The Associated Press

Some churches are shrinking, others are growing as U.S. habits change.

Featured Topic | Posted 38 weeks 4 days ago

Study: Americans change religion like a pair of cheap pants

Traditionally, Americans have been a deeply religious people. But more and more Americans are becoming fickle about the religion they adhere to -- or abandoning religion entirely. Nearly half all U.S. adults have switched to a faith other than the one in which they were raised, or have dropped affiliation with organized religion altogether, according to a new survey by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.

Are Americans really losing their faith? Or is faith changing in the 21st century? How has your faith changed, if at all?

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Ben likes: Religion in America, 2008

Rod Dreher/Crunchy Con

A startling number of the people I know who are serious about their faith do not worship in the church in which they were raised. Even if they remained Protestant, they are affiliated with a different Protestant denomination than the one in which they grew up. You could say that this is the consumerist mentality evidencing itself, but many of these converts known to me did so not for lifestyle reasons, but for serious theological reasons.

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Joel likes: Lost and found

Salon interview with Wade Clark Roof, University of California, Santa Barbara

In the minds of many Generation Xers, religion is associated with institutions, organizations, traditional conceptions of religion. But spirituality is associated with a personal search and finding purpose and meaning in one's existence.

But for many that's not true, there's a divorce between traditional language and spiritual yearnings, and I think that's a 20th century problem. There are some Generation Xers in organized religion, but the vast majority don't find the traditional language meaningful. They feel there is a discrepancy or cultural lag between institutions and their personal concerns.

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