Stripped to the bare essentials, the Christian pitch is this: You’re no damn good, but you can avoid the eternity of punishment you deserve by joining our club.<\/p>\n
What do you know? Multiple lines of evidence find that sales pitch is failing.<\/p>\n
First, Thom Rainer<\/a>, formerly the head of Lifeway, the Christian bookstore.<\/p>\n This past week I conducted the same exercise based on some of my updated research and the research of others and estimated the following:<\/p>\n Growth and Decline Categories of North American Congregations 2019<\/p>\n Fast-growing (growing greater than 5% annually): 3%<\/span><\/p>\n Growing (growing nominally to 5% annually): 24%<\/span><\/p>\n Steadily declining (declining 0% to 3% annually): 32%<\/span><\/p>\n Rapidly declining (declining 2% to 5% annually): 22%<\/span><\/p>\n Declining toward death (over 5% decline annually): 19%<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n In other words, Rainer estimates that 73% of American congregations, almost three-quarters, are declining.<\/p>\n Meantime, some research published in Essays in the Philosophy of Humanism<\/a><\/i> finds that America is increasingly pro-evolution and non-religious.<\/p>\n Also — and quite ironically — working against theism is the very Holy Bible itself. Among the many atheists I know a good portion were believing JudeoChristians until they got around to reading the entire Good Book and were so disgusted by its dreadfully immoral contents<\/span> and its obviously human inconsistencies — and by how their clergies had lied to them<\/span> — that they went atheist.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Apparently, the Bible has about the same effect upon believers as the Mueller Report would have on Trump supporters — if they were to actually read it instead of listening to FOX News, I mean.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Stripped to the bare essentials, the Christian pitch is this: You\u2019re no damn good, but you can avoid the eternity of punishment you deserve by joining our club. Continue reading \n
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