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Rising Restrictions on Religion

One-third of the world's population experiences an increase

ANALYSIS August 9, 2011

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Rising Restrictions on Religion, a recent report by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion and Public Life, finds that restrictions on religious beliefs and practices rose between mid-2006 and mid-2009 in 23 of the world’s 198 countries (12%), decreased in 12 countries (6%) and remained essentially unchanged in 163 countries (82%).

Because several countries with increasing restrictions on religion are very populous, however, the increases affect a much larger share of people than of states. More than 2.2 billion people – nearly a third (32%) of the world’s total population of 6.9 billion – live in countries where either government restrictions on religion or social hostilities involving religion rose substantially over the three-year period studied.

Explore the report using the table of contents to the right or the resources below.

David Briggs: Is Religion In America in Decline? HuffPost Religion, April 2, 2011

Duke University sociologist Mark Chaves' working title for his new book on trends in U.S. religion was "Continuity and Change in American Religion."

But the folks on the Princeton University Press marketing team suggested he could attract more attention with the bolder title: The Decline of American Religion.

Chaves, director of the National Congregations Study, took another look at research showing indicators of traditional beliefs and practices are either stable or falling in a nation that is a symbol of the staying power of religion in the West.

His conclusion: "The burden of proof has shifted to those who want to claim that American religiosity is not declining."

Chaves shared his perspective in a paper on "The Decline of American Religion?" for the Association of Religion Data Archives. His work is a significant addition to the discussion of the future of faith in the U.S.

The argument that religion is declining has gained more attention in recent years with major surveys pointing to the existence of a substantial group of Americans who state no preference for organized religion.

Fifteen percent of respondents to the 2008 American Religious Identification Survey did not identify with a religious group, up from 8 percent in 1990. The 2007 U.S. Religious Landscape Survey found 16 percent of respondents said they were unaffiliated with any particular faith today, more than double the number who said they were not affiliated with any particular religion as children.

But researchers also point out strong signs of stability, even steady growth over the long term, in American religious life.

"The single most significant trend in American religion from 1900 to the present has been the steady and spectacular decline in the percentage of religiously unaffiliated people in the American population," J. Gordon Melton, founding director of the Institute for the Study of American Religion in Santa Barbara, Calif., wrote in a recent ARDA paper on "American Religion's Mega-Trends." "In 1900, the religiously unaffiliated included some 65 percent of the population. That figure has now dropped to around 15 percent."

Looking Inside Presbyterian Congregations: From PCUSA.org, March 29, 2011

Remember the spring of 2001?

George W. Bush was the new president, the September 11 attacks were months away, and iTunes had just been introduced.

The world has changed in unforeseen ways since then. Have Presbyterian congregations and their worshipers experienced remarkable changes, too?

Responses from 40,000 worshipers in a national study of Presbyterian congregations help us answer that important question.

How have worshipers changed?

A Diverse DC Baptist Convention Awaits New Executive: North American Baptist Fellowship, March 31, 2011

By Norman Jameson for North American Baptist Fellowship at www.NABF.info

March 31, 2011

Ricky Creech will lead one of the most diverse Baptist bodies in America following his election March 28 as executive director of the District of Columbia Baptist Convention.

The D.C. Convention’s 153 churches include pastors who self-identify both as fundamentalist and as liberal; they are divided nearly evenly between predominantly black or white memberships and many have female ministerial staff; it has the ethnic language churches you would expect in an international city; it affiliates with four national Baptist entities; and it intentionally magnetizes missions to create unity, rather than trying to hammer out universal agreement on theological fine points.

All of which pumps the blood right through Creech’s veins.

Denominations | The Christian Century, March 25, 2011

Maybe you consider yourself a "branded" Christian--Presbyterian, Baptist, Catholic. Maybe you don't hold your brand loyalty close.

Either way, you've wondered about denominations. Do they matter for religious life today?

It's a question Presbyterians are asking right now--is our denomination dying... and if it is, is it worth saving? I've spent most of my life as a member of Presbyterian Church (USA) congregations and am ordained (and I get a paycheck) in that tradition. I've attended two non-denominational seminaries (Union NYC and Fuller) and have worked in a church for six years that is functionally non-denominational (Marble Collegiate in NYC). My own experience with denominations is that they are small-minded, culturally-limited, and completely necessary.

America's Churches Can Change the World, USA Today

By Oliver Thomas

Black History Month set me to thinking about America's churches. Some led the struggle for civil rights. Others lined up on the wrong side. In the 1970s, a phrase was coined by historian John Lee Eighmy to explain why so many white Southern churches got it wrong: Churches in Cultural Captivity. Turns out my fellow Southern Baptists — my own family included — were Southern first and Baptist second.

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  By Alejandro Gonzalez, USA TODAY

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By Alejandro Gonzalez, USA TODAY

Consider the issues that most threaten humanity's common future: global terrorism, climate change, overpopulation, and the political and social unrest caused by economic disparity. These problems transcend national boundaries and beg for international solutions. Yet political leaders have generally been unwilling or unable to find solutions.

USA TODAY OPINION

On Religion

Faith. Religion. Spirituality. Meaning.

Information of Doctor of Ministry Degree in Transforming Denominations

The Columbia Partnership, in partnership with Northern Seminary, is now offering a Doctor of Minsitry degree in Tranforming Denominations. Here is a flyer about that degree program:

Download now or preview on posterous

DMin_in_Tranforming_Denominations_Flyer.pdf (1815 KB)

To talk about this opportunity send an inquiry to Client.Care@TheColumbiaPartnership.org or call 803.622.0923.

Posted via email from George Bullard's Posterous

Church Numbers Deflate | Faith & Works: Louisville Courier-Journal, February 17, 2011

Three church organizations from widely different parts of the religious landscape reached the same conclusion — that they aren’t nearly as large as they had said previously. In fact, each of them dropped their estimated number of adherents by nearly one million.

The revisions come in the latest 2011 Yearbook of American & Canadian Churches, published by the National Council of Churches. The yearbook staff collects data from each religious group, whose methodologies vary widely. If they don’t update them — and many haven’t for years — the yearbook carries the previous estimate forward in its annual list ranking the nation’s largest denominations by size. See the list released yesterday: Ten of the "top 25″ churches didn’t report, and their evenly rounded estimates are often several years old.

Evangelical Churches Still Growing, Mainline Protestantism In Decline

By Richard Yeakley
Religion News Service

While mainline Protestant churches in the U.S. continue to experience decades-long decline, the memberships of Pentecostal traditions are on the rise, according to new figures compiled by the National Council of Churches.

The Roman Catholic Church (No. 1) and the Southern Baptist Convention (No. 2) are still significantly larger than all other North American denominations, but Catholics posted minimal growth of less than 1 percent, and Southern Baptist membership fell for a third straight year, according to the 2011 Yearbook of American & Canadian Churches.

Produced annually by the NCC, the yearbook is considered one of the most reliable recorders of church membership. The figures in the 2011 yearbook were compiled by churches in 2009, reported to the NCC in 2010 and released Monday (Feb. 14).

2011 Church Membership: Southern Baptists Decline; Jehovah Witnesses Increase

Church membership for more than a third of the nation's largest churches took a hit last year while non-Orthodox Christian churches are on the rise, a new report on denominations finds.

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