Sunday, May 30, 2021
The fading church
There is no doubt about it: secularism in America is on the rise. Meanwhile, church membership continues to decline: the Southern Baptists suffered their worst year in the last century in 2019, losing2% of their members. We still don't know the full results of the pandemic, but it seems to be taking a toll on many churches.
There is, predictably, a lot of hand-wringing about this but not a lot of real answers to the challenges that churches face.
Doctrinaire churches lose young members, and firebrands for change lose the older ones. That means that the doctrinaire ones will soon have lost their members to death, and the pro-chage churches will maintain more balance.
Or is it even a problem to solve? Church membership has gone up and down many times in American history-- in fact, in 1776, only 17% of Americans were church members. But perhaps it is different this time?
