Thursday, January 10, 2013

Is Christianity in America Really Going Extinct? Gallup Editor’s Claims May Shock You

Gallup’s editor-in-chief Frank Newport has been attracting widespread attention over the past few months surrounding his intriguing assessment of the state of faith in America — and his predictions that a religiously-fruitful time may be ahead.
Part of the intrigue surrounding Newport’s research comes from his assertion that religion in the U.S. is actually much healthier than many critics allege. In an interview with TheBlaze, he spoke about Gallup’s intensive research, as presented in his new book, “God Is Alive and Well.”
Considering the rise of the “nones” — a group of religiously-unaffiliated Americans, when asked if religion in America is dying, Newport had an intriguing answer. He argues that faith in the U.S., rather than sputtering out, is actually evolving.
“Faith and religion is very much alive and well — a key point is, it’s changing,” the researcher told TheBlaze. “The way people manifest their religiosity has changed over time. That’s not unusual.”
Rather than seeing religion as on the cusp of disappearing, Newport — based on Gallup’s research into matters of faith and religion — argues that many Americans are transitioning into an “unbranded religion.” This essentially means that, increasingly, individuals classify themselves as unaligned with a denomination, yet they are still very much Christian (the majority faith culture here in the U.S.).
Even though, numerically speaking, the proportion of “nones” has grown, the researcher claims that much of the hoopla over the increase may be misplaced. The numbers of unaffiliated may, in fact, be growing as a result of a change in reporting styles.

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