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Playing hide and seek with God
Why we don’t look in churches anymore.
Where do you go on Sundays if you are “spiritual but not religious”? Oft-cited Pew Research Center surveys report an increase ipercentage of respondents who answer “None” when asked to name their religious identity: from about 16% in 2007 to around 29% in 2018. Not surprisingly, their surveys also note a decline in church attendance and participation over the past few decades.
Why do people stop going to church? In the midst of the Center’s comprehensive data, I think the answer is simple. People stop going because the churches don’t let them encounter God.
Plenty of parking available at First Church!
Religious trends in America have resembled a roller-coaster over the centuries. The current decline in attendance has tracked the passage of the Baby Boom children through the mainline churches, like a sheep through a boa constrictor. It seems that as that cohort grew up, more and more of them began to say, like Peter in the 1999 Mike Judge film Office Space, “I’m just not gonna go…”
