Jon Meacham has 
a new in Newsweek on the state of Christianity and religion in the USA will likely send the professional Christians into hyperventilation even though I believe that it is they and those like them who have helped undermine the status of Christianity both in this country and other nations. True, the influx of immigrants of other faiths has helped reduce the overall percentage of the nation's population that identifies as Christian. But the even larger impact is from the growing segment of the population that has no religion. When the picture of Christians one sees in the media is either Catholics covering up the sexual abuse of children or hate filled Christian fundamentalists who appear to hate everyone that doesn't believe and look just like them, selling the Christian message becomes an uphill endeavor. Sadly, the more accepting mainline Christian denominations which do not preach fire and brimstone and hate get little coverage in the media. Of course, neither the corrupt members of the Catholic Church hierarchy or the evangelical hate merchants like James Dobson, Tony Perkins, Don Wildmon or Richard Land can see that it is they who are destroying Christianity in the USA. Not gays, not immigrants, not Muslims, but they themselves given the horrid image they project. Here are some story highlights:
a new in Newsweek on the state of Christianity and religion in the USA will likely send the professional Christians into hyperventilation even though I believe that it is they and those like them who have helped undermine the status of Christianity both in this country and other nations. True, the influx of immigrants of other faiths has helped reduce the overall percentage of the nation's population that identifies as Christian. But the even larger impact is from the growing segment of the population that has no religion. When the picture of Christians one sees in the media is either Catholics covering up the sexual abuse of children or hate filled Christian fundamentalists who appear to hate everyone that doesn't believe and look just like them, selling the Christian message becomes an uphill endeavor. Sadly, the more accepting mainline Christian denominations which do not preach fire and brimstone and hate get little coverage in the media. Of course, neither the corrupt members of the Catholic Church hierarchy or the evangelical hate merchants like James Dobson, Tony Perkins, Don Wildmon or Richard Land can see that it is they who are destroying Christianity in the USA. Not gays, not immigrants, not Muslims, but they themselves given the horrid image they project. Here are some story highlights:*
To the surprise of liberals who fear the advent of an evangelical theocracy and to the dismay of religious conservatives who long to see their faith more fully expressed in public life, Christians are now making up a declining percentage of the American population. . . . According to the American Religious Identification Survey that got Mohler's attention, the percentage of self-identified Christians has fallen 10 percentage points since 1990, from 86 to 76 percent. . . . the percentage of people who say they are unaffiliated with any particular faith has doubled in recent years, to 16 percent
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I think this is a good thing—good for our political culture, which, as the American Founders saw, is complex and charged enough without attempting to compel or coerce religious belief or observance. It is good for Christianity, to in that many Christians are rediscovering the virtues of a separation of church and state
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Evangelical Christians have long believed that the United States should be a nation whose political life is based upon and governed by their interpretation of biblical and theological principles. If the church believes drinking to be a sin, for instance, then the laws of the state should ban the consumption of alcohol. If the church believes the theory of evolution conflicts with a literal reading of the Book of Genesis, then the public schools should tailor their lessons accordingly. If the church believes abortion should be outlawed, then the legislatures and courts of the land should follow suit.
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But that project has failed, at least for now. In Texas, authorities have decided to side with science, not theology, in a dispute over the teaching of evolution. The terrible economic times have not led to an increase in church attendance. In Iowa last Friday, the state Supreme Court ruled against a ban on same-sex marriage, a defeat for religious conservatives.
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Religious doubt and diversity have, however, always been quintessentially American. Alexis de Tocqueville said that "the religious atmosphere of the country was the first thing that struck me on arrival in the United States," but he also discovered a "great depth of doubt and indifference" to faith. Jefferson had earlier captured the essence of the American spirit about religion when he observed that his statute for religious freedom in Virginia was "meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and the Mahometan, the Hindoo and infidel of every denomination"—and those of no faith whatever.
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"The worst fault of evangelicals in terms of politics over the last 30 years has been an incredible naiveté about politics and politicians and parties," says [Albert] Mohler. "They invested far too much hope in a political solution to what are transpolitical issues and problems.
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