Shot in the Dark

Take A “W”, Part II

I’ve told the story – Jimmy Carter’s “malaise” speech affected me as a teenager, immensely.   It didn’t “make me a conservative” all by itself – but it did start me wondering.   The straitened, blighted perversion of the American Dream that Carter seemed to be inflicting on my generation grated on me -and helped start the boulder rolling downhill that led by my voting for Ronald Reagan in 1984.  

Rumors are leaking out into the broader culture – younger Americans, the long-awaiting “Gen Z”, are very different than the millennials. 

More sincere. Less cynical.  Less likely to see “Daria” as a role model.

More faithful?

Maybe. Just maybe.

From 2007 to 2019, the number of people who say they identify as “Christian” decreased from 78% to 63%. It has fluctuated between 64% and 62% since then. Pew explains that “for the last five years, between 2019 and 2024, the Christian share of the adult population has been relatively stable, hovering between 60% and 64%.”

My theory: the version of life, the universe and everything that Big Left has been pushing for the past couple generations – materialist, temporal, shallow as a coat of makeup – leaves a vacuum in the human soul – and maybe, just maybe, the younger generation is rebelling against that soullessness. 

True?  Wishful thinking?  Maybe a little of both. 

An opening of truth to be pushed wider?  Absolutely.

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Mitch Berg

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2 responses to “Take A “W”, Part II”

  1. SmithStCrx Avatar
    SmithStCrx

    I consider myself a bit of an interested outsider to Christianity. I was raised Catholic with a lifelong Catholic parent that though JPII was a moron. A point I heartily disagree with, while I currently contend that Pope Francis is the worst thing to happen to the Catholic Church this century. I describe myself as a “Recovering Catholic,” but I’m still the one that defends traditional Catholic Dogma to my currently Catholic family. It’s an ideological mess.

    In more recent years, I’ve been exposed to a wider variety of Christian denominations and intra-denomination debates. When I attend various churches, typically for familial reasons, I go to their website and try to figure out their particular affiliation. It’s sad to see how many churches bury their official affiliation deep within their website, if it’s posted at all.

    I see statistics like this that about 2/3rds of Americans identify as Christian, and I think that it’s effectively meaningless. The problem is it tells me nothing. The term “Christian” means too many things to too many people, and those meanings are often contradictory and antithetical.

    Unitarian Universalists at least admit that they have no standards and no dogma, but too many other denominations are infected by moral relativism and excuse evil instead of denouncing it. OTOH, there are still some traditional or orthodox denominations that preach strict rules for moral and ethical behavior, with fire and brimstone awaiting those that fail to repent. The Prosperity Gospel has many adherents, but is considered an abomination by just as many if not more. Yet all of these contradictory theologies consider themselves Christian.

    And that doesn’t even get into the number of people that identify as Christian for these studies but couldn’t tell you the last time they attended a church service. At least the ChEasters we looked down on growing up could tell you that they attended both the Christmas AND Easter Masses, even if they skipped the other Holy Days of Obligation. They probably also went to at least 1 Lenten Fish Fry, even if they went to a steakhouse the next Friday.

    Telling me that 2/3rds of Americans are Christian doesn’t tell me anything useful.

  2. bikebubba Avatar
    bikebubba

    It would be interesting to see the breakdown with Orthodox, Catholic, mainline Protestant, evangelical, and the like. The question comes to mind of whether we are seeing mainline Protestants and nominal Catholics migrate away from their youthful churches, or whether we’re seeing some of the more evangelical/committed believers migrate away.

    In other words, jury is still out whether this is predominantly unbelievers finally ending church affiliation, or whether it’s believers moving to apostasy. Love to see a turnaround, but bracing for the possibility that what is really going on is that 1950s “We go to church because the godless Commies cannot” Christianity has been dying out.

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