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blue bits. red rocks.
Saturday 5 September 2009

So, what about the US? The rate of religiosity is and has been fairly consistent. Religion is alive and well in the US and there are no signs of decline. However, even as those once strong mainline denominations continue to decline as their populations die off due to low birth rates, we do have to observe how the boundaries are shifting. The idea that Christianity is less powerful, less important, and declining has to be checked against how people define their own religiosity. Whatever the decline over the past 20 years in self-identified Christians means, it is clear that it is the religion that forms the majority religion in the country. To say that this is a post-Christian age is premature. To say that it is post-Christendom as if Christianity was this mythical state establishment at one point also overstates what this meant in the 18th and 19th centuries. What Chrisntianity is doing is shifting as it always has done in a state structure that makes it possible. Those that adapt to change and promote social change will likely fare well. Those that hunker down in the ideology of an era they will never get back will fade into the wind as a memory. Drew Tatusko

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