A new poll shows that faith in God in America has declined to its lowest level since they have been keeping this record. About 19% of Americans don’t believe in God. The biggest drop in faith in God is seen in Americans who are in the 18 to 29-year-old age group.
Why is this happening? Religious leaders say the following things are the causes for the decline in faith in God;
- Not enough time to consider God or spiritual things
- Parents aren’t insisting that children go to church
- Young people aren’t nurtured in the church ways
- People don’t have a relationship with the church
- There is a lack of practicing church traditions
- COVID has caused isolation, church separation, and doubt
- COVID caused the purposeful rejection of engagement with others
- Churches have “dumbed down” the faith by cultural accommodation
- Church speak on Sunday doesn’t translate to actions on Monday
- Faith isn’t being lived out in the American culture
Does the church make believers or do believers make the church? Does the church today meet the spiritual requirements for our culture that builds faith in believers? Why isn’t the church building faith in believers today? Because the church isn’t an organic part of the everyday life of believers. The church exists separately from everything else that is happening around us. The church must become a natural part of the world and situations that believers live in on a moment-by-moment basis. How can this be changed? By showing believers how to live in the church organically moment-by-moment in their real life.
It isn’t that Americans have lost their faith in God, they have lost their relationship with a church that isn’t relevant to the world they live in today. The church is the believers, and if the church loses relevance, then it loses believers. How does the church become relevant again? By making the church a natural, organic, part of daily life. By encouraging the church to happen anywhere, at any time, in any situation. The church isn’t over there, the church is everywhere.
