Americans Not Losing Their Religion,

[eagle_eye222001]

Interesting article. Dispels the idea that many change religion because of the sex abuse scandals, however it shows that many change religions for not theologically reasoning something out, but rather finding something that agrees with them. What I think goes first, and what God thinks goes second.

[url="http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/04/27/changing.religion.study/index.html"]http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/04/27/changing....tudy/index.html[/url]

[i] (CNN) -- Ingrid Case was a devoted church-goer as a child, not only attending Sunday school, but also serving as an acolyte at her Episcopalian church in Greeley, Colorado.
More than half of American adults have changed religion in their lives, according to a new survey.

More than half of American adults have changed religion in their lives, according to a new survey.

"Basically, it's the priest's assistant," she explained. "You carry a cross in front of them, get the things they need to perform the service, scurrying around doing what they need."

But after college, Case drifted away. She didn't feel like she fit in socially at the Episcopalian church in Princeton, New Jersey, and found herself uncomfortable with some of its theology.

"I began to see there were some things I wasn't able to get on board with fully. I don't like the traditional Episcopalian focus on the afterlife," she said.

Today she's a Quaker.

She got involved with the Society of Friends, as the denomination is formally known, through the man who later became her husband, Nat Case. He wasn't raised a Quaker either, she said, though he went to a Quaker-run boarding school as a child.

Her shift in religion was gradual, said Case, 41, a freelance writer and editor in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

"It wasn't so much 'You people stink and I am out of here,' as 'I like this better and this is what I want to do.' "

Case isn't alone. More than half of American adults have changed religion in their lives, a huge new survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life found. And there is no discernible pattern to the change, just "a free for all," one of the lead researchers told CNN.

"You're seeing the free market at work," said Gregory Smith, a research fellow at the Pew Forum. "If people are dissatisfied, they will leave. And if they see something they like better, they will join it."

Many people switch because they move to a new community, and others because they marry someone of a different faith, he said.

Some don't like their ministers or pastors; some like the pastor at another church better.

And many people list more than one reason for changing, Smith said.

"The reasons people change religions are as diverse as the religious landscape itself," he told CNN by phone.

Some factors that might be expected to drive people away from religion -- such as sex abuse scandals in the Catholic Church, or a belief that science "disproves" religion -- actually play a very small role, the study suggests.

"I've been struck by the very large number across all the different groups who say they just gradually drifted away. Not all of this is the product of carefully considered, conscious decision-making that happens at a specific point in time," Smith said.

Case left the Episcopal Church at a time of huge turmoil within the denomination over whether women could be priests, she remembered, but that wasn't a factor in her decision.

"There was a gradual sense of, 'Hey, that pair of shoes fits better,' " she said.

The number of people who have changed religion is much higher than previously thought, the new report suggests. A Pew Forum study released last year concluded that just over one in four Americans had switched.

Even that lower number was considered "striking," the Pew Forum said, and the latest research suggests it was a serious underestimate.

More than four in 10 American adults are no longer members of the religion they were brought up in, while about one in 10 changed religion, then went back to the one they left, the study found. Just under five in 10 -- 47 percent -- have never changed faith.

Some have switched more than once, and a small number have changed three times or more, according to the study.

The survey supported a study released last month in that it found about 16 percent of Americans are not affiliated with any religion. The American Religious Identification Survey, from Trinity College in Connecticut, found the number to be about 15 percent.

But Smith warned against labeling those people "secular."

"Upwards of one-third of newly unaffiliated people say they just haven't found the right religion yet," Smith said.

And many people who had no religion as children later join one, he said.

"More than half the people who are raised unaffiliated are now affiliated," he said. "More than half [of those people] say they joined their current faith in part because they felt called by God to do so."

"Just because a people is part of a particular group at this point in time, or a part of no religion, doesn't mean they are going to stay that way forever," said Smith.

Mark Silk, a professor of religion in public life at Trinity College, cautioned against assuming the Pew study was uncovering a new trend.

"The sense that there is a huge amount of flux where there was not before is not accurate," he told CNN by phone. "In the 19th century there was a huge amount of switching around and the establishment of new denominations."

Smith admitted the Pew Forum study could not show much about the past.

"There have been studies that have been done before, but it's hard to make an apples-to-apples comparison," he said.

That said, the fact that most people who switch religions do so before they are 24, combined with the finding that older people as well as younger people have changed, suggests to Smith that the trend has been going on for some time, he said.
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"If I'm 65 and I changed religion at 24, I changed 40 years ago," he pointed out. "It's not a new phenomenon."

"Faith in Flux: Changes in Religious Affiliation in the U.S.," is based on 2,867 new telephone interviews with people who participated in the Pew Forum's "U.S. Religious Landscape Survey," which was released last year.
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[tinytherese]

I'm not surprised by much of this actually.

[Vincent Vega]

Changing it often?
I would be part of the statistic, having converted at a young age.
However, I don't intend to ever change it again (I'll eat my words if I do). Regardless, I don't think that converting once should be considered changing it often.

[mmc4]

[quote name='tinytherese' post='1851024' date='Apr 27 2009, 10:45 PM']I'm not surprised by much of this actually.[/quote]


I'm with you.

[unloud]

I suppose I am a part of that trend.... but changing my faith from Atheist to Catholic seems more like coming to religion and not really changing.

[Kurall_Creator]

A lot of people want God to always agree with them, which I find kinda humourous. I can't count the times God spiritually corrected me for doing something. He loves to chastise the children he loves, so I gratefully accept it.

However, at the same time, if you find in the spirit, certain teachings don't jive with you, than, it is your duty, listening to the spirit, to stand out from amongst them and be separate from them.

There's a reason why I don't get involved in many Protestant Churches, because most have become a cesspool of the prosperity gospel, and the pre-trib rapture garbage, and nothing about living a holy life before God.

There are few ministries that talk about repentance and the 10 commandments anymore. Fortunately, there are a few - like the Way of the Master Ministries - that do. They are a great ministry, focusing on the 10 commandments and living a holy life before God through repentance, and trusting the salvation Jesus wrought on the cross. He gets a thumbs up, because he is truly passionate about God, and I never got the impression he is doing anything else but relaying the Gospel with integrity in his heart.

I wouldn't mind learning about the teachings of the CC, but I am not looking to convert to anything, because I don't know if I need leadership to know that I have to live my life as a sacrifice before God, like Jesus did. The ministry of God is to prepare the flock to meet the needs of the world. Well, I already am living to meet the needs of the world.

Edited April 30, 2009 by Kurall_Creator

[SaintOlaf]

[quote name='Kurall_Creator' post='1852765' date='Apr 30 2009, 12:31 AM']A lot of people want God to always agree with them, which I find kinda humourous. I can't count the times God spiritually corrected me for doing something. He loves to chastise the children he loves, so I gratefully accept it.

However, at the same time, if you find in the spirit, certain teachings don't jive with you, than, it is your duty, listening to the spirit, to stand out from amongst them and be separate from them.

There's a reason why I don't get involved in many Protestant Churches, because most have become a cesspool of the prosperity gospel, and the pre-trib rapture garbage, and nothing about living a holy life before God.[/quote]

How far can you take that individualistic approach though. If you continually deem yourself to be the correct interpreter and the litmus test for doctrine and teachings, can you ever truly expect to find somewhere that you agree with? Do you settle for somewhere that you have some disagreements with? At what cost?

I would put forth that the individualistic approach you lined out there is not Biblical at all. Christ, in praying for His Church in John 17 said:

[quote]20 "I pray not only for them, but also for those who will believe in me through their word,
21 so that they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, that the world may believe that you sent me.
22 And I have given them the glory you gave me, so that they may be one, as we are one,[/quote]

Jesus and the Father are not divided on doctrine, there is no individualism there. We need to approach doctrine in the same manner, perhaps WE are not the litmus test for it, perhaps we need to subject ourselves to an authority.

But which one?

[unloud]

[quote name='SaintOlaf' post='1852807' date='Apr 29 2009, 10:54 PM']How far can you take that individualistic approach though.

<snip>

We need to approach doctrine in the same manner, perhaps WE are not the litmus test for it, perhaps we need to subject ourselves to an authority.

But which one?[/quote]

The way I see it is that the individualistic approach is only half of the answer. Yes, we need to listen to out hearts but we also need to challenge our beliefs like a hammer tempers a sword.

One way to do that could be done by trying to relate to other cultures and other religions. Another way is by examining ourselves and taking to heart the parts of our Church's teachings that we don't agree with or carry out %100.

In doing that and seeking constant communication with God we allow ourselves to find His place for us and bring ourselves closer to His image in us.

It's a constant journey for everyone, and I think that's why people keep jumping around from place to place looking for answers. We seek peace with God but often in our humanity we are unable to recognize His goal for us and His constant call for us to come home.

[Archaeology cat]

I'm part of this trend, then. I was raised Southern Baptist, went to a Methodist church in college and for a little while after, then was received into the Catholic Church. And I certainly don't plan on switching again.

Edited April 30, 2009 by Archaeology cat

[VoTeckam]

I read a book afew years ago about something similar. Have any of you read "The new Faithful?" It is about catholic youth responding to their parent's apathy and "progressiveness" by returning to Orthodoxy. It's a good read written by a former speech writer for Reagan (and, of course, a Catholic).

[SaintOlaf]

I've heard about it a few other places, I think I'm going to add it to my wish list

[Lounge Daddy]

I find this study, and the companion study from last year, a fascinating look at American religious faith.

[Kurall_Creator]

[quote name='SaintOlaf' post='1852807' date='Apr 29 2009, 10:54 PM']How far can you take that individualistic approach though. If you continually deem yourself to be the correct interpreter and the litmus test for doctrine and teachings, can you ever truly expect to find somewhere that you agree with? Do you settle for somewhere that you have some disagreements with? At what cost?

I would put forth that the individualistic approach you lined out there is not Biblical at all. Christ, in praying for His Church in John 17 said:



Jesus and the Father are not divided on doctrine, there is no individualism there. We need to approach doctrine in the same manner, perhaps WE are not the litmus test for it, perhaps we need to subject ourselves to an authority.

But which one?[/quote]

So, you're saying I shouldn't seek out God to understand if someone is trying to deceive me with the teachings of men instead of God.

I'd go to Ray Comfort's church in a second, to listen to him preach the word of God, to repent and trust in Jesus Christ, because he's being an honest man of God who has a burden for souls.

I wouldn't go to Pat Robertson church (Robinson - i'm not a big fan so I'm not sure of his name), because all he does is talk about frivilous things that have nothing to do with the Gospel of Christ. . .

Jesus said there would be many who would come in his name in the end and they would deceive many. So I shouldn't listen to the holy spirit to determine which people I should trust, who are authentic for Christ or not?

Sheesh, the people who say you should just accept someone's authority without thinking and reasoning things out are really advocating for mindless people.

[tinytherese]

[quote name='Kurall_Creator' post='1853778' date='Apr 30 2009, 09:03 PM']Sheesh, the people who say you should just accept someone's authority without thinking and reasoning things out are really advocating for mindless people.[/quote]

There's nothing mindless about listening to the authority of the Catholic Church and following it. It's the real deal that Christ Himself gave us so that we would not be lead astray.

[Kurall_Creator]

[quote name='tinytherese' post='1853782' date='Apr 30 2009, 08:08 PM']There's nothing mindless about listening to the authority of the Catholic Church and following it. It's the real deal that Christ Himself gave us so that we would not be lead astray.[/quote]

But didn't you think about things before you made that decision, basing your decisions on things.