What Progressives Could Take from the Religion Polls
Social and mainstream media are abuzz about the rise of the “nones” and the decline of people identifying with religious institutions. A lot of the discussion reflects quite a bit about each writer’s hopes and dreams about religion’s future. Atheist and progressive writers are excited that more people are questioning religious beliefs while conservative Christians gleefully respond that the figures show only a rejection of liberal Christian alternatives. The lessons people are taking from the recent release of the Pew Research Center’s second U.S. Religious Landscape Study , a follow-up to its first study of religion in America in 2007, are more enlightening than the actual poll results. That bastion of Evangelical Christianity, the magazine Christianity Today , headlined its analysis : “Evangelicals Stay Strong as Christianity Crumbles in America,” while another headline read: “Christianity in Decline and Atheism on The Rise in America.” The report mostly documents the sl