EP 679 Is Christianity Dying in America?

The answer to our title for this podcast episode is no, but…many fewer people identify as Christians today than in the late 20th century and whether it be frustration with scandals in the Catholic Church, the politicizing of many Protestant sects or the pandemic, the pews just are not as full as in the past.  As most things are there is nuance and complexity to this story.  For example, mainstream Protestantism is falling on hard lines while some evangelical churches are thriving in different regions of the country.  And many new arrivals from Central America are bringing new parishioners and vibrancy to the Catholic Church and Protestant evangelical groups in some regions of the country, but there is also great opposition to immigrants by many white Protestants. Joseph Slaughter a historian and assistant professor of religion at Wesleyan University in Connecticut, attempts to walk us through the complexity of the marketplace of religion in our country.  He reminds us that formal religion has been viewed as in death throes before and rebounded.  Can it in an era when a growing number of young people come from families of mixed faiths who have not really been born into a singular faith tradition?  We’ll discuss it all on this podcast.

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