Tuesday, October 10, 2006

Religious Trends in the West



According to the Ontario Consultants on Religious Freedom:

Christianity has been largely abandoned in Britain and the rest of Europe. Although most adults still identify themselves as Christian, few actually attend any type of religious service. The religion/philosophy followed by the Jedi Knights of Star Wars fame is now the fourth largest religion in the UK!

Christianity has partly faded in Canada, where only 20% of adults say that they attend church regularly, and only about 10% actually do.

In about the year 1990, Christianity started to lose market share in the U.S. The percentage of American adults who identify themselves as Christians is dropping by about 1 percentage point per year. The percentage who say that they attend church on most weeks is 40%. But, again, half are lying. Adults who identify themselves as having no religious affiliation are largely taking up the slack. Some small religions are growing rapidly. One example is Wicca, an Earth-based Neopagan religion. It is doubling about every 30 months. If this trend holds, then sometime during the early 2030's, Christianity will become a minority religion in the U.S.

North America is rapidly becoming more religiously diverse. The Northeast is largely mainline and liberal Christian, and secular. The South is largely conservative Christian. The West coast has many followers of eclectic and mystical religions. There may not be a strong enough foundation of religious tolerance in the U.S. and Canada to support this growing future diversity without significant conflict

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