The Power of the Towel

Happy New Year, everyone! Sorry it's been so long since I've posted, but I find so much enjoyment reading other blogs, it's hard for me to stop long enough to post on my own!

I saw something today that caught me off guard, and I decided to scratch the surface to see if what it was that startled me had validity or not. In 2007, a Gallup Poll was conducted here in the United States. The results of that poll were released in an article (not written by the AP or Reuters, but by the Christian Post itself) entitled, "American Christianity Remains Strong in 2007." It was this headline that startled me a little, and wanting to dig deeper, I decided to read on, only to find some disturbing numbers coming from an article who's title is spun so positively.

A quick recap of the survey of religiosity in the United States -
51% Protestant
23% Roman Catholic
11% did not identify with a religion
5% "other Christian"
3% "another Christian faith" (apparently 2/3 of the 3% are Mormon)
2% did not answer
(The article fails to identify the remaining 5%)

First of all, let me start by pointing out that the poll does not define Christianity; it simply allows the polled public determine what they consider themselves. This provides for interesting numbers, as we're about to find out.

The number of Protestants in the country has dropped by 18% over the last 60 years, but that number seems to be the least of our concerns based on what else we find. The article states that 82% of Americans claim to identify themselves in some way with Christianity, but only 62% of that 82% consider themselves to be members of a Church! Not even two-thirds! Now, I'm sure a portion of them probably said that because they're between churches (they just moved, just went through a split, etc.) But at the least, it still means that about a third of Americans who claim to be followers of Christ lack a basic understanding of the necessity of the church.

Approximately 44% of Americans claim to go to church at least "almost every week." That's barely more than half of the people who claim any sort of Christianity at all. Now don't get me wrong...attending church isn't an end in and of it self. But how are we to be the church if we don't even spend much time with it? And if barely half of people only attend "almost every week," what does that say about the percentage of people who actually are the church every week?

56% of Americans claim religion is very important in their lives, the article says. What, then, are we to think of the 25% of Americans (at least) who claim some sort of Christianity, but don't claim that religion is very important?

I don't know about you, but this study tells me a couple things. First, there's a severe lack of understanding in our country about what Christianity truly is. Second, there's a severe lack of understanding in our country about what (or should I say, 'who') the church really is. And we're saying that American Christianity remains strong based on these statistics? It makes me want to hit my knees...