I’m doing some research on the local church and what causes people to leave it, and I ran into this study from April 2009 about Changes in religious Affiliation in the U.S.
From that report:
Catholicism has suffered the greatest net loss in the process of religious change. Many people who leave the Catholic Church do so for religious reasons; two-thirds of former Catholics who have become unaffiliated say they left the Catholic faith because they stopped believing in its teachings, as do half of former Catholics who are now Protestant. Fewer than three-in-ten former Catholics, however, say the clergy sexual abuse scandal factored into their decision to leave Catholicism.In contrast with other groups, those who switch from one Protestant denominational family to another (e.g., were raised Baptist and are now Methodist) tend to be more likely to do so in response to changed circumstances in their lives. Nearly four-in-ten people who have changed religious affiliation within Protestantism say they left their childhood faith, in part, because they relocated to a new community, and nearly as many say they left their former faith because they married someone from a different religious background.
I strongly recommend that you read the whole thing, even if it is old news to you.
The topic for discussion, as we think about this together, is this: how should we interpret the somewhat-serious reasons listed as common for leaving Catholicism against what I would say are the somewhat-circumstantial reasons for changing affiliation among Protestants?
My opinion is that it doesn’t speak well of Protestants, to be honest, but I’d like to see where the readers of this blog would take this discussion.
January 1st, 2010 | 1:46 pm | #1
I have to preface this by saying that statistics aren’t my thing, but isn’t it possible that the discrepancy is simply a result of there being more Protestants in America than Catholics? More members in general means more nominal members, which in turn means more superficial and silly reasons for church-hopping. I suspect that in countries where the numbers are reversed (Southern Europe or South America, for example), we would find the statistics equally reversed.
If that’s too superficial an answer, let me suggest another slightly-less-shallow one: I don’t think you can equate switching denominations within Protestantism with leaving the Catholic church. Someone who switches their attendance between St. Patrick’s and St. Thomas’ (using DC churches here, as that’s what I’m familiar with) would not be seen by a Catholic as leaving the church. While switching from the local Baptist church to a local Presbyterian one would fall into the fourth category listed in the chart. So while it’s fair to compare Protestants who drop Christianity all together (third category) with Catholics who “leave the church” (first and second categories), it’s not fair to compare those same Catholics to those who “change affiliations among Protestants”, however superficial their reasons.
January 1st, 2010 | 2:47 pm | #2
Second paragraph of Coyle’s: agree. This is not necessarily a bad reflection upon Protestants. If someone left Catholicism for a variety of Protestantism (or vice versa), chances are there are doctrinal considerations involved. However, the same person moving within varieties of Protestantism might be less likely to be doing so for doctrinal reasons, since most of the denominations’ beliefs would be more likely to be similar. If doctrine is, all things considered, pretty similar, other factors may weigh more heavily (we like the sermons better, we like the music better, the kids like the youth group, etc.).
January 1st, 2010 | 3:15 pm | #3
I would find it, in a rather odd way, I guess, rather refreshing to think anyone leaves a church body for another for deeply held doctrinal convictions. Protestants jump around from non-denom, big-box churches with little, to no, consideration for Biblical doctrine, but wherever they happen to “feel good.”
If Roman Catholics are, in fact, leaving Romanism for deeply held matters of doctrinal differences, more power to them, and if a Roman Catholic remains so for deeply held doctrinal conviction, while I certainly do not agree with him, I have far, far more respect for such a person than for many Protestants I run across who don’t give much of a thought to doctrine and regard matters such as the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist to be relatively trivial matters and want to overlook and sweep under the carpet any historic confessions and beliefs.
I for one, regard it as a deeply serious matter, for example, when a person who has promised to remain faithful, unto death, to the teaching and confession of the Lutheran Church, simply dumps this whenever it is inconvenient: for marriage, social reasons, or what-not.
And I know Roman Catholics feel the same way.
Broadly speaking, Evangelicalism, by its very nature, tends toward minimalism in regard to doctrine, so such issues do not matter as much.
January 1st, 2010 | 3:27 pm | #4
One paragraph of the study says that in 2007, more than one-in-four American adults (28%) have changed their religious affiliation from that in which they were raised, including people who have changed from Protestantism to Catholicism, yet there are no statistics for this group. Given the increasing number of Protestants who are becoming Catholics (including me and my family) I find it curious that there are no numbers given for that group. Why is that? Too small to have any statistical significance?
January 1st, 2010 | 4:17 pm | #5
It’s nice to start the year in agreement with Rev. McCain. May it bode well for the rest of the year.
_____________________
Tom –
If you download the full report (which is linked in the header of the summary), on page 30 it notes that only 3% of those raised Protestant in the survey are now Catholic — compared with 13% which are unaffiliated, for example.
For Catholics, (cf. pg 21) 15% are now Protestant and 14% are unaffiliated.
That’s the hemorrhaging the report summary is talking about — and my point, which is in alignment with what Rev. McCain has posted here today, is that people leave Catholicism for very solid reasons, even if it is for nothing at all.
Of course, the other comparison to make is that 80% of all Protestants remain Protestant, in one denomination or another — while the Catholics are languishing at 68% retention. That’s got to be troubling overall.
January 1st, 2010 | 5:07 pm | #6
Thank you, Frank. I found it. I also noted with interest that Jehovah’s Witnesses, the religion I was brought up in, has the lowest retention rate of all groups.
January 1st, 2010 | 7:37 pm | #7
What I find most interesting comes from why these people become unaffiliated. When the media reported this story they focused on how America was becoming “non-religious,” and particularly mentioned the rise of atheism (something that the statistics don’t support as atheism actually decreased in this study). What’s interesting is that only 1 in 5 former Catholics and 1 in 6 former Protestants left because they do not believe in their former/any religion.
I would contend that the majority didn’t leave because of a change of personal beliefs, but because the church didn’t offer them anything different than Oprah Winfrey and Deepak Chopra. The hemorrhaging primarily came from Catholics in the North East (historically liberal) and Mainline Protestants everywhere. Catholics in the South West grew rapidly and evangelicals nationwide grew marginally, yet the numbers of mainliners who are now unaffiliated meant that “nones” grew in just about every state.
You can get Karen Armstrong at your local Barnes & Noble, or find “spiritual” activities online. If you’re not being fed spiritually by a faithful minister of God’s Word, then you’re probably not going to see any reason (other than social reasons) to go to church.
January 3rd, 2010 | 3:01 pm | #8
Well, that’s one piece of good news in the survey!
January 3rd, 2010 | 3:20 pm | #9
I wonder if one thing at play might be related to Coyle’s second paragraph.
That is, if a Roman Catholic moves to another town for work or other reasons, and begins to attend a different parish, there is no statistical change.
If I move to another town, and look for what I believe to be a biblically faithful church, depending on the churches in a town, that may or may not be the same denomination I previously attended. That would show up as a statistical change, but not a real one.
January 9th, 2010 | 1:28 am | #10
Well, about 50,000 evangelicals have left for eastern orthodoxy. Now, eastern orthodoxy is a tiny christian group in the us but that is something considering that Orthodoxy doesn’t encourage or invest much of their time in the US. And the Roman Catholics have made big gains in the two largest states in the Union,Ca and Texas. Hispanic immirgants counted for this. And take a church like Rick Warren’s, it mainly white and in 2030, the population of whites to hispanics in a state like California will have hispanics ahead of whites, so I doubt that Catholics will go down as much, since hispanics while some are protestants are still more likely to be Catholic and hispanics are growing while non-hispanic whites are going down. Also, evangelicals have in the past 10 years turn sometimes to Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy or also left the faith.
January 9th, 2010 | 2:50 pm | #11
That’s not a very large number, considering how many Evangelicals there are, and, sadly, many have been disillusioned by what they have found in so-called “Orthodoxy.” The recent scandals in the Orthodox Church in America have been a sober reminder that the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. Here is a web site with more information: http://www.ocanews.org/ And there are problems in the Antiochian Orthodox Church as well, see: http://www.getreligion.org/?p=14966
January 9th, 2010 | 7:55 pm | #12
Well, its true that Orthodoxy like the other high churches have not shown a good example always to the Evangelcals. The main problem with Orthodoxy is how to deal with western culture since the Orthodox see the world divided between east and west. Granted, their is theological differences. As mention above, immirgation in the west will cause a shift. It depends how many hispanics will remain Catholic and the input of asians in some states like California. Asians already have their own large churches and are more likely than hispanics if they are protestant or catholic to assimlate to large white churches. Asians are only 16 percent of Orange County where Rick Warren is but he has more members that are asian from the pictures on his website that are hispanic and hispanics probably already make 34 percent of the population.
Links
Blogs
Find Us
Contact