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According to a Pew Research Center survey, the recent decline in the number of Americans who identify as Christian has significantly leveled off, with about six in ten now professing that Jesus is God. As we enter the Lenten season, it’s worth thinking about how this change has occurred, and how we can nurture the trend.
Lent, the period between Ash Wednesday and Easter, is a time for Christians to reflect on their sinfulness and make sacrifices of fasting and charity to atone in anticipation of celebrating Christ’s resurrection, but this year, more than ever, it is also a chance to strengthen and enlarge the faith.
NEW POLL FINDS DECLINE OF CHRISTIANITY HAS ‘LEVELED OFF’ IN AMERICA
One key driver of this stabilization of Christianity in America is young people. After decades of steep decline in Christian identity and church attendance from one generation to the next, Pew now shows that those born between 2000 and 2006 are just as religious as those born in the 90s, a welcome shift.
More anecdotally, across the nation, Christians say that congregations have grown, and that much of it is down to young believers and young Christian families, many of whom actually prefer orthodoxies such as head coverings for women or the Latin Mass.
It turns out the cool priest who plays guitar and presides over commitment ceremonies might have been a wrong turn.
FOUR WAYS TO OBSERVE THE SEASON OF LENT
But why? What is bringing so many people back to or into the fold? One key reason is that American’s Christianity is getting louder and more public with every passing year.
Through most of this century, Christianity, like being white, or straight, or a man, was viewed as part of the dominant privileged culture and urged to sit in the shadows while “the marginalized,” got a chance to soak up some sun.
But in recent years, prayer apps such as Hallow, and a litany of Christian-themed programming on our screens, have brought Christ’s message back into the public spotlight. Meanwhile, across the nation we see more calls for prayer in school and the posting of the Ten Commandments in public spaces.
Along with the growing celebration of loud and proud American Christianity, younger generations may well be seeking out a deeper meaning to their lives than is offered on Tik Tok, X, or through AI.
We know that technology has made these young Americans more isolated, more depressed, and far less physically social. Church can fix all of those problems. In fact, it’s kind of the whole point of church.
And it isn’t just technology having a dehumanizing effect on our youth, it is also wokeness, its own religion in a way, which demands that they identify themselves, not as children of God, but as a hodgepodge of physical identity markers that all line up in a hierarchy of oppression.
American Christianity has stopped the bleeding, and that is a very good start, but to restore our nation to being the high-trust society that we once were, to heal our stark divisions, the faith must now grow.
For those who accept Christ, there is only one identity from which all others flow, that of being a follower of Jesus and accepting His divinity.
In Saint Paul’s letter to the Philippians, he urges us to, “Let your moderation be known unto all men, the Lord is at Hand.” It is a curious, almost contradictory command. After all, how can one show off one’s moderation? It seems like boasting about one’s humility.
But public displays of faith need not be ostentatious. All Christians are called upon to spread the Good News, which can mean inviting a friend to church, wearing a cross, or even just praying before a meal in a public restaurant.
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America has a long history of religious revivals, and while it is probably too soon to say that we are experiencing one now, the groundwork for it is being constructed every day.
The opportunity for Christians this Lent, and going forward, is to proclaim that American values, born of Western values, are actually Christian values, which is why until recently we called it Christendom.
Lent is first and foremost an opportunity to reflect upon our most grievous faults, but not with self-pity, but rather with a commitment to do better, to spend more of our lives in the service of God and less in service of ourselves.
American Christianity has stopped the bleeding, and that is a very good start, but to restore our nation to being the high-trust society that we once were, to heal our stark divisions, the faith must now grow.
That is my prayer this Lent, and with that, I ask you, my brothers and sisters for forgiveness, and wish you all a meaningful spiritual journey until Easter morning when He is risen.
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