do blacks with an unemployment rate of over 14% need most? A job, or course. What has he done for them? Given them free stuff and guaranteed they will be right where he needs them to be while he's off partying with black celebrities at the tippy top of the 1%.

What is harder to imagine is what has he done for evangelical Christians and Roman Catholics.  And yet, many voted for him.  Maybe 50% of Catholics.  They are voting to destroy the finest social system in the world with a network of schools, hospitals, training programs, social workers  through the tearing down of the first amendment rights of all Americans.

Not only have we become America, the land of the takers, but even the givers won’t be allowed to help those in need. The government wants all the power, all the control, all the values.  It’s name is statism.

Faith based initiatives are in for a jolt

Hate to say I told you so, but I told you so. Obama's "common ground" initiative doesn't broaden the base, it narrows it. The new regs will be so sticky, so complex and expensive, to say nothing of forcing Christians to deny the Great Commandment of Christ (which many were doing anyway without help from Obama), that most small ministries won't be able to participate, and only the most liberal, largest most non-evangelical quasi-Christian and Warrenized churches will dabble in government grants. That means more grant money for the ACORNies, pantheistic warmists, and Muslim groups, which of course in the name of diversity, won't be held to the same standard as evangelical Christians.

However, it was a bad idea for churches to become so dependent on government money, and in effect, become an arm of the federal government in housing programs and food distribution plans (my church does both, maybe more). Folks, it's time to get back to saving the world for Jesus instead of the USDA, HHS and HUD.

The Christian bailout of 2008

"If 2008 is remembered as the year of the “bailout,” when the federal government spent billions to rescue the nation’s financial system, it should also be recalled for another kind of bailout—Christians with impeccably pro-life records who suddenly abandoned what they declared to be a sinking ship." Touchstone

Opposing evil and doing good are essential obligations

"Some argue that we should not focus on policies that provide help for pregnant women, but just focus on the essential task of establishing legal protections for children in the womb. Others argue that providing lifeaffirming support for pregnant women should be our only focus and this should take the place of efforts to establish legal protections for unborn children. We want to be clear that neither argument is consistent with Catholic teaching. Our faith requires us to oppose abortion on demand and to provide help to mothers facing challenging pregnancies."
U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops

"Barack Obama and John McCain differ on many important issues about which reasonable people of goodwill, including pro-life Americans of every faith, disagree: how best to fight international terrorism, how to restore economic growth and prosperity, how to distribute the tax burden and reduce poverty, etc.

But on abortion and the industrial creation of embryos for destructive research, there is a profound difference of moral principle, not just prudence. These questions reveal the character and judgment of each man. Barack Obama is deeply committed to the belief that members of an entire class of human beings have no rights that others must respect."
Robert P. George, McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and Director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions, Princeton University

Justice and Redistribution

The Christian evangelical Left parallels the rise of the radical far Left in American politics. That's why I don't see a conflict with calling Obama a Christian and a marxist. I am not one who was surprised that Obama stayed with Wright's church. Like many churches, it runs programs for the poor, such as housing, food, clothing, but it also receives funding from the government to do so. That money comes from you and me in the form of taxes. Sometimes it is a summer lunch program, sometimes it is rehabilitating older housing, or it may be career or job training (or subsidies for barely working). Christians see this as "distributive justice" (or more accurately, redistributing our wealth). There is also a far left wing among mainline protestants and Roman Catholics. Together these three groups are the Religious Left. They all have their own organizations, many of which receive money from the government as well as their denominations to fund their programs and achieve their goals, which are often in line with those of the government.

Justice in the Bible is synonymous with righteousness, which is an attribute of God. Man, made in God's image, was also righteous before the Fall, but now is a sinner and receives Jesus' righteousness by faith. The "good news" includes concern for the whole person, but leftist Christians have distorted the Biblical view with the idea that government needs to redistribute goods and services through taxation to achieve justice. Thus the state can be God's representative on earth.

The following is from Stewardship Journal, Winter 1991, "The Christian Debate over Justice and Rights" by Ronald H. Nash, 29-40.

The most elementary analysis of the Religious Left's writings about justice makes it clear that they are interested almost exclusively in questions of distributive justice. When one's announced intention is to help the poor, it is probably inevitable that one's emphasis will be upon distributing (or rather redistributing) society's wealth. . . Political liberals concerned with distributive justice on the level of an entire society usually try to disguise the fact that the redistribution of a society's holdings they wish to institute must be enacted through coercion, that is, through the state or government forcing people in some way or other.

On several occasions, I have heard my friend Ron Sider give eloquent appeals to rich Christians in America to spread their wealth around to help the poor. I am often mystified as to why Sider fails to tell his audiences that what he desires is for the state or government to effect his desired redistribution of wealth through force, that is, through taxation (the IRS, after all, does not suggest that one make a donation). Some of Sider's followers obviously sense that he is an apologist for higher taxes that will supposedly support greatly expanded liberal social programs. Others seem to miss this obvious point and simply get caught up in the idealism of a noble crusade to help the poor.

Please note the big difference between Christians voluntarily giving their own money to fund programs to help the poor and the quite different situations in which agents of the state take other people's money, keep a large chunk of it to pay their inflated salaries, and use some of what's left to fund counter-productive and self-defeating programs that end up making life even more miserable for the poor. . .

Social or distributive justice as liberals view it is possible only in a society that is controlled from the top down. There must be a central agency with the power to force people to accept the liberals' preferred pattern of distribution. . . What liberals call justice is a setting in which representatives of the state, the most powerful and coercive institution on earth, are empowered continually to take from some in order to give to others, taking care in the process that they keep enough to pay their own salaries. . .

Devotees of liberal "social justice" often fail to see how their position leads to an aggrandizement of state power, how it enslaves people to the state. They too easily overlook the massive threat the institution of the state poses to human liberty. . .

Christian political liberals want the state to use its vast powers of coercion to force everyone in society to help attain the Christian's ends. . . [They] often use the doctrine of Christian stewardship in an attempt to justify their commitment to statism. . . Christian stewardship is perverted into a doctrine that obliges Christians to surrender their judgment, will, and resources to the liberal state which, in the view of the Religious Left, becomes God's surrogate on earth. (p. 31)

Carville on the 2004 loss

I saw this at The Chief Source, a Democrat blog, in November 2004.

MR. CARVILLE: The purpose of a political party in a democracy is to win elections. We're not doing that well enough, and I think that we can't deny that the problem exists. I think we have to confront the problem. And by and large, our message has been we can manage problems, while the Republicans, although they will say we can solve problems, they produce a narrative. We produce a litany. They say, "I'm going to protect you from the terrorists in Tehran and the homos in Hollywood." We say, "We're for clean air, better schools, more health care." And so there's a Republican narrative, a story, and there's a Democratic litany. And, you know, at a point, you look at 45 Senate seats, you look at a lost presidential election, and you say, "We have to rethink this thing." I really believe that.

MR. RUSSERT: But you're suggesting the Democrats lost, that George Bush didn't win.

MR. CARVILLE: Well, I'm suggesting--look, I said both. I gave him enormous credit. I said it was the signature political achievement of my life, but it wasn't just this election--and I think it's an election that people wanted change. I think if we had produced--the party itself--I just don't want to focus on Senator Kerry or his campaign. This is not the first election that we've lost. There's--something is setting in here.

Now, having said that, my friends caution me, and they're right. I mean, 48 percent--I mean, we're not starting in terms of shambles here, but I think this is a message to the Democratic Party: We need to produce a narrative. We need to be more about solving problems as opposed to managing them, and I think it's going to be interesting to see how it comes out.

Now it's the Republicans saying we're for clean air, better schools, and more health care, and the Democrats are for hope and change. They've switched focuses. Democrats decided they don't win with Hollywood and have gone to church. Republicans decided to go to warm and fuzzy specifics that sound good and offer nothing. It worked. Carville is one smart guy (he married a Republican). At that time (November 2004), Obama was preferred by 3% of Democrats, Hillary Clinton by 25%.

I watched all those weepy Democrats and sad faced media-folk in the post 2004 election analyses. They really focused on religion and cultivating the grass roots as the keys to winning (so long Hollywood celebs--see you after the election). And it worked--at least in Ohio--in 2006. We elected a former Methodist minister as our next governor. Very pious man, nice looking, good machine. But it really grates on my nerves to see him in ads for the state lottery.

Evangelicals have helped. The "emergent church" movement has decided the message of the cross isn't nearly as much fun as social feel-good topics and flashy worship services with loud music. So we can't give the Democrats all the credit.

Not much new here. Move along.

Emergent or emerging, we were doing this EC stuff 35 years ago at another church--before we were believers. We sat in the dark, stared at candles, listened to strange music with no theology, and talked churchy-talk and psycho-babble. Nothing or little about Jesus. Just churchiness. Community. Feel-good service. Relevancy to the culture. I'm really surprised that young Christians (although their Pied Pipers aren't all that young--aging boomers) are falling for this. PBS seems to get it better than some evangelical pastors. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzZ14Sk9u9Y

4000

Everybody talkin' 'bout peace ain't passin' it

Sunday I had the opportunity to hear a sermon by Tony Campolo, professor emeritus of Sociology at Eastern University and an ordained minister in the American Baptist Church, at Lakeside Sunday service at Hoover Auditorium (I'd already attended worship on the lakefront). Regardless of what you think of his theology or the larger umbrella of "the emergent church" you'll never hear a more entertaining Christian. He even jokes about being a bald guy with a son named Bart and a daughter named Lisa. He's a member of a predominantly African American congregation, and can preach it with patois better than anyone I know. If you were to hear it on a recording, you'd never guess he's an Italian American.


I always listen carefully for the gospel--not the social, feel-good, do-gooder peace and justice gospel, but the real Jesus-died-on-the-cross-for-your-sins, because without that you're just kiddin' around, giving people false hope that they can get into the kingdom with good works. And he did mention it--at the end of the sermon. If you're in a liturgical church that sings traditional hymns and has a lesson from the NT and OT, you can fill in what the preacher misses. But why should you need to?

Thirty some years ago I had the impression that Prof. Campolo and I were on the same page. Of course, I'd been a works-Christian most of my life before 1974, so maybe it was just that with the fresh blush and bloom of the Gospel, I didn't notice that some people who called themselves Evangelicals had become bored with the Good News of Jesus and wanted to "move on." Or maybe he came to the conclusion that there were no unbelievers in the pew. Wrong. If the folks aren't saved, Tony, there's not much point to a stunning sermon about the spirit.