{"id":13202,"date":"2021-03-30T14:33:49","date_gmt":"2021-03-30T18:33:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/?p=13202"},"modified":"2021-03-30T14:33:49","modified_gmt":"2021-03-30T18:33:49","slug":"church-membership-hits-historic-low","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/?p=13202","title":{"rendered":"Church membership hits historic low"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>For the first time ever, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/religion\/2021\/03\/29\/church-membership-fallen-below-majority\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">fewer than half<\/a> of all Americans claim church membership.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>The proportion of Americans who consider themselves members of a church, synagogue or mosque has dropped below 50 percent, according to a poll from Gallup released Monday. It is the first time that has happened since Gallup first asked the question in 1937, when church membership was 73 percent.<\/p>\n<p>In recent years, research data has shown a seismic shift in the U.S. population away from religious institutions and toward general disaffiliation, a trend that analysts say could have major implications for politics, business and how Americans group themselves.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I don&#8217;t doubt there are people who will cluck and scowl and mourn the news, but I think it&#8217;s <i>wonderful<\/i> news.  The Abrahamic narratives are false, one and all, and have caused slipshod thinking and human grief everywhere they&#8217;ve gone.  Good riddance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For the first time ever, fewer than half of all Americans claim church membership. The proportion of Americans who consider themselves members of a church, synagogue or mosque has dropped below 50 percent, according to a poll from Gallup released &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/?p=13202\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13202"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13202"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13202\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13204,"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13202\/revisions\/13204"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bobfelton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}