A new study by the American Religious Identification Survey has shown a sharp decrease in the number of people who claim to be religious.

–the number of people who call themselves Christian is at 76%, down from 86% in 1990

–30% of couples who marry do not bother to have a religious ceremony

–when asked to speciify their religion, 8.2% said “none” in 1990; in this study, 15% said “none”

So what’s the deal?  Have people given up on God?

I think people have given up on the kind of religion that they see in the media.  Almost every story about contemporary religion is about fundamentalist religion, and almost every story has to do with some scandal or some abuse of the cloth or some terrible lie or some hypocrisy–or just some nonsense that people who have gone beyond the fifth grade find difficult to respect–like God made the earth in 7 days. 

I have been to the Hall of Justice in the State of Alabama and seen in the rotunda the huge boulder inscribed with the Ten Commandments, plus quotations from our alleged “Christian” founding fathers (it has, thankfully, removed).  I have talked with the creationist who explained that her mentor has 2 large stones on which are pictured dinosaurs and humans, proving therefore that dinosaurs and humans roamed the earth at the same time.  I have seen on TV the woman who says that God brought her dead chicken back to life, through prayer and mouth-to-beak resuscitation.  I have been confounded by the Ph.D. theology professor who told me that Gandhi was in hell because “he did not accept Jesus as his Lord and Savior.”

Worse than this, I have seen my gay and lesbian church members fear for their safety because they have been told they are sinners and less than whole by fundamentalist Christians.  I have known Catholic “good old boy” church bureaucrats that have sent priest sex offenders from parish to parish, to molest other children.  I have known people crippled with guilt, running from God, because they had been told they were bad and were going to hell.  And now the latest: the Pope has denounced the use of condoms in Africa to prevent AIDS.  He added that he was bringing  “the Christian message of hope.” 

The way I read the New Testament, Jesus is all about love and tolerance, compassion and forgiveness.  How did so many Christians go so wrong?  Are they reading the same Bible I am?

Of course, there are liberal religious people–like Unitarian Universalists and many liberal Christians.  If we got a little more press, perhaps religion wouldn’t have such a bad name.  At least I would like to think so.  God is obviously a liberal–who could be more bounteous, generous, beneficent, caring, more lavish, prodigal, profuse, and charitable? 

Why are people giving up on church?  Because church has given up on them.  Churches of whatever name or theological persuasion had better get back to the core message.  It’s the shortest verse in the Bible, and it’s pretty simple: “God is love.”