Time to Worry: Americans Are Turning Away from Christianity

The last several decades, the Left has done its best to change America’s religious landscape. According to a new Pew study, they’re succeeding better than many thought possible:

The number of Americans who don’t affiliate with a particular religion has grown to 56 million in recent years, making the faith group researchers call “nones” the second-largest in total numbers behind evangelicals, according to a Pew Research Center study released Tuesday.

Christians are still the majority, but their numbers have fallen from 78 percent to just under 71 percent. The main reason? Increasingly, more Americans consider themselves “non affiliated” with any particular religion.

The good news? This doesn’t automatically mean that Americans have become atheists. There is a large group of people who consider themselves to be “spiritual” and who believe there’s likely a God, but who just don’t have a bond with any particular religion.

Sadly, that’s all the good news I’ve got for today:

Last year, 31 percent of “nones” said they were atheist or agnostic, compared to 25 percent in 2007, and the percentage who said religion was important to them dropped.

In short, there are fewer religious people and those who don’t consider themselves “religious” in the traditional sense are moving towards atheism — fast.

Although the Left will undoubtedly welcome that development, I do not. A society that loses its bond with God loses its morality. And I don’t just mean that as in the Ten Commandments, but in everyday values, too: personal responsibility, the importance of working hard and taking care of your family, and the need for civilized, decent behavior in society. It’s a cliché, but true nonetheless: when religion falls — especially enlightened Christendom — civilization ends.

This increasing secularization has me worried tremendously. One of America’s major strengths is that it is founded on what’s often called Judeo-Christian values. When those values are no longer shared by large parts of the population, the nation’s unity and morality are at stake. It’s of vital importance that religious Americans understand that and try to counter this secularization. The pulpit should be used for that purpose, but conservative columnists, bloggers, and politicians should also have the courage to point out the importance of faith when they share their views on politics and society at large.