Trend and Countertrend

Last week, I was quite taken by the daily report on National Public Radio regarding why so many young people are leaving formal religion. Highlighted were six young people in their early thirtys who had grown up in various religious traditions (Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Muslim, etc.) but for different reasons had turned their back on God and faith in general.

At first I thought it was another broadcast intended to flaunt yet another example of why our culture doesn't need religion anymore.  But as I listened more carefully, I realized the program was actually responding to a study by the Pew Charitable Trust on Religion in America.  The research results are indeed sobering as statistics show America is becoming more and more a secular nation. More than one quarter (28%) of American adults now say that they have left the religious faith that they grew up with as a child. From the nation’s entire population, 16.1% say they are unaffiliated with any religion – the highest percentage in our nation’s history.  And for the younger generation, those between 18 and 30, the percentage is now 25%.

As sobering and perhaps discouraging these statistics might be, there is another part of the story which I’m quite sure will not get covered on  NPR. It has to do with the counter trends in the rest of the world.  Because for every American who might have left his faith, there are two or three in the non-Western world who are embracing religion—especially evangelical Christianity.

These charts taken from Patrick Johnston’s book, The Future of the Global Church give dramatic testimony to this fact.

On this bar graph, the rates of growth of several religions are compared to the overall world population growth rate (black bar.) Although it is interesting that both the Hindu and Muslim religions are growing slightly faster than the world population rate, the Evangelical, Independent and Pentecostal branches of Protestantism eclipse it by 200% to 300%.

These set of three graphs look a bit complicated, but the main thing to note is the shift from left to right. From 1960 to 2000 to 2050, they dramatically indicate that as Western nations (left side of center line) are losing members of all branches of Protestantism (different colored rectangles), the right side (Latin American, Africa, Asia) are more than making up for that loss. 

Although young people may be turning their back on God in our country, the search for spiritual meaning and truth is certainly alive and well in the rest of the world.

Aren’t you glad He’s got the WHOLE world in his hands?