The Family Research Council takes issue with the media’s coverage of the newly released survey on religion from Trinity College finding that fewer Americans are calling themselves Christian.
FRC blames “media sensationalism” for misleading the public about the survey, complaining that nobody is reporting the good news that it actually contained, namely that a) the percentage of people claiming to have “no religion” has increased at a slower rate in recent years and b) it is all the pro-gay churches that are shedding members:
Thanks to the media sensationalism, a key fact of the survey was buried. Among Christians, 44% identify themselves as “born again or evangelical,” including substantial numbers of “mainline” Protestants and Roman Catholics. The report says, “These trends also suggest a movement towards more conservative beliefs and particularly to a more ‘evangelical’ outlook among Christians,” and it calls this an “important historical trend.” Meanwhile, the biggest decline among Christians is found in the more liberal “mainline” denominations, which plunged from 17.2% to only 12.9% just since 2001. The biggest drop came in two of the most liberal denominations, the Episcopalian and United Church of Christ, and it’s not unreasonable to suspect that their growing embrace of homosexuality and same-sex marriage is a big part of the reason.
