White Evangelicals among the best religious groups at retaining members as 'nones' grow: Public Religion Research Institute study

Christian Post ^ | 03/29/2024 | Michael Gryboski

[SeekAndFind]

Among faith groups in the United States, white Evangelical Christians are one of the best at retaining members even as the share of Americans who are religiously unaffiliated continues to grow, according to a new survey.

The nonprofit research organization Public Religion Research Institute released the report on Wednesday titled "Religious Change in America," which charted several trends among faith groups in the U.S.

Data for the report came from a survey PRRI conducted online of 5,627 adults in the U.S. from Nov. 16 to Dec. 7, 2023, with a margin of error of +/- 1.79 percentage points at the 95% confidence level.

While the report found that nearly one in five Americans (18%) left a religious tradition in 2023 and became religiously unaffiliated, white Evangelicals "have one of the highest retention rates of all religious groups," retaining 76% of their members in 2023.

This was an improvement compared to 2016, when white Evangelicals were only keeping 66% of their members in the fold, with the report noting that the "net loss of members among white evangelical Protestants has declined."

The religious groups that did the best at retaining members were black Protestants (82%) and Jewish Americans (77%), while white mainline Protestants "continue losing more members than they replace and at higher rates than other Protestants."

Catholics continue to lose more members than they gain, with the retention rate for Hispanic Catholics (68%) being slightly higher than white Catholics (62%).

PRRI also found that 26% of Americans identified as religiously unaffiliated in 2023, an increase from the 21% reported in 2013. The religiously unaffiliated was the "only major religious category experiencing growth," according to PRRI.

Among Americans who left a religious tradition to become unaffiliated, 35% were former Catholics; another 35% were mainline Protestants.

"After observing the growth of unaffiliated Americans for decades, our survey confirms that this trend is not slowing," PRRI CEO Melissa Deckman said in a statement. "While most Americans are still religious, the ranks of the unaffiliated will continue to swell with both Americans who leave their religion — increasingly because of religious teachings about LGBTQ people — as well as those who are now being raised in religiously unaffiliated households."

Sixty-seven percent of Americans who became religiously unaffiliated said they did so because they stopped believing their faith's teachings, while 47% cited "negative teaching about or treatment of gay and lesbian people as an important factor."

In recent years, there has been much debate over whether the decline in white Evangelical Americans was accelerating due to various factors, including media portrayals of white Evangelicals overwhelmingly supporting President Donald Trump.

In 2016, PRRI Executive Director Robert P. Jones released a book titled The End of White Christian America, in which he argued that white Christians in the U.S. "steadily lost influence, following declines within both its mainline and evangelical branches."

"Today, America is no longer demographically or culturally a majority white, Christian nation," noted the book's synopsis. "Looking ahead, Jones forecasts the ways that they might adjust to find their place in the new America — and the consequences for us all if they don't."

In 2021, the Pew Research Center released a report finding that the percentage of white Americans who identified as born-again or evangelical during the Trump administration increased.

Using Pew's American Trends Panel, the researchers found that the number of surveyed white adults who identified as Evangelical or born-again went from 25% in 2016 to 29% in 2020.

The 2021 survey also found that while 2% of surveyed white adults had stopped identifying as Evangelical from 2016 to 2020, 6% began identifying as Evangelical during the same period.

[SaveFerris]

(Sixty-seven percent of Americans who became religiously unaffiliated said they did so because they stopped believing their faith's teachings, while 47% cited "negative teaching about or treatment of gay and lesbian people as an important factor.")

Because they are rejecting the Words of Jesus and the Apostle Paul. Setting themselves up to receive the Antichrist.

Read the Book.

There is a determined effort to normalize this all over the world. I'm encouraging people not to attend nor support this stuff. 

NO VIOLENCE suggested nor implied, of course.

Just as prophesied in the New Testament by Jesus Christ Himself:

[desertsolitaire]

I wondered where the Lutheran church and its various synods (branches) is in terms of increasing or declining membership? I was raised in the Lutheran church Missouri (misery) Synod and left it after high school.

[SaveFerris]

From the Apostle Paul:

Romans 1:24-32
King James Version

24 Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves:

25 Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.

26 For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:

27 And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.

28 And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient;

29 Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers,

30 Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,

31 Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful:

32 Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans%201%3A24-32&version=KJV

[joesbucks]

Evangelical churches are as much entertainment if not more than as religious message and teaching. Take away the emotional praise music and pagentry and they would leave in droves.

[elpadre]

“..while 47% cited “negative teaching about or treatment of gay and lesbian people as an important factor.”) ...”

While that may be true for evangelical and fundamental churches, I believe the huge loss came as result of mainline denominations adopting the modern homosexual oriented culture. That is why those old standards of goodness and righteousness no longer are relevant in today’s society. The plumb-line is gone.

[SaveFerris]

(I believe the huge loss came as result of mainline denominations adopting the modern homosexual oriented culture.)

And I agree with that, too. Some people had no choice but to walk away. By Satan influencing anti-God agendas in some pulpits.

And a false prophet shall lead them (reprobates):

(It is completely delusional and madness to teach that a man can become a woman and that a woman can become a man.)

Manchurian Candidate Barack Hussein Obama is an excellent smooth-talking false prophet working for the Deceiver Satan, his real father - John 8:44

[odawg]

“Take away the emotional praise music and pagentry and they would leave in droves.”

And you know this how? If you were personally acquainted with the tens of millions, then maybe you could judge just a little, but you must be pretty good to be able to know this without knowing hardly any of them.

[vpintheak]

Who are white evangelicals? Is this the “name it and claim it” trendy worship music crowd?

[faucetman]

“The term “nones” is sometimes used in the U.S. to refer to those who are unaffiliated with any organized religion.”

[Salman]

Not at all unexpected.

[faucetman]

I guess they would label me a “none”.

While I might fall under their “definition”, THEY don’t get to define ME.

Organized religion is a FRAUD!

Jesus didn’t think much of the organized religion of the time either.

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Revelation++1-3&version=NIV

[joesbucks]

Take it away for 6 months, return to old hymns or nothing at all and see what happens. Or simply ask the pastor.

https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/reviews/singing-congregation-contemporary-worship/?amp

[Wallace T.]

You can divide Evangelical Protestants into three broad categories: Charismatic and Pentecostal, the group most associated with the “gifts of the Spirit” and the so-called prosperity gospel; Baptistic or Campbellite, including Bible churches, that deny those gifts but adhere to sola Scriptura and regard sacraments as ordinances to be obeyed as they are commanded by the Bible rather than having effect in themselves; and magisterial Protestants (mostly Reformed or Lutheran), who directly descend from the Reformation era churches, and, while sola Scriptura, interpret the Bible in light of Reformation era creeds and catechisms. All three groups are distinct from the mainline Protestant churches as they reject interpretations of the Bible based on “modern science" (macroevolution or Jungian or Freudian psychology); or the Social Gospel and “liberation theology”.

"White" is to some extent a pejorative in this context as there are nonwhite preachers and theologians who are very much in the evangelical camp, e.g. Voddie Baucham.

[wbarmy]

I agree. We do all the old hymns in our church, and we have been having more fellowship dinners. People are starting to show back up from the Covid scare because they miss the fellowship.

[fishtank]

[fishtank]

God is not a God of confusion

https://nasb.literalword.com/?q=1+Cor+14%3A33

[fishtank]

https://nasb.literalword.com/?q=1+Cor+14%3A33

[fishtank]

“Organized” isn’t the problem,

The lack of truth is,

Just as your tagline states…. Just the facts

The Word is fact.

[ansel12]

I haven’t seen that, but as our most Christian and conservative voting members of America we sure need the Evangelicals.