November-December 2008 – The litany of woes concerning Christianity in America is well-rehearsed: church attendance is declining; churches are losing their young people; Americans prefer the comfort of Disneyland-like “megachurches” to the Bible-believing, traditional, smaller church setting; and so on. 

But these well-known “truths,” which have provided the fodder for countless jeremiads in recent years, aren’t so true after all. Baylor University sociologist Rodney Stark insists these are myths that have become like religious versions of the popular “urban legends” that spread via the Internet.

Stark has posited his contentions in his fascinating study of American Christianity titled What Americans Really Believe. Stark’s new book is anchored in research he’s done on religion in the U.S. for more than 40 years, and relies on recent surveys conducted in 2005, 2006 and 2007 by the Gallup Organization for Baylor University.

Less churched than ever
Take church attendance as an example. Stark said that in the minds of most sociologists and church-watchers, “it is widely agreed that rates of church attendance have dropped substantially over the past 40 years,” with weekly attendance declining from 44% in 1964 to 36% in 2007.

That’s sort of true, Stark said, but he adds that there really hasn’t been a steady decline over that period. Instead, the difference reflects a single drop following the relaxation of church attendance rules in 1967 by the Vatican II Council (of the Roman Catholic Church). Vatican II stated that it was not a sin for Catholics to miss Mass.

“As would be expected, this relaxation of the rules resulted in many Catholics going to Mass less often than every week,” Stark said. “Consequently, as compared with the days before the council’s declaration, the overall rate of American church attendance declined. But that’s it. There has been no other decline in church attendance in the past 50 years. …”

For example, surveys found that in 1973, 36% of Americans said they attended church at least once a week – which was precisely the same percentage in 2007.

Moreover, What Americans Really Believe dismantles another myth: That Americans are far less religiously faithful than our forefathers at the nation’s founding. Stark said some experts insist that “the percentage of the American population that belongs to a church has long been declining.”

That’s definitely wrong, Stark said. “Church membership today is far higher than it was in colonial times, and … the membership rate has been rising for more than 200 years.”

That may be surprising to many historically-minded Christians, but it’s true, Stark said. The overwhelming majority of people in all 13 colonies belonged to no church at all. In The Churching of America, 1776-1990, Stark and co-author Roger Finke, professor of sociology and religious studies at Penn State University, found that “only about 17% of Americans actually belonged to a church in 1776.”

Over the last more than 200 years, Stark said, “Americans have become far more churched – an increasingly higher percentage actually belonging to a local congregation.”

Losing our young people
In 2006 the Barna Group, a research organization that tracks religious trends in the U.S., released a study claiming that the nation’s churches were losing their young people after they graduated from high school. Understandably, Christian leaders were alarmed.

“Sermon after sermon was devoted to the crisis of faith that was turning millions of young people away from church,” Stark said.

It was true, Stark said, that a number of surveys besides Barna demonstrated that “the younger they are, the less likely Americans are to attend church.” According to the Baylor Survey, for example, 28% of adults ages 18-29 never attend church, compared with 25% in the 30-39 age group and 20% of those over 40.

But again Stark said that wasn’t the whole story, insisting that the Barna report generated a false alarm. He said “every national survey of church attendance ever done” has revealed that young people attend church less often than their elders.

Such a reality “merely shows that when young people leave home, some of them tend to sleep in on Sunday morning rather than go to church,” Stark said. “That they haven’t defected [from Christianity] is obvious from the fact that a bit later in life when they have married, and especially after children arrive, they become more regular attenders. This happens to every generation.”

Sunday at Disneyland?
What Americans Really Believe also takes a crack at another assumption: That the growth of megachurches is yet one more sign of the deterioration of American Christianity.

Critics of megachurches – defined as one in which usual attendance numbers more than 1,000 – often focus on the size and presumably impersonal nature of large churches, as well as what some detractors say is a carnival-like atmosphere.

“Some media find them appalling examples of a religious ‘Disneyland’ mentality wherein people flock to be a part of an anonymous crowd of spectators rather than worshipers,” Stark said. Or, as Newseek religious writer Kenneth Woodward put it, megachurches “tend to be a guilt-free, sin-free environment. … These places are a bit too bubbly.”

On the other hand, Stark said critics of megachurchs believe small congregations – which are defined as those with usual attendance of less than 100 – have greater authenticity, commitment and intimacy.

But do the numbers back up these assumptions, or are they more myths?

Stark said the data do not appear to justify the criticism that “the megachurch appeal is a mile wide and an inch deep.” He said on virtually every measurable standard the members of megachurches do at least as well or better than members of smaller churches. They attend services weekly (or more often) a greater percentage of the time than attendees of small congregations (46% to 39%); a greater percentage tithe (46% to 36%); and a greater percentage attend a Bible study group (52% to 43%). The two groups were nearly identical when it came to praying or reading the Bible daily.

Megachurches also got high marks for intimacy. Stark pointed to survey results that showed that 41% of those attending a megachurch said half or more of their friends attended the same congregation, compared to 25% in small congregations. On the other hand, only 12% in megachurches said they had no friends attending with them, compared with 22% in small congregations.

“So much for the nostalgic image of the small congregation as a community of intimates,” Stark said. “In the sense of having friends in the congregation, the megachurch is the more intimate community.”

Such a finding certainly seems counterintuitive for a church gathering that often numbers in the thousands, but Stark said there is an explanation: “A major reason that so many people in the megachurches have so many friends in their congregation is because they brought them into the group – 83% have witnessed to their friends in the past month (35% have done so three times or more.) Megachurch members also greatly outdo members of the small churches by witnessing to strangers. Contrary to the widespread conviction among their critics that the megachurches grow mainly through their ability to gain publicity, their growth appears mainly to be the result of their members’ outreach efforts.”

Poor and stupid?
In 1993 Washington Post reporter Michael Weisskopf infamously said about members of the Christian Right that they were “largely poor, uneducated, and easy to command.”

His view of Christian conservatives is sometimes broadened to include Christians in general. Stark said that “many are the claims and tacit assumptions that, of course, intelligent, well-educated, affluent folks seldom attend [church] – that the folks in the pews on Sunday overwhelmingly are poor, uneducated, failures.”

This, Stark said, is also a myth. “Income has no impact on church attendance, with the possible exception that those with incomes over $150,000 are a bit less likely to attend,” he said. “As for education, there is no effect at all: those with post graduate training are as likely to attend church as are those whose education ended at high school or sooner.”

Work to do
For Christians in America who have become accustomed to statistics that present a “glass-half-empty” view of their faith, Stark’s numbers are encouraging. But other numbers continue to pour in and indicate that, even if things are not as bad as many Christians have been told, there is still a lot of work to do.

Take the public’s opinion concerning religion in general. According to a Gallup/USA Today Poll in September 2006, 58% of respondents said they believed that religion “can answer today’s problems,” while 24% said religion was “old fashioned/out of date.” But a Gallup Poll in 1957 revealed a different picture: 85% said they believed religion could “answer today’s problems,” with only 7% saying it was “old fashioned/out of date.” That’s a stunning drop over the last half century.

Or take a Barna survey on morality released this past August. The poll showed that 55% of American adults discussed moral issues with others on a weekly basis. But the research group also said results indicated “that Americans have also redefined what it means to do the right thing in their own lives.”

For example, a majority of adults said they had engaged in at least one of the following behaviors during the preceding week: looked at pornography, used profanity in public, gambled, gossiped, engaged in sexual intercourse outside marriage, gotten drunk or lied.

The Barna survey also showed that participation in such behaviors is worse among those under 25. “The younger generation was more than twice as likely as all other adults to engage in behaviors considered morally inappropriate by traditional standards,” the group said in a statement.

Stark’s work is invaluable because it shows that the church in America is not exactly moribund. Combined with other evidence of religious decline, What Americans Really Believe ought to encourage Christians to believe that being salt and light is still worth the effort.