The Reports of Religion’s Death Are Greatly Exaggerated

“Young people are leaving the churches in droves!”

“Church attendance continues to decline!”

“The number of Americans who say they have no religion is rising rapidly!”

“Young evangelicals are becoming liberal, especially about sex!”¹

We’ve now been subject to at least a hundred years of prophecies of doom about religion. They have not come true.

In fact, religion has experienced a resurgence across the world that started decades ago. I will focus here on the situation in these United States.² As the late American sociologist of religion Rodney Stark explained in his 2015 book The Triumph of Faith:

Nearly all Americans say they believe in God; 80 percent believe in heaven; half pray daily (29 percent pray more than once a day), and only 13 percent do not pray at all.³