God Doesn't Lead By Polls

The Los Angeles Times ran a commentary, as the paper is prone to do, in which someone warned that churches need to stop teaching the Bible if they want to stay relevant. This one was written by Robert D. Putnam, a professor of public policy at Harvard University, and David E. Campbell, a professor of political science at the University of Notre Dame, the  authors of American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us.

The most rapidly growing religious category today is composed of those Americans who say they have no religious affiliation.

Well, yeah. When 95% of a group identifies as either A, B, C, or D, then the 5% who identify as E will grow 100% if it numbers switch to 90%-10%.

While middle-aged and older Americans continue to embrace organized religion, rapidly increasing numbers of young people are rejecting it.

Guess what? Young people tend to get older. They tend to get married and have kids, and get more serious about religious identity.

As recently as 1990, all but 7% of Americans claimed a religious affiliation, a figure that had held constant for decades. Today, 17% of Americans say they have no religion, and these new "nones" are very heavily concentrated among Americans who have come of age since 1990.

So 83% claim an affiliation. If 83% of scientists say they believe in manmade global warming, if 83% of voters were to say they support abortion-on-demand being legal and taxpayer funded, if 83% of voters were in favor of neutering state marriage licensing, it would be call an "overwhelming majority" and dissenters would be portrayed as crackpots. Perhaps people in the past who claimed an affiliation were not regular churchgoers or people who practiced a religion, and young people are refusing to pick an affiliation out of honesty?

So, why this sudden jump in youthful disaffection from organized religion?

Assuming the premise of your question is true… it might have something to do with the rabid militarism of secular humanism or moral relativism in the public square and public institutions.

The surprising answer, according to a mounting body of evidence, is politics.

Here's where they get to the point of their commentary, which is to tell us that we should stop taking religion seriously when deciding which political issues are important to us and how we vote.

Very few of these new "nones" actually call themselves atheists, and many have rather conventional beliefs about God and theology. But they have been alienated from organized religion by its increasingly conservative politics.

Organized religion is hardly getting more conservative politically. It is that the Leftists are finding it harder to move the country Leftward.

During the 1980s, the public face of American religion turned sharply right.

What happened was that people woke up and realized that staying out of politics and letting the elitists, ivory tower hermits, and hedonists run everything was becoming a huge problem.

Political allegiances and religious observance became more closely aligned, and both religion and politics became more polarized.

Politicians are more likely to be seen speaking in liberal churches.

Abortion and homosexuality became more prominent issues on the national political agenda, and activists such as Jerry Falwell and Ralph Reed began looking to expand religious activism into electoral politics.

Why don't these commentaries every bring up Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, etc.?

Church attendance gradually became the primary dividing line between Republicans and Democrats in national elections.

Yes, Democrats should really get to church more often.

Some Americans brought their religion and their politics into alignment by adjusting their political views to their religious faith. But, surprisingly, more of them adjusted their religion to fit their politics.

You mean the liberal churches, who abandon the Bible in favor of political correctness?

But a majority of the Millennial generation was liberal on most social issues, and above all, on homosexuality. The fraction of twentysomethings who said that homosexual relations were "always" or "almost always" wrong plummeted from about 75% in 1990 to about 40% in 2008.

Gee, I can't imagine why, given what they are bombarded with the media and academia.

If being religious entailed political conservatism, they concluded, religion was not for them.

Religion is good as a social club and motivational exercise, but when the logical application of religious teachings means not forcing other people to pay your way through life and saving sex for marriage, well, that's just too much.

Continuing to sound the trumpet for conservative social policy on issues such as homosexuality may or may not be the right thing to do from a theological point of view, but it is likely to mean saving fewer souls.

From a Christian perspective, you are not saving souls at all if people don't have Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. He's not Lord if you don't let Him lead when it comes to sexuality.

More likely is that as growing numbers of young Americans reject religious doctrine that is too political or intolerant for their taste, innovative religious leaders will concoct more palatable offerings.

This has been going on since the beginning of time. People want to mold God in their image, rather than being transformed to following the will of God. There are plenty of churches that cater to the former, and they are the ones who are dying. Bible-teaching churches, like my own, are growing. You think I like everything in every sermon? Nope. It would feel great to have the minister say that everything I'm doing is okay and I don't need to change a thing about how I live my life. But the minister would be lying.

The Gospel is offensive, because it requires that people recognize they are sinners that there is a Lord and His way is the only right way. I agree that we need to be gentle and respectful and relevant when presenting the Gospel and making disciples and ministering to the needy, but there is no compromising when it comes to the truth.

Previously [Townhall links might not work]:

Losing Their Religion
Evangelical Collapse
Are You Ready For Post-Christian America?
Steamed Rice
On the Manhattan Declaration
On Jesus, the Bible, and the Religious Right