Wither the church? Or, is it all about sex?

Over at the Daily Episcopalian my latest essay is up.

Short version: It's about reproduction. Conservatives do it more. That's their missionary position. Or at least three quarters of it. The other quarter is ironic because it means increased apostasy amongst their children.

Quote of the day

Sunday's Washington Post carried a page A01 story on a Tanzanian tribe, the Hadzabe. It is an interesting story of the primitive tribe's encounter with modernity.

Among the "benefits" that have been brought to them are missions to spread Christianity. They have failed. I was struck by this wisdom from one man:

We just go to church as if we are pictures.
Our hearts and minds are not there.

Denominational fecundity, conversion, and apostasy

I read today that:

The conservative denominations have grown more than the mainline denominations in large part because they have higher fertility, and that has given them a growth advantage. But part of conservative growth is attributable to the recent decrease in conservatives' rate of switching to mainline denominations. While the diminished influx has hurt the mainline denominations, it has not necessarily helped the conservative ones. That is because conservative denominations are losing the same fraction of their young people as they were losing 30-50 years ago; intergenerational persistence has not increased for conservative denominations. People leaving conservative denominations have just changed their destination after a switch. Conservatives used to switch to mainline denominations; recently they have chosen other religions (especially Catholicism but also some of the "other" religions) and no religion more often than they have chosen the mainline denominations.

-Michael Hout; Andrew Greeley; Melissa J. Wilde

Figure 3.1 Religious Adherents 1776 and 1850

Finke and Stark:

Percent of All Religious Adherents
x = 1776
o = 1850

Congregationalists
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 20.4%
oooo 4%

Episcopalians
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 15.7%
oooo 3.5%

Presbyterians
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 19%
oooooooooooo 11.6%

Baptists
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 16.9%
ooooooooooooooooooooo 20.5%

Methodists
xxx 2.5%
oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo 34.2%

Catholics
xx 2%
oooooooooooooo 13.9%