The Rise of the Post-Christians - More Dark Clouds Ahead for the GOP

This blog has looked at the rise of the so-called "nones" - those who claim no allegiance to any institutional religious denomination or church.  The nones are increasing in numbers and are especially prevalent among the under 30 generations.  Indeed, they make up 20% of the American population.  But there is another phenomenon that ought to be terrifying both the Christofascists and their political whores in the Republican Party - the rise of the so-called" post Christians."  The two groups combined spell good news for American and those of us who are sick and tired of the civil laws incorporating Christofascist ignorance and bigotry.    A piece in the Center for Inquiry looks at the findings of a new Barna study that looks at the rise of the "post Christians."  Here are highlights:

It is still said that America is a Christian nation. Really?

The rise of the Nones – people who don’t regard themselves as belonging to any religion – has risen to around 20% of America. What has not gotten as much attention is the rise of the “post-Christian” population, which includes most of the Nones and probably includes an even larger number of Americans. 

Post-Christians are people who either never were Christians, or people who no longer accept core views about Christianity. Like the Nones, these post-Christians may still be religious in some sense, and may believe in a god as well. But they don’t think or behave like Christians, and they are quite aware of ways that they have moved beyond traditional Christianity. Many people fall into both categories, moving beyond both Christianity and all organized religiosity as well.  

The Barna Group has been polling about religiosity for a while. Their numbers describing the most and least Bible-minded cities was released here: http://cities.barna.org/americas-most-and-least-bible-minded-cities/

 

How many Americans might we be talking about? Surely the percentage of post-Christians is much higher than the Nones at 20%.

61 out of 96 major metropolitan areas in America registered post-Christian levels higher than 30%, including most major cities -- from Boston (53%), New York City (51%), Philadelphia (42%), Baltimore (39%), Washington DC (40%), and Miami (45%) and across the country in Buffalo (52%), Cleveland (37%), Pittsburgh (40%), Detroit (35%), Cincinnati (33%), Chicago (42%), Minneapolis (42%), St. Louis (36%), Kansas City (33%), and Houston (33%), all the way west to Denver (49%), Phoenix (46%), Seattle (49%), San Francisco (53%), Los Angeles (44%), and San Diego (51%). Many cities in more conservative regions rise to levels close to 30%, such as Atlanta (29%), Indianapolis (28%), New Orleans (26%), Dallas (25%) -- and even Nashville (21%) has a higher percentage rate than the national figure for the Nones.

  

Christianity is evidently evolving quickly, and it will have to continue to change dramatically if it wants to catch up to where post-Christians are heading.

 

Needless to say, the GOP - captive as it is to the Christofascists who want to go backwards in time - will find itself less and less attractive to both nones and post-Christians.   Likewise, the GOP's competitiveness in larger metropolitan areas will continue to plummet. In my view, the demise of conservative Christianity and today's GOP cannot occur soon enough.