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rfmcdonaldAssociated Baptist Press carries a summary of some very interesting sociological research. Why have the "mainline churches" declined, not only in the United States but elsewhere? It has little to do with defections, and (almost) everything to do with demographic transitions.
This would support the argument of Inglehart and Morris in their Sacred Versus Secular that individuals don't adopt radically new patterns of religious belief without radical changes, and the observations of Canadian sociologist of religion Reginald Bibby that the traditional churches are holding their own. People just don't care that much about religion when you don't force them to care, it turns out.
The decline of mainline church membership over the last century had more to do with sex than theology, according to research by a trio of sociologists.
The popular notion that conservative churches are growing because mainline churches are too liberal is being challenged by new research that suggests a simpler cause -- the use of birth control -- explains most of the mainline decline.
Differences in fertility rates account for 70 percent of the decline of mainline Protestant church membership from 1900 to 1975 and the simultaneous rise in conservative church membership, the sociologists said.
"For most of the 20th century, conservative women had more children than mainline women did," wrote three sociologists -- Michael Hout of the University of California-Berkley, Andrew Greeley of the University of Arizona, and Melissa Wilde of Indiana University -- in an Oct. 4 article in Christian Century.
"It took most of the 20th century for conservative women to adopt family-planning practices that have become dominant in American society," the writers said. "Or to put the matter differently, the so-called decline of the mainline may ultimately be attributable to its earlier approval of contraception."
While mainline churches could claim 60 percent of the total Protestant congregants in 1900, their share fell to 40 percent in 1960. Many religious observers and some sociologists attributed the drop -- and simultaneous growth of conservative churches -- to the lethargy of liberalism and the appeal of biblical certainty.
But simple demographics can account for almost three fourths of the mainline decline, the trio of sociologists said.
This would support the argument of Inglehart and Morris in their Sacred Versus Secular that individuals don't adopt radically new patterns of religious belief without radical changes, and the observations of Canadian sociologist of religion Reginald Bibby that the traditional churches are holding their own. People just don't care that much about religion when you don't force them to care, it turns out.
