Baylor University in Texas last week released an exhaustive
study about religion in America, and made a startling discovery:
While there may be no atheists in foxholes, there are some in
church.
First, some raw numbers. About 60 percent of Americans identify
themselves as mainline, evangelical or black Protestants. Another
fifth are Catholics. The rest are a mix of Jewish (2.5 percent)
and
”
other,
”
composed of the hodgepodge of Muslims, Mormons, Buddhists,
Jehovah’s Witnesses, Christian Scientists, Hindus and
Unitarians.
Baylor University in Texas last week released an exhaustive study about religion in America, and made a startling discovery: While there may be no atheists in foxholes, there are some in church.
First, some raw numbers. About 60 percent of Americans identify themselves as mainline, evangelical or black Protestants. Another fifth are Catholics. The rest are a mix of Jewish (2.5 percent) and “other,” composed of the hodgepodge of Muslims, Mormons, Buddhists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Christian Scientists, Hindus and Unitarians.
While some recent studies had concluded that America was becoming more secular, even while evangelicals were becoming more powerful and visible, what was really happening was a fragmentation of religious identity.
Ten percent of Americans, or 30 million people, say they are unaffiliated with any denomination or religious group. That’s 10 million Americans fewer than in previous studies.
The problem, Baylor found, was in how the question had been asked. These 10 million Americans held non-traditional beliefs undiscovered by earlier studies because they did not see the church – or perhaps ashram – of their choice on surveys.
Among the 30 million who claim no religious affiliation at all, almost half believe in a “higher power” of some kind. About 10 percent attended a religious service at least once a month, while about the same number say they believe in God, even though they don’t identify with a congregation. Only 37 percent, about 10 million people, have no belief in God at all.
Clearly, despite their diversification, many Americans of faith are not attracted by the available choices.
Buried in the data about this denominationally diverse nation was this nugget, a question that escaped Baylor’s notice and was not captured in the matrix of other questions: How many people are attending church who don’t believe in God at all?
A survey, admittedly unscientific, accompanying the story on the Monterey Herald Web site offered readers three choices: I attend church and/but I) believe in God, b) am uncertain about the existence of God, and c) don’t believe in God.
The numbers in the overnight poll were startling.
Of the 276 responses, fully 84 percent chose the last option: They attend church but don’t believe in God. Only 12 percent said they attend church and do believe in God.
Maybe it’s just a California thing, or even a Central Coast thing. It’s a safe bet that those results would have been reversed in the Bible Belt.
Even if the poll was skewed by a self-selected group of Internet responders, it should come as no surprise that many people who attend church don’t believe in God. How can we really know what is truly in the hearts of the outwardly pious?
It is reasonable to assume that some percentage of regular church-goers are there for show. A politician in most parts of the United States with any hope of higher office must make at least a show of faith.
Americans simply don’t tend to elect atheists to high office. And many parents go to church regularly to offer their children a religious upbringing, even if these parents have no faith of their own or lost it along the way. The stresses of parenthood are the greatest of all tests of faith.
My father seemed to enjoy the service most simply for the time it gave him to collect his thoughts. He would sit in the balcony and make endless to-do lists, dutifully contributing to the collection plate as it passed.
But does it speak ill of us as a people, that many make only a show of faith? Is church nothing more than an escape from the chaos of life without exercising any spiritual muscles? Is this the faith equivalent of empty calories?
I suspect my father’s approach is shared by more than will admit it. The role of church, for many, is not complicated, not, in a way, even religious. It is a place where the world is at bay and inner peace, of some kind, courtesy of some God, can be searched for.
And this is what was not revealed in the Baylor poll. We can go to great lengths to measure the breadth of religious diversity, but understanding its depths is impossible.
John Yewell is a columnist and night city editor of the Monterey County Herald.
