Posted on 05/15/2018 5:13:35 AM PDT by C19fan
Hate to break it to you, but this country IS over. We're on borrowed time.
Everyone has a religion.
I always ask
What DO you believe in ?
That is bigger than YOU ?
Roman Catholics would by their definition lump all other non-Catholic believers into the "Protestant" category.
When viewed that way, the number of "Protestants" has held serve at50%.
Untrue. For example, I would certainly identify a Greek Orthodox adherent as a Christian, but I would NEVER place them in the "Protestant" category. Their roots are entirely different than Protestantism. Ditto with someone from the Assyrian Church of the East, the Armenian Apostolic Church, the Coptic Church, etc., etc. There are plenty of Christian denominations that are neither Catholic nor Protestant, thus fall into the "Other Christian" category.
Demographically, I doubt they are 14% of all Americans (probably more like 2%), so that "14%" is likely because a ton of protestant Christians, for whatever reason, do not wish to be called protestant or identify with Protestantism. This seems pretty common in today's society. Most notably, Baptists are the nation's largest protestant denomination by far, and most of the Baptists I've met refuse to accept that they are protestant. They probably answer the survey by identifying as the "other Christian" category, despite the fact that Baptist churches started in the 1600s to protest the practice of infant baptism, making them as protestant as it gets.
>> When viewed that way, the number of "Protestants" has held serve at 50%. <<
If the numbers were adjusted so that the number of Christians who actually attend a protestant church but refuse to identify as "protestant" for whatever reason, the decline wouldn't be nearly as heavy as the survey suggestions. However, there would still be an overall decline due to people who once attended protestant churches but are now secular or agnostic or whatever. As the article noted, there are similar levels of decline in Catholicism, but new Catholics are balancing out those numbers so the overall percentage of Catholics remains steady. There are not enough new protestants to offset the number of people who leave Protestantism.
Wouldn’t the term “Protestant” be unrecognized anyway by most millennials?
I personally know some Catholics who believe “Protestant” means “Anybody who does not want to go back to the Latin Mass”.
That's very true, and I've met several of 'em on FR. Their mindset seems to be the only "true" Catholics are pre-Vatican II traditionists who attend a tridentine mass every Sunday, and everyone else who attends a Catholic church is really a protestant in Catholic drag.
Fortunately their views are in the extreme minority, I'd be surprised if 5% of self-proclaimed "Catholics" felt that way.
Though I find it very rare when I find a Baptist who will admit to being a protestant. I've talked to perhaps 2 or 3 of them who accept they are a member of the nation's largest protestant tradition. The rest vehemently deny it, say that Baptists have nothing in common with the protestant reformation, and claim their church was founded by John the Baptist. No wonder the number of self-identified "protestants" is at a historic low when the largest type of protestants in this country won't even won't even accept it. It would be like Californians started to refuse to admit they are Americans.
Not so sure the younger blacks and Latinos will remain Christian or formally religious, since they are becoming more secular (& brainwashed through schools & media). As they grow Westernized, they will soon head in the direction of the young whites.
Time to go out and bring in the sheaves.
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