“Show the crowd!” Diane shouted. It’s 6:00 am this morning and we’re watching the local news. The NBC affiliate in St. Louis is featuring Lutheran South High School, where grandsons Christian and Connor attend. “Get off the cheerleaders and show the crowd!” No offence to the cheerleaders. We wanted to see our boys.
Meanwhile, another part of my brain was thinking about the most recent Pew study on religion. More and more Americans are leaving Christian churches, especially younger people. Think your children and grandchildren. Here are some opening sentences from Pew’s exhaustive study. “What if Christians keep leaving religion at the same rate observed in recent years? What if the pace of religious switching continues to accelerate? What if switching were to stop, but other demographic trends – such as migration, births and deaths – were to continue at current rates? The Center estimates that in 2020, about 64% of Americans, including children, were Christian. People who are religiously unaffiliated, sometimes called religious “nones,” accounted for 30% of the U.S. population. Adherents of all other religions – including Jews, Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists – totaled about 6%. Depending on whether religious switching continues at recent rates, speeds up or stops entirely, the projections show Christians of all ages shrinking from 64% to between a little more than half (54%) and just above one-third (35%) of all Americans by 2070. Over that same period, “nones” would rise from the current 30% to somewhere between 34% and 52% of the U.S. population.”
What can our congregation do? What can our seminaries do? My mind went to many opportunities, but each time I thought, “Yeah, but who knows? Is any church program or emphasis guaranteed to keep our grandkids with the church?”
While Diane and I are watching for Christian and Connor, the reporter interviewed a member of the Lutheran South Student Council. Sorry, I can’t remember her name or position. After praising the school and her fellow students, she testified the school is teaching them about Jesus Christ. Aha! The Pew study is about religion in America. The Bible is about Jesus, not about religion. I’ve experienced many things in Christianity and my denomination that make me want to walk away, the hypocrisies of religion, but Jesus? He’s as true and personal as it gets. I can’t give Him up. He’s the only guarantee we have. “Let the children come unto Me….”