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Monday, July 9

Membership in America's Christian churches: Is someone reading the data wrong?

H/T Rush Limbaugh Show July 9; segment is approx. 2 hrs 40 minutes into the show. From Rush's discussion:
  • Percentage of Americans attending Christian church once a week or more has held steady for more than half a century.
  • Membership is down at certain churches but those members have transferred to other churches.
  • Religion in America presents a striking exception to the increasing secularization of many Christian societies (I'd assume in Europe).
Here's a link to the report from CBN, dated January 24, 2018, which discusses the Harvard/Indiana Bloomington universities research that Rush quoted:   

Surprising Harvard Study: American religion persistently and exceptionally intense.

Rush might have mentioned the study today because today's Drudge Report carries an alarming headline from a July 9 report at Infowars titled:

MASS EXODUS FROM THE CHURCH: THE PERCENTAGE OF YOUNG ADULTS WITH NO RELIGIOUS AFFILIATION HAS NEARLY QUADRUPLED SINCE 1986
"With each passing year, the percentage of Americans that claim no religious affiliation is growing, and this trend is especially pronounced among our young people."

Not necessarily an outright contradiction in the two findings, but the second report is based at least in part on polling data from Pew Research, which, well, without casting aspersion, I always read their polls and data interpretations with special caution.

If the results from the Harvard study are reliable, then who'd want to perpetuate a myth that Americans in droves have been losing their faith in Christianity?

I can think of plenty of people who would do such a thing with help from the mainstream media, and so can Rush and CBN.  But in brief, suspicion would fall first on self-termed Leftists who see Christianity as their competition.

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