American Christianity, 2025

You may have seen the news report about the study from the Pew Research Center showing that the decline of "Christianity" in the US has slowed and may have stabilized. The study data indicate that, after many years of steady decline, the share of Americans who identify as "Christian" shows signs of leveling off – at least temporarily – at slightly above six-in-ten.

I put the words "Christianity" and "Christian" in quotes because today's American version of the religion formerly known as Christianity has little or nothing to do with the teachings of Christ, and many of its American followers who style themselves as "Christians" are the least Christ-like people on Earth. 

I was born and baptized as a Byzantine Rite Catholic many years ago, but grew up in a mainly Roman Catholic environment. I went to a parochial elementary school, attended Sunday School once I entered high school, and remained a regular church-going fellow until a year or two after graduation from college. Over the years, having graduated from a public high school and college, served in the military, and traveled widely in other cultures, I came to understand that there is a wide range of religious beliefs, most of which tend to insist on their primacy, and that each one claims to have the "right" beliefs and the "true" connection to God. 

The worst, in my opinion*, are the noisy and intolerant so-called "Christians" of the American right. These are the people who, while noisily announcing their devotion at every opportunity, vote for people like Der Furor who are the very antithesis of Christian love and charity. They are the people who donate money they can't afford to rich televangelists who live in houses and follow a lifestyle their followers could never afford. In Congress, they are the people who pray ostentatiously while following the most un-Christian of party ideologies, happily slashing programs that help the less fortunate while blindly following a man so awful that one has to wonder why he hasn't been struck by a bolt of lightning from an exasperated Creator.

I've often heard people remark about how "deeply religious" so many Americans are. Of course, the leaders of the Spanish Inquisition were also deeply religious, as were the good citizens of Salem who burned the witches.

I think I'll pass, thank you.

Have a good day, and please keep your religion to yourself if you're one of those people who claims exclusive knowledge of the Only Way.

More thoughts tomorrow, when we try to single out the next winner of the tinfoil and toilet paper crown - the Left-Cheek Ass Clown for March. See you then.

Bilbo

* Other than the most violently extreme Islamic fundamentalists.