On November 13, NEWSWEEK magazine published an article on “The Rise and Fall of Christian America.” Dr. Jeff Crawford interviewed me today for 40 minutes on several issues and this was one of them.  Dr. Crawford is the pastor of the Grand Family Church in Fort Smith.

Just yesterday morning, our own Dr. Scott Kaufman and I were talking about this article. He is so great at assessing and summarizing matters.  I asked him to summarize this article and then come up with some takeaways.  Since I conducted this interview today and there has been so much on television about this article, I thought I would publish what he sent to me. Since he summarizes it so supremely, I have decided to use his comments today.  I concur with these thoughts.

Key Thoughts and Summary Statements:

• According to the American Religious Identification Survey (March 2009), the number of Americans who claim no religious affiliation has nearly doubled since 1990, rising from 8 to 15 percent.
• While the unaffiliated has historically been concentrated in the Pacific Northwest, the report said, “This pattern has now changed, and the Northeast emerged in 2008 as the new stronghold of the religiously unidentified.”
• Al Mohler sees this as a signal that the historic foundation of America’s religious culture is cracking: “A remarkable culture-shift has taken place around us. The most basic contours of American culture have been radically altered. The so-called Judeo-Christian consensus of the last millenium has given way to a post-modern, post-Christian, post-Western cultural crisis which threatens the very heart of our culture.”
• The percentage of self-identified Christians has fallen 10 percentage points since 1990,  from 86 percent to 76 percent.
• A separate poll by the Pew Forum echoed the ARIS findings, reporting that the percentage of persons who say they are unaffiliated with any particular faith has doubled in recent years to 16 percent.
• In terms of voting, this group grew from 5 percent in 1988 to 12 percent in 2008.
• Meanwhile, the number of persons willing to describe themselves as atheist or agnostic increased fourfold from 1990 to 2009, from 1 million to about 3.6 million.
• A possible silver lining to all this: A third of Americans say they are born again; this figure, along with the decline of politically moderate-to-liberal mainline Protestants, led the ARIS authors to note that “these trends…suggest a movement towards more conservative beliefs and particularly to a more ‘evangelical’ outlook among Christians.” In addition, the nation still remains vibrantly more religious than Europe.
• Two-thirds of the public (68 percent) now say that religion is “losing influence” in American society.
• The proportion of Americans who think religion “can answer all or most of today’s problems” is now at a historic low of 48 percent. During the Bush and Clinton years, that figure never dropped below 58 percent.
• America is not a “post-religious” society however. Many of the religiously unaffiliated still describe themselves as “spiritual,” as opposed to “religious.” We live in an increasingly pluralistic society.
• Mohler: “The worst fault of evangelicals in terms of politics in the last 30 years has been an indelible naivete about politics and politicians and parties. They invested far too much hope in a political solution to what are transpolitical issues and problems.” Columnust Cal Thomas was an early figure in the Moral Majority who came to see the “Christian America” movement was fatally flawed in theological terms. “No country can be truly “Christian,” only people can.” Christianity’s claims transcend any political order.
• “Christians should not have illusions about the nature of human governments. Ultimately they belong to what Augustine calls ‘the city of the world,’ in which self-interest rules.”

Some of My Own Thoughts:

• This report confirms what most of us already thought we were seeing in our culture.
• This trend could more reflect a greater decline in nominal Christianity than it does a decline in the ‘real deal.’ The cultural changes, by making it less ‘popular’ to be a Christian, may actually have a “purifying” effect on congregations by reducing the number of persons who are Christians in name only.
• There is a definite movement toward the expulsion of religion from society, as is evidenced by the proliferation of books by very vocal atheists in recent years (Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, others).
• Christians should not place so much hope and confidence in political offices.
• I think it will create new opportunities for the church. As the culture gets ‘darker’ the light will become more obvious.
• The uniqueness of the church will become more evident.
• Increased persecution has, historically, resulted in the advancement of Christ’s kingdom.
• Jesus promised that the gates of hell would not prevail against His church.

As you can tell, America is in need of spiritual awakening and revival.  Oh God, may it happen today.